Heart of the Void: Sosaku Online - Book 2

by J. Arthur Klein

  It would have been nice to have a fire, but all of the wood in the area was completely drenched from the flood. That and having a fire on the top of a hill in potentially hostile territory wasn’t the smartest of ideas.

  We took out our bedrolls and cloaks and set up a small comfy camp for the night. I figured Kjara would log out, but I wouldn’t have that option for quite a while.

  My feelings were still a bit mixed on my current situation. On one hand I got to play an awesome, fully immersive game twenty-four seven, all expenses paid for the next several months. But on the other hand I’d been shot, twice, and my physical body was currently lying in a giant medical pod while itty bitty robots crawled around inside my body repairing my organs and spinal cord… which definitely sucked.

  I was trying to make the best of it, but not having the option to log out, get some real food and see my family was starting to weigh on me.

  Kjara’s hand on my shoulder snapped me out of my current train of thought, and I gave her a smile of thanks. She smiled back, her eyes full of sympathy as she spoke. “Do you want to talk about it? I’ll have to log out soon, but I can stay for a bit longer if you need me to.”

  I reached up and squeezed her hand against my shoulder. “Nah, I’ll be fine. Never thought I would miss the robo-cabs and buses, or the smell of unwashed bodies wafting through the arcade on my way home in the evening, but I do.”

  I shook myself and put on an optimistic smile. “But I’m alive, the company couldn’t be better, and we’ve got one hell of a quest ahead of us. So I might as well put one foot in front of the other and kick ass while I’m here.”

  She sat back and grinned, “You’ve kept me in suspense for long enough! What is the quest, and why didn’t you want to talk about it in the camp?”

  Holding nothing back, I gave her the full rundown on the Kchil and how the gods had pretty much run a primordial chop shop on his ass, and the current mission to keep his cultists from reassembling their dark master and pretty much ending the world.

  “So, we need to get to Sehkem, bypassing any of the Kchil that are probably still in the city, and find a way into the tomb under the temple… before the fish folk do?” she replied, condensing my verbal diarrhea into a much more digestible version.

  I chuckled and nodded, “Pretty much!”

  “But why the secrecy?” she said.

  “According to the big guy, the dungeon’s restricted to the family of the Pharaoh so I didn’t want the nobles and priests to know we were going there, because even though I’ve got a god’s blood running through my veins, it’s the wrong god as far as they are concerned. Let me share the quest so you can get the full rundown.”

  *** You have shared the Quest, “Heart of the Void” with Kjara ***

  Both of our eyes lost focus for a second as we read the system update, which reminded me of my own questions. “Ahn’ep Kjara… that’s right. What happened at the quartermaster?”

  She grinned. “It was pretty epic, actually. When you called me by that title the world seemed to shift, and all of a sudden I was standing in front of a man wearing some fancy Egyptian garb with galaxies for eyes. I felt him reaching… inside of me? Then he nodded, and a prompt appeared asking if I wanted to accept the position as Ahn’ep of the Temple of the Restless Dead. I selected yes and boom, I was back at the quartermaster with some new ink, and some nifty abilities.”

  “Awesome! So you finally met Anpu, Lord of the Underworld, God of Death, Scourge of the Unclean, and Patron deity of yours truly.”

  She nodded. “In the flesh, so to speak. It was a very interesting experience having someone look through you like that.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. It’s hard to put into words,” I said with a shiver and then changed the subject. “If you don’t mind sharing, what buffs did you get?”

  She grinned at me mischievously. “Well… I don’t know how much I should share,” she said, pausing for a few seconds before bursting out in laughter at my impatient expression. “Oh fine, I’ll tell you.”

  Ahn’ep was apparently a more militant variation of the Temple Guardian. Where a guardian, like Amenhotep, was built as a pure tank with all sorts of defensive buffs and some crowd control ability, an Ahn’ep was focused on offense… similar to the classic paladin archetype.

