There was a cheerful little chirp from my HUD.
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I was about to try to shout some commands at Navigail when her voice... changed. It became deeper. Tinged with venom.
[I’m sorry, but the ‘Return Home’ command is disabled for Beta Testers. Please contact Support for [FETCHERROR:NULL].]
Vash circled around from the back, flying into a slashing kick. A blade of khiig shimmered around his boot, driving into the body of the Nightmare. It pivoted at the waist and smacked him out of the air, then twisted toward me. There was no HP ring, no way to tell if the strike had done any damage: just the REEEE of a charging turbine.
“DIE DIE DIE DIE DIEEE!” The missile launcher vents on its shoulders slid up and back, revealing a honeycomb lattice made of paper, not metal. Hornets the size of my thumb crawled in and out of the holes.
Whatever it is, it has to play by the rules of this reality. A quiet inner voice urged me, encouraged me, and steeled me against fear as they massed into a ball, charging an attack. It’s not immortal. Even the gods of Archemi are bound by the rules of Archemi.
Tsunda’s voice built to a shriek as the hornet bombs launched, blowing apart into a swarm of high-speed rounds that flew in every direction. I drove the Spear into the ground and channeled a surge of raw Darkness through the weapon. It exploded out in thorny tentacles of energy. AoE countered AoE: the hornets crashed and shattered, snap frozen by Umbra Burst. I followed it up by charging forward, eyes fixed on Tsunda.
The Spear turned solid black, groaning as it collected a thick coat of smouldering white frost. I dodged a clumsy swipe of one of the minigun-like arms before smashing the weapon right into the face of the cockpit. Frost rushed down the length of the Spear and blossomed across the face of the glass. It squealed and crackled as it froze solid. Hairline cracks crawled over its surface.
[Shatterrrrring Darrrrrk deals !Frozen!]
“No! NO!” The writhing muscle-like tissue wriggling around the Nightmare’s metal skeleton lashed out like leeches, snapping around my wrist, forearm, and one ankle. They pulled me out like a starfish as I struggled, fighting the restraints as they began to torque.
“YUSH!” Karalti let out a shout as she darted in, slamming a fist boiling with blue-black khiig into the tendrils trapping my spear hand. They recoiled from the blow, flinching away and giving me enough leverage to chop at the stuff engulfing my leg.
Hornets burst out of the launch pods, their angry hum filling the air. They banged against my armor, but the tight seams kept them out—until they found the edge of my helmet. They wriggled under the rim, crawling and stinging.
[You are immune to Corruption!]
[FETCHERROR: NULL deals 999 damage!]
“ARRRGH! MOTHERFUCKER!” The pain was agonizing.
“Dammit, Dragozin, get out of the way!” Vash yelled from behind me.
I tore myself free from the Nightmare’s grip, Shadow Dancing to the side and tearing my helmet off to slap at the hornets attacking my cheeks, neck, and lips. Vash bellowed a battle cry, drowned out by twin blasts from the miniguns, then the screech of metal on glass. He had come in for a 9-hit combo, punching the cockpit with lightning-fast shuddering blows. Cracks spread through the glass, obscuring the girl cowering behind it.
“There were hundreds of machines and thousands of men. They stormed through the city of crystal and left nothing but fire in their wake.” Tsunda’s voice, speaking quickly and urgently, coiled from the air as Vash traded off with Karalti. “Houses with children still inside. A man on his back, full of holes. His mouth, opening and closing. There’s nothing I can do! But I have to do something!”
“Hector! This is all her hallucination!” Vash barked from the other side of the Nightmare, snatching a hornet out of the air and crushing it as he slapped others away. “Finish off that bubble she’s in! It’s a symbol, an image she’s making to shield herself from the banishing rite!”
“Roger that.” I jammed my helmet back down over my swollen face and rejoined the fight. The simulacrum fired erratic bursts, the machine not knowing which way to point as we split around it like a pack of wolves. When it twisted away from me, I Jumped, springing onto the top of the chassis, and raised the Spear high.
“Matir, you better not fuck up now!” I tapped into the Mark, flesh chilling as I focused Shadow Lance, and plunged the Spear down into the thick glass shell.
