The Siege

by Jakob Tanner

SPIRIT: 90

  LUCK: 3

  I headed back through the woods. I trudged over branches, keeping an eye out for my own tracks from before. I didn’t spot any. The trees quickly thinned out and I was back in the Arethkarian marshland faster than I expected. It felt weird, considering how winding and labyrinthine the forest had been to enter.

  I summoned Gryph.

  “Hey Gryph,” I said, strutting. “Do I look any different?”

  The bird towered over and stretched its head and beak out. The bird’s golden hazel eyes looked me over.

  No, it said via psylink. You smell of shit and death though.

  You’re no fun, I said. I unlocked druid class.

  Congratulations. Let me guess, I’m your victory ride home to your friends.

  Oh come now, I said and materialized a slab of gargoyle meat. I threw it in the air and Gryph caught it and gobbled it in one swallow.

  He dipped his neck down, inviting me to get on. Meat always alleviated his grumpiness. Gryph kicked off the ground and we took to the skies. The marshland became nothing but a speck of land below us. The wind passed through my hair and my eyes blinked themselves awake.

  I had Gryph land me down at the edge of the town. I wanted to walk through it. See the citizens and let them see me. The portcullis was raised on the western wall. The guard recognized me and gave me no trouble as I stepped through. The wall was flimsy. It was made of stone, but I was positive it was upgradeable. There were turrets on the coast wall but none on the western wall and I suspected none on the eastern wall either. The city was set up to defend against foreign invaders rather than any attacks from inland.

  I continued on through the town. It was bustling with activity. Workers carried supplies to and fro, hammers banged in the distance. A new building—the barracks—had been erected.

  I headed towards the keep. A young apprentice blacksmith waved. “Good morning, Master Clay. Did you have a good rest?”

  “Uhh,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “Not really. I spent it in the woods to the west, fighting monsters.”

  The young man tilted his head in confusion. “Woods to the west?”

  “Yeah,” I said, pointing to the wall. “Beyond there.”

  “There are no woods to the west, only marshes. Or you’d have to go further than a week’s travel to find woodland.”

  “No, but,” I said. I called up the world map on my HUD and zoomed into the region of Arethkar we were in. I did a double take. There was no forest listed. I ran a search for the Birthplace of the Druids in my HUD.

  Birthplace of the Druids

  A spiritual realm that takes the guise of a forest. It is said where druids go to train and find more about their magic and their abilities.

  Wow. So at some point the forest had turned into an instanced section of content like the other class trials I’d done, only it had been less explicit than the previous ones.

  “CLAY!”

  Through the blurry lens of my HUD screen, Serena appeared. She was coming towards me. The young apprentice blacksmith went back to minding his own business now that a deadly-looking swordswoman was charging up towards us.

  Serena grabbed my arm. “Clay—how did the trial go?”

  Before I spoke, she cut me off. “Okay, actually, it doesn’t matter. Something’s happened while you were away. We captured a prisoner. A spy. He says he’s got information that would help us against Arethkar, but he refuses to say anything more until he has a meeting with you.”

  “Me?”

  “Well, you’re the leader of our rebellious crew, are you not?”

  I grinned and she playfully punched me in the shoulder. “Don’t get cocky.”

  “Okay, where is this prisoner?”

  Serena’s bright blue eyes narrowed. She looked me in the eye and then cast them down to her feet. She was hiding something.

  “Is there something else?”

  “I don’t want to say anything else,” said Serena. “The prisoner has been saying some weird stuff. I want you to see him for yourself, without any influence from what I’ve said.”

  I made a face and nodded. “Sure okay.”

  Serena led me up to the keep and instead of entering the main hall, we entered the side and headed to the keep’s dungeon.

  Flaming torches lined the shadowy dim spiraling staircase. As we went down, Serena explained how they found him.

  “Raylene, Kari and I were scouting the valley northeast of here to make sure those who’d left the city weren’t camping out and continuing to spy on us. Then out of nowhere this guy appeared. He held his hands up and surrendered. This is why I want you to be careful. He basically gave himself up to us. It was almost as if he wanted to get caught.”

  Serena stopped talking as we reached the bottom of the staircase. The dungeon was a dark hallway of cells on either side. Serena materialized a set of keys in her hand and twirled them in her fingers as she walked to the end of the hall. She stopped at the last cell on the left. I peered through the bars and faintly made out the shroud of a man. He was sitting on the ground, back against the wall. Hood up, covered in shadows. I had a strange feeling just looking at the man.

  Serena opened the cell door. “He’s all yours.”

  I stepped into the cell. The torchlight illuminated the man’s grizzled, dirty, and unshaven face. He smiled in the dim light of the crackling torches.

  I recognized him straightaway. It couldn’t be. Then the man said:

  “Good to see you, little brother.”

  6

  “Will?”

  The man pushed himself up to his feet. We stared at each other. Will—my older brother. The last time I’d seen him was in a hospital on the brink of crisis. He’d arranged a containment pod for me to escape into A.K.O. He was the one responsible for my second chance at life. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.