  She’d gained a Divine Favor pool that she could use to either heal herself or others like the old school lay on hands ability, or to boost her attacks.

  She also received a skill named Hand of the Temple which was similar to my Child of the Underworld skill which granted the ability to see in complete darkness and see spirits, as well as the ability to skip the line in the afterlife.

  Hers was slightly different in that she had the option to go right to the Land of the Dead, where for me it was mandatory. That difference was likely due to her being a moon elf. Wouldn’t want to deny her the moon elven afterworld if she wanted to visit once in a while.

  The fifth level upgrade to her skill was different as well. Where mine allowed me to decrease the death penalty and timer for fallen allies, hers granted the ability to bless her weapons to improve her ability to kill.

  The tenth rank boon was the same, allowing us both to poof into sand and go to the underworld once every twenty-four hours. It was an interesting skill as we’d still incur death penalties if Anpu determined we were abusing the ability or wasting his time. For valid reasons it was a great tool, but using it to try to escape a fight or something would be punished.

  She also received two abilities unique to her new specialization: Knowledge of the Ancients and Condemn the Fallen.

  The first was pretty amazing in my book. Once a level she could summon a spirit from the Spectral Legion to increase one of her skills by one or teach her a new skill for free; and it could be used up to three more times at increasing divine favor costs.

  The second skill, Condemn the Fallen, was slanted more towards PvP, allowing her to double the death penalties of Necromancers, Kchil cultists, or the vaguely defined ‘those justly convicted by the clergy of Anpu.’

  “Those are pretty sick abilities. I pity the fool who messes with the Whirling Dervish of Divine Death!” I said, cheering her on.

  Her own smile was gigantic. She seemed pretty psyched about her new abilities, but her expression fell as her eyes lost focus and she read through whatever system message had just appeared.

  She sighed. “Looks like I’ve gotta log out. What do you plan to do for the evening? More editing of your feed and posting new content?”

  I slapped myself on the forehead. “I totally forgot that I could do that now from inside the game. Yeah, definitely. My subscribers are probably abandoning ship by now.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” she said with a wink, and then leaned in and planted a quick kiss on my cheek before her avatar faded away, leaving me blushing, all alone in our makeshift campsite.

  …

  5

  After a few deep breaths to regain my composure, I started formulating my plan for the night. I did a short patrol around the area to make sure nothing had wandered in while we were talking, and finding none I settled into my blankets and opened up the web interface Kabishiyama Holdings had unlocked for my account.

  I worried that I wouldn't have access to all of the tools I was used to working with on my home PC, but whoever had put together the virtual toolbox had clearly done their homework. It was even better than my home setup since everything was running on the same network, so the latency was virtually nonexistent.

  My memory was still a little fuzzy after being shot, shocked back to life multiple times, and then stuck into a super high-tech medical grade VR pod, so I decided to review my streaming channel to see where I had left off…

  “Damn,” I said. My last post was just after my first dive into the undead infested sewers beneath Sehkem the night before the big convention. I had some catching up to do.

  Something was wrong with my site though. That video had over a thou
sand comments. That couldn’t have been right. I opened the thread and skimmed through. The first fifty or so were pretty standard for my feed. Some fans, some haters, some trolls, but then the weird ones started.

  A bunch of people had posted their wishes for my fast recovery, praising my actions in facing down Kimiko’s crazy ex. There were pages and pages of comments on the shooting, and a slew of people who had subscribed just to show their support and wish me well. It was a bit overwhelming.

  All of my plans for editing the footage got put on hold as I read through the thread, my emotions reeling from the outpouring of support.

  I wanted to respond, to let everyone know how touched I was… but I couldn’t find the words. Instead, I opened up the browser and began some research into my current income and some local charity organizations. After gaining a better understanding of my financial status, I loaded up the video editing software and got to work cutting together the evidence of my survival and continued life.

  Once I got into the process, I was finally able to put my gratitude into words, starting the video off with a small voice over.