Chapter 53
The blade sunk a full inch into the top of the cockpit’s bulletproof bubble. Cracks charged with dark energy burst from the point of impact, spreading like veins through the surface. Tsunda’s scream blended with the high, whistling shrill of gas escaping under pressure, and then the cockpit—and the Nightmare itself—exploded into a swarm of buzzing white noise. The stuff gathered into a cloud and engulfed me, dragging me back. I felt it needling at me, trying to strip my skin with a million barbs, but it rushed around and off me without dealing any damage.
[You’re immune to-]
[W H A T D O I H AV E T O D O T O G E T I N???]
My skin crawled as the second voice I’d heard before cut over Navigail as she cheerfully tried to inform me – once again – that I was immune to Corruption. I had never heard anything like it, outside of a horror game.
A heavy silence fell over us, thick with the stench of burning rubber and old iron. Karalti scrambled over to me, helping me to my feet as a soft weeping rent the air. The smoke cleared to reveal Tsunda: tall, thin, dressed in a pale robe that hung open around her emaciated frame. She was crouched, her face hidden by her ragged back hair and her hands.
Vash’s craggy face softened as he trudged over to her. “Tsunda.”
“I tried to bring them together, Vash,” she whispered. “Everyone’s here. Can you feel them? I brought them home so they wouldn’t suffer any more.”
The Baru ran his beads through his fingers, taking deep, steadying breaths. “I do not know what you have wrought here. But there is no safety for you or anyone else in this in-between place. You must pass on.”
“The demons are howling at the borders. They’ll destroy me if I go. They’ll put me against the wall.” Tsunda’s shoulders hunched. “I’m so hungry. Has mother finished breakfast, yet?”
“She is waiting for you in the Paradise Lands, with all the others.” Vash swallowed, but his tone was gentle. Calm. “No harm will come to you, Tsunda.”
Her hands trembled, then slowly, she looked up at him. She was tall and lanky like Vash, but her chin was much weaker. Square holes flickered and scrambled where her eyes and mouth should have been. I tensed as her head rotated toward me.
“He knows,” she whispered, her voice slithering and hissing on the air. “He knows the metal demons are real. He was there. He carries the stench of old blood and demon seeds, walkers and battlefield graves.”
Vash looked over as well. “Is it true? Do the things that Tsunda hear and see truly exist in another world?”
I pressed my lips together for a moment. “Tsunda’s metal demons look like weapons used in the Total Wars. And she’s right... there was a lot of death. A lot of destruction. Millions of civilian casualties in Asia, New Zealand, Hawai’i and South America. And then HEX hit and... yeah.”
Tsunda’s mouth quivered. “It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault everyone got sick.”
“It is no one’s fault, sister. Least of all yours. All that you did do and have done is the pain of a child, struggling to make sense of terrifying visions.” Vash offered his free hand. “I am sorry, Tsunda. I’m sorry none of us believed you. We did not understand your insight, your power, your curse. Forgive me.”
The ghost began to weep again, hiccupping as she stared up at Vash. Then, she tenta
tively reached up to him. Karalti growled, watching intently as Vash let her place her luminous hand into his, and helped her to stand.
“Vash.” Tsunda reached out to grip his upper arm with long, delicate fingers. “I was so frightened. It was Saaba. It was Saaba this whole time. When I looked into her eyes, I saw them. I saw it.”
Vash managed not to react to his younger sister’s name. “What did you see?”
The girl looked up at him with fathomless black eyes. “Squalor.”
I exhaled sharply through my nose. Karalti gasped.
“It knows. It’s telling me to kill you all. I don’t want to, but the voice, it won’t stop. It just never stops. Annihilation. Suffering. Worthlessness. War. On and on and on, always shouting at me!” Tsunda continued to whimper as Vash pulled her into a tight hug. “Why does it say these things, Vash? Why do I hear it?”
“I don’t know why this demon chose you, of all people.” The baru embraced his sister without fear. “But for now, I want you to listen to my voice for a time. Can you do that?”
She huddled closer to him, nodding.