  We rushed towards each other, arms out. We clasped together in a hug.

  “You smell like shit,” I said.

  “Funny you say that,” said my older brother. “I was going to say the same thing about you.”

  I let go of the man. I stepped away and clutched his shoulders. I didn’t believe it. My brother—who I’d assumed was dead—stood right in front of me.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  Will cleared his throat. “We have a lot to discuss.”

  “What do you mean? I uhh—“ I turned to Serena. “Should we get food? Should we organize a dinner? Shit—I don’t know what you’re supposed to do.”

  “Those are all options,” Serena began, but Will cut her off. “It’s fine. Before you introduce me to your friends we can talk here. Maybe someone could bring us tea?”

  Will glanced to Serena. She gave him a dirty look back. She turned to a guard and barked, “Go get us some tea.” She turned back to Will. “I’m not leaving you alone with him, spy.”

  “Oof, tough bodyguard you got here,” said Will, nudging me.

  “Actually, she’s my girlfriend,” I said.

  Serena crossed her arms and looked away from me. She didn’t find Will’s comments or mine amusing in the least.

  Will beamed me a smile and leant back against the wall.

  “Glad to hear I’m not the only one with news to share,” he said.

  I shook my head. What the hell was I doing? Bragging to my brother about Serena? It was like seeing him had made me regress. Or as if there was so much to discuss I didn’t even know where to start, what to prioritize, what to ask first? Or maybe it wasn’t that I didn’t know what to ask, but I was afraid to ask it. To find out the truth. Once it was known, there was no going back.

  I gulped. “Where’s mom and dad?”

  Will went quiet. He shook his head. He didn’t need to say more.

  A silence grew between us and finally he spoke, put words to what the drop in conversation had already rendered obvious.

  “They didn’t make it,” he said, softly. “Most of the world didn’t make
it. After you had uploaded yourself in here, there were only two days left on Earth before the ZERO virus really took over. I organized pods for all three of us. Mom, Dad, me. Yet on the day we went to the hospital, we—”

  Will’s hands shook and he covered his face. “The flesh-eaters had surrounded the car before we even got to the hospital parking lot. They were banging on the windows, climbing on the roof. We were trapped. I phoned PsiBank and ordered a chopper. We needed to survive in the car for another ten minutes. Mom and dad were stone-faced. They didn’t scream, they didn’t react. Apathetic stoics to the end, like they always had been.

  “I reversed and drove away from the horde of flesh-eaters. The chopper from PsiBank arrived, armed with two militiamen, who gunned down the flesh-eaters. I got out of the car and helped mom and dad. We ran to the chopper where they’d thrown down a ladder. They kept firing at the flesh-eaters. The guns didn’t keep them down. I helped dad onto the rope ladder. Then mom screamed. She’d been bit. It didn’t matter how many bullets the soldiers shot into those things, they kept getting up. One had wrapped itself around mom’s leg and took a bite out of her calf. Next thing I knew, dad had let go of the rope and was going to help her. The flesh-eaters soon surrounded them. The soldiers couldn’t shoot without harming mom and dad. That was it.”

  Will sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I did everything possible. I hope you can forgive me, Clay. I couldn’t save them.”

  I stood there, shocked. I had always known the odds of any of my family surviving the rise of the flesh-eaters on Earth was slim to none, but having it confirmed still felt like a wallop to the chest. Mom and dad were gone. Forever. Eaten alive by flesh-eaters. Fuck.

  Serena placed her hand on my shoulders. She wrapped her arms around my stomach. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered.

  “It’s absolute carnage out there,” said Will, sighing. “Earth is lost. Arcane Kingdom Online is all we have now.”

  I nodded my head and tried to suppress all the emotions I was feeling.

  “How much do you know about what’s going on in the game?” I said. “We’ve learned a lot since being here.”

  I pulled off my gloves and held up my arm. Along my wrist was a swirling dark mark. The Prophetic Seal. A powerful in-game dev tool passed onto me by the guardian of dreams, Betina.

  Will’s eyes widened at the sight of it.

  “Oh no,” he said. “Clay, I’m so sorry.”

  “What do you mean? Do you recognize this mark?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I was supposed to acquire it when I entered the game.”

  “What?”

  “Konrad Takeshimi needed financial backing to get his servers and underground bunkers working. I was one of the negotiators on the board at PsiBank. With the world falling apart, we negotiated to have powerful upgrades in the game, but as soon as any of those involved in the deal were uploaded, they realized Konrad had betrayed them. He had assassins placed where they were going to spawn and made sure they were killed. Permanently. I only survived because I was the last one to enter the game and I saw the writing on the wall. He had no interest in sharing power, he wanted to be god of this world and for all of us to be his worshipping acolytes. He’ll stop everyone who stands in the way of his plans for domination.”

  I shook my head. This was all too much.

  “What do we do?” My arms shook. “What do we do with all this information?”