  “Hello everyone. It is I, James, coming to you once again from the digital world of Sosaku Online. I wanted to thank you all for your comments and support and wanted to let you know that I am quite touched. Normally, I’d be ecstatic seeing all the new followers, but two bullets in the gut seems like a pretty steep price to pay for some subscription fees… but since I’m alive, I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Not sure how long all of these subscription dollars will last, but while they do, I will be donating half the proceeds to Anya’s Arms, a charity providing help to domestic abuse victims in the tri-state area. So…. with the serious part out of the way, let’s get started…”

  “When we last left our intrepid adventurer, I had just had my ass handed to me by some sewer water soaked undead and a wraith, well… I got better…”

  I cut together my return to the sewers with Kjara and our battles against the undead. I focused heavily on the fight against the Fleshforged Abomination and gave the Necromancer behind the whole operation a very short cameo. I was pretty sure no one would want to watch us sitting there paralyzed trying to break free while the bad guy read a book. I ended the first video with the death of the wraith, focusing on its incorporeal hijinks.

  Once that was done, I cut together the battle against the fish folk, giving it a nice action movie background track as we fought our way to victory against the invaders. The whole thing was a lot longer than I remembered, but I guess that time passing has less of an impact when you’re trying to avoid a horrible death at the hands of a sushi chef’s fever dream.

  To close out the video, I showed the running chase as we drove the invaders back into the sea, and capped it all off with the tsunami turning us into paste.

  I was a bit surprised to find some segments from my time in the afterlife among the recordings. Some of the time I’d spent there was still blurry and unavailable, but once I entered the temple itself things cleared up and I was able to view my entire conversation with Anpu, and the assignment of the “Heart of the Void” quest.

  Their availability introduced a whole new level of conflict. I wanted to share all of the tasty new content with my viewers, but at the same time, Anpu had revealed a lot of information that would be dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands.

  Sosaku Online was an MMO, and as such I had no doubts that there were going to be guilds out there who would be gunning for the artifacts in order to hand them over to the Kchil.

  Roleplay could justify some of them, but I knew there would be just as many out there who would do so just to be edgy or to troll the “good guys.”

  In the end, I decided to cut out most of the info dump and only give a brief glimpse of Anpu and the quest assignment, so the rest of the videos where we were working on the quest would make sense.

  From there the video showed my respawning near the refugee camp and the ensuing shenanigans with freeing Kjara, having her blades replaced, and then skedaddling out of there, all the way up to our makeshift camp.

  I posted the videos, set up the transfer of funds to Anya’s Arms, and shot off a few messages to the fam to let them know I was still doing okay.

  My tasks complete, I curled up in my cloak to give my brain a chance to rest and went to sleep.

  …

  6

  When I woke up the next morning, I wasn’t alone. Kjara must have logged in while I was still sleeping and nuzzled in next to me. I tried to stay still. She was playing the part of little spoon to my big spoon and I didn’t want to move and ruin it. I knew we should really get going since it was already close to 10AM. But a few more minutes couldn’t hurt.

  Something in my breathing or posture must have tipped her off that I was awake because she shifted and slipped out from under my arm. She turned to face me, giving me a warm smile. “Good morning,” she said. “Ready to save the world?”

  I returned the smile and sat up, stretching the kinks out of my stiff back. The hard ground was a far cry from an actual bed, and the realism of the game made that fact very evident. “I guess… if I can get this crick out of my back.”

  We packed our things and left the rocky hilltop behind, continuing our trek towards Sehkem, and hopefully our first step in the quest to stop the Devourer’s cultists from resurrecting their god.

  The puddles filling the low areas between hills had drained some, but what was left in their place might have been worse. The hollows were now full of mud of various colors and consistency. Mild mud, slippery mud, and even the very specific variety of is-that-really-mud-or-did-an-elephant-have-taco-bell-yesterday mud.