“Beloved soul, listen to me; walk with me on the Path of abundant compassion. When we are wandering in the darkness, may the bands of heroes, the knowledge-keepers, lead us forward.” He cradled her with his artificed arm as he discreetly drew his kamonocha with the other hand
Tsunda balled her fists and put her face against them as she began to sob.
“May the bands of mothers be our rear-guard. May they spare you from the fearful illusions of purgatory, and lead you to the pure paradise realms,” he murmured against her hair. “Dorha Tsunda, in darkness you were conceived, and in darkness were you born. In the darkness shall you find your peace, and through the gauntlet of darkness shall you be reborn. Go in peace, sister. For the first time since you were incarnated into this world of suffering, go in peace.”
As Vash spoke the last words, Karalti bowed her head.
Tsunda did not flinch as Vash quickly, expertly drove the magically-sharpened spike of bone up through the base of her skull. It was a second death as quick and painless as turning off a light. The girl didn’t even gasp—she crumpled into a cloud of white nothingness, immaterial once more. A shockwave rolled outwards from the place where she collapsed, ripping back the curtain of the illusion she had woven around herself... and revealing the reality of the plateau.
Karalti covered her mouth with a hand. “Oh my gods.”
We stood within a circle of ancient, dilapidated yurts, buckled and torn by decades of abandonment. And around us, in every direction for hundreds of meters, mummified corpses frozen in stiff postures of agony. The ones clustered around the remains of the Mother’s Tent were barely more than brittle contortions of bone. Ragged hair and torn prayer flags flapped in the bitter, dry wind.
[You have completed Quest: Daughter of Madness. You gain 3000 EXP. Karalti gains 3000 EXP!]
[You have a new facility available: Temple of Burna. More information is available in your Kingdom Management System.]
[Special Ability Unlocked: ??? (Available at Level 35).]
[Karalti has learned Banishment!]
I surveyed the field of the dead in complete and utter disbelief. “This... how...?”
“I struggle not to blame her. But this was not Tsunda’s doing.” Vash’s expression and voice were unreadable as he slowly turned, taking in the full extent of the horror that surrounded us. He sheathed his kamonocha. “Squalor. You said Ororgael used that word. What did he say about it?”
Swallowing, I retrieved the Heart of Memory from my Inventory. It was more than a little awkward booting it up to watch the replay of my fight with Ororgael, knowing I was surrounded by several hundred dead people and animals.
“You are a virus. A mistake, Park. I know this game better than anyone, and your Character Seed should not exist in this system. That means you were created. But by whom? Well, I know that too. You’re another face of the sickness plaguing OUROS like a cancer. In fact, you ARE that sickness. A personification of Squalor.”
I repeated Ororgael’s speech word for word aloud. Vash listened, his face drawn into unreadable, exhausted lines.
“After talking to the Avatar of Meewhome, my guess was that Squalor is the name of a Drachan,” I said, putting the device back. “But if the Drachan are still sealed under the Caul, how could it be running around loose? How could it… do something like this?”
“If it somehow incarnated within a person, it is technically still sealed.” Vash regarded me with calm, level eyes.
My mouth opened, closed, opened again. Karalti looked between us both in confusion.
“Wait a second. You don’t believe him, do you?” I drew my head back in disbelief.
There was a pregnant pause.
“No,” Vash admitted. “I do not.”
Karalti clicked and snapped her teeth, ruffling her shoulders with nervous tension.
“I think that this entity possesses people and picks a target on which to project itself.” Vash clumped over to the ruins of the Mother’s Tent. There were five rusted bedframes within the round hoop that was all that was left of the yurt. Only one of them still had a corpse: the skeleton of a tall, thin girl, her hair fluttering in the wind. Tsunda, still bound to her bed with fraying ropes.
“What do you mean?” Karalti went over to him, and tentatively reached out to hug him around the shoulders.
“I mean that this entity loathes itself so intensely that denies its own existence. It can possess minds and souls, but when it gains self-awareness, its own existence is so horrific that it projects itself onto another person,” Vash said bitterly. “It infected Tsunda, so it projected itself onto the person she hated the most: Saaba, her competition for our mother’s love. Now it possesses Ororgael, and he projects its loathsome existence upon his nemesis. You, Dragozin.”
“That... actually makes a whole lot of sense.” I clenched my jaws, rocking my teeth together until the muscles of my jaws bunched. “But what is it? A Drachan? A virus in the system? Both? Ororgael said it’s a sickness plaguing OUROS.”
“Explain to me what ‘Yourose’ is.” He pronounced it like foreign name.
I sighed. How the hell was I supposed to tell Vash about OUROS? How the hell was I going to tell Karalti about OUROS? I glanced at her. “It’s... it’s hard to explain. It’ll take a while. I’d rather not do it here.”
Vash turned back to look out across the field of the dead. “Yes. We must take care of these people and creatures. And after we have burned them, we will withdraw to a place that is not cursed, and we will make a camp. I insist on an explanation, Dragozin. My sister was mad, violently mad, but she could not have done this. No ghost, no matter how hungry, could have done this. These people walked and rode here to their doom, sucked dry of their life, perhaps even their souls. A sixteen-year old girl is not capable of this… annihilation. This is the work of a demon. One from your world, Hector.”
“There are no demons on Earth. There’s no magic, either.” I thought back to the alien voice speaking through my HUD, and shivered. “But Squalor can’t be a person. As far as I know, everyone on Earth are either living in sealed arcologies, or they’re dead from HEX. Archemi’s the ‘real world’ now, as far as I’m concerned.”
“No. Archemi is an illusion.” Vash walked over to one of the mummified Tuun: the body of a young man, shrunken and stiff. His warrior braid clung to his skull, flapping with tatters of red cloth. “A complex, comprehensive, monumental illusion. A fiction comprised of bits and pieces of your world. Cultures, languages, all of it. Karalti, Istvan, myself... all of us were created by Earth’s humans in the course of some kind of game. My childhood memories, the people I cared about, all of it are part of this ‘system’. You do not have to affirm to me this is the truth of our world. I know I am correct.”
I shot Karalti a guilty glance. She was better able to cope with this than someone like Soma or Istvan, but she was forlorn and confused, tryin
g to make sense of what Vash was saying.
“You’re kind of right, and kind of not,” I said. “Look: Let’s take care of the dead, set up a camp, and hash this out over some food and a pipe. I’ll do my best to explain.”
“Yes. You will.” Vash reached out to carefully remove an earring from Temu’s body. “There are so many that we will have to give them mass rites. It is not enough for what they have suffered, but it will have to do. We will make piles, four or five of them. There is no chance of any animal coming to consume these cursed dead. We will have to burn them.”
“I’ll help.” Karalti’s voice was unusually subdued.
I cast another look around the graveyard. The ground was so flat and the air so clear that my enhanced eyes could see from the center of the camp to the edges. Each concentric ring of victims was fresher than the last. Kun Jorgo was among the latest to perish: he was frozen at the ruins of his forge, his mouth open, his skin starting to tan in the wind. The boy who’d worked with him was a ball of ragged clothing beside the furnace, smaller than the mummified dogs that lay scattered on the barren, stony ground.
“Okay.” I sighed, rubbing a hand over my forehead. “I have no idea where to start.”
Vash gazed contemplatively at his old lover’s remains, gently freed the stiff corpse from the frost that bound him and took him into his arms. “We start from the inside and work our way out. Just like any other problem.”
Chapter 54
It took us two nights to clear the dead.
There was no way to give the dead of Tastalgan Plateau a proper funeral. It was customary for Tuun to mourn and keep vigil for three days, then hold a feast in honor of the dead. While the sky burial was taking place, the person’s family and friends ate and drank themselves in a coma until the monks declared the ritual was finished. After the body had been picked clean, the bones of the dead were returned to their loved ones. Some of the more useful pieces would be alchemically tempered and used for crafting special tools. This was way less morbid than it sounded. Most Tuun knew what they wanted to ‘be’, in terms of post-mortem crafting, so a person who loved to weave might have their bones crafted into the pieces of a loom, while the family of a scholar might give them to a carver to make pens. It was also customary for one bone to be carved into a bead, which was given to the attending monk—baru or otherwise—who would wear the bead in their hair or on a large necklace commemorating the lives of the people they served.
Spear of Destiny Page 49