  Kjara led us forward, doing her best to keep to the dryer paths, but occasionally we had choose to either brave some mud or backtrack and sacrifice time in order to find an alternate route.

  After my first slip which resulted in my entire left side being coated in the nasty substance, we decided to say screw it to cleanliness and stick to the most direct path towards the city.

  Using the mud-covered terrain as an adult slip and slide was much more fun than gingerly tiptoeing around the substance.

  We still had to avoid the deeper looking parts, but after a while we turned it into a game to see who could go the fastest down the slick slopes.

  We had to stop now and then to rehydrate, and brush off the mud as the day continued and the harsh Saa sun started to bake the mud to our armor, but we eventually reached a point where we could see the Saa’eth and Sehkem off to the northeast.

  Seeing the city gave me a renewed sense of purpose and I was both excited and anxious to see what had become of the city.

  A hiss from Kjara grabbed my attention. She motioned for me to get down and then tilted her head as if listening to something.

  I knelt in the mud, straining to hear whatever had caught her attention.

  “Wait here,” she whispered and then crawled to the top of the hill we were resting on. A few seconds later she jogged down and beckoned for me to follow.

  “There’s a pack of those fish monsters chasing someone heading this way. They’re sticking to the low ground so we should be able to surprise them when they come through the next valley.”

  She was much faster than I was, and much nimbler. She seemed to glide effortlessly along the hillside, leaping over the slick patches while I lagged behind, doing my best to keep quiet.

  Eventually we reached a place where the hills dipped and formed a nice bottleneck. Kjara motioned for me to stay put while she crawled up to the top of the nearest hill for a better look at the incoming party.

  A short time later she returned. “They’re heading right for us. We’ve got about two minutes before they get here,” she whispered, just as the sound of splashing footfalls reached a volume my human ears could pick up.

  Kjara gestured towards the sound. “There are three fish creatures chasing some sort furry humanoid this way, and it doesn’t look like it’s got much left in the ta
nk.”

  “We talking about skreel? Marcids?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Not sure what they are. Nothing we saw at the wall at least. They look like someone crossed an orc with a puffer fish.”

  While she relayed the news, I cast Jackal’s Tooth on our weapons, giving them a nice damage and crit boost. I had no clue what was coming our way, but it was always best to be prepared.

  “You sure the furry thing wasn’t another monster we need to worry about?” I asked.

  She shook her head, saying, “Their info wasn’t tagged like a monster. The system gave me the same readout I’d get from another player: just a bunch of question marks and a vague sense of their pools. Their running on fumes.”

  “Alright. Let’s do this,” I said and formed the sequence of glyphs in my mind for the Flamestrike spell. I fed the spell-form the needed mana, filling each of the glyphs until the spell manifested in a javelin of crackling flame in my right hand, ready to be unleashed on the latest breed of fishies.

  Kjara pulled out her bow and took up position on the opposite slope, drawing an arrow and aiming towards where we expected the creatures to arrive.

  The first to arrive was the ”furry humanoid” that Kjara had described, just ahead of his pursuers.

  At first I didn’t know what to make of them, but as they got closer, I was able to make out more features. They were about four feet tall and seemed to be some sort of humanoid mouse.

  My curiosity got the better of me and I activated Analyze.

  *** Unknown Dýrafólk Rogue, Level 8 ***

  *** HP: 60%, MP: 0% SP: 1% ***

  *** Conditions: None ***

  *** Active Spells/Abilities: ????, ???? ***

  *** Weakness: ???? ***

  *** Highest Statistics: Agility, Fortune ***

  The dýrafólk skidded to a stop as he saw us standing there waiting to attack, but a savage growl from behind and my wave to keep moving spurred him on.

  The first of the pursuing creatures came into view seconds later, and I was finally able to take it in, in all of its… glorious detail? They were all well over six and a half feet tall with muscular bodies covered in spines, with small, shark-like fins extending from the center lines of their heads like a mohawk.