  “Do whatever you please with it,” said Will. “It’s what I’m about to tell you next you’re going to really want to listen to.” He clasped his hands together and said, “For I know a way to stop him.”

  7

  The three of us returned to the main hall of the keep. The rest of the party met us there. Jackson and Raylene stood near each other, quietly conferring in one another’s ear. Kari practiced a healing spell; she had her arms stretched out and her palms would glow bright for a second and then she’d stop. Repetitive practice was a great way to increase the level of individual skills in A.K.O. and Kari was a diligent student. Shade was lounging on the head chair: he rested his back against the right armrest, his butt slumped in the cushion, while his legs stretched across the other arm rest, his feet dangling in the air. He held a beer bottle over his mouth, shaking it to get the last drop. After a few shakes, he gave up and turned his head. His eyes bulged with excitement when he saw the three of us walking towards him.

  “Clay, you’re back,” he cheered, rolling out of his slump and shooting to his feet. His tail wagged behind him. “How did the druid trial go? There’s been big changes around here. New barracks, new pub. I tried to get them to open up another—you know, competition will bring more prosperity for all, right?—but they ignored me. I said, ‘Wait till Clay gets back, he’ll show you guys’. Isn’t that right, huh, Clay?”

  “Uhh,” I said.

  “Also—who’s this guy?” said Shade, wincing at Will suspiciously. “Oi! This is the prisoner. Sound the alarms! We got a prison break on our hands!”

  The others tensed at the sight of Will.

  I raised my hands. “Guys, I think there’s been a slight misunderstanding. This prisoner. This spy. It’s my older brother. Meet William Hopewell everybody.”

  The room went quiet with surprise, except for one dissenting voice.

  “This guy is your big brother?” questioned Shade, who was now crouching at Will’s legs and sniffing him. His whiskers bouncing up and down. He stood up. “But he’s way better looking than you?”

  In his prisoner’s rags, Will cracked a smile. “I guess things never change, do they, Clay?”

  I shrugged. Will had always been the favorite child with my parents. He did well in school. He was successful at business. I was the troubled child. The disappointment.

  Kari walked up to Will, assessed him and then looked at me. “I dunno,” said Kari. “I think it’s a tie.”

  “Agreed,” said Raylene. “They both look like crap given the circumstances. We can’t be judging them like this. The jury is still out.”

  Serena grabbed my arm and squeezed. “Hmph. I know where I stand on the matter.”

  “Can you all stop objectifying me and my brother? Honestly, we have bigger things to discuss.”

  Will played along and shrugged. “Do we though?”

  I winced at him. He was pulling my leg. On the one hand, it was really pissing me off. On the other hand, it was nice to have my older brother around, even if he was giving me shit. He smirked. He was thinking the same thing.

  “Will says he knows a way to stop Konrad Takeshimi.”

  Jackson crossed his arms, always the cynic. “Let’s hear it then.”

  Will walked away from us. He looked up to one of the windows. He was gathering his thoughts. He used to do this as a kid. He’d go quiet and strategize. It was always annoying to play chess or games with him, because he’d take forever on his turn. He eventually turned around and spoke.

  “Crystal Port was a good strategic place to attack to gain a foothold on the continent,” he said.

  Everyone nodded.

  “But on its own, it won’t survive. You—or really I mean, us, we, whatever—need to conquer somewhere big. Somewhere that will create a bind for the Arethkarian army.”

  “And where’s this great strategic location exactly?” said Raylene. “We’ve scoured all the maps.”

  “You must’ve overlooked one place then,” said Will. “But don’t feel bad. Most people do, including the Arethkarian high council. Have you ever heard of a place called Iron Citadel?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “It’s a huge fortress located within the eastern mountains. It would give us natural defenses, a height advantage, and control of the mountains, a huge reservoir of crystal mana.”

  “If it holds so much strategic importance,” said Serena. “Isn’t Arethkar going to be defending it with all of their power?”

  “No,” said Will. “Because they don’t even control it. The storms in the mounta
ins make it too dangerous to send airships through, so the only way to get there is to travel through the mines and—“

  “Oh boy, this isn’t good,” said Shade.

  “Tunnels of the Rorn,” said Will. “The Storm Mountains function as a dungeon. A difficult one. Traversing through it won’t be easy, but it’s our only shot.”

  Everyone turned to me.

  “How long will it take us to get there?” I asked.

  “The fastest we’d be able to get there is seven days, which is as much time as you can take until Arethkar realizes the play you’re making and sends an army of their own to take the citadel themselves. Then we’d be truly screwed.”

  We only had a week to turn our crummy position into a better one.

  “So wise leader of ours,” began Shade. “We’re on a foreign continent with enemies all around us. What’s our next plan of action, boss?”

  8

  “Clay,” said Serena. “Can I have a word in private?”

  Serena and I moved outside and walked across the ramparts, overlooking the town of Crystal Port.

  Serena’s face was pale. She was shivering.

  “What is it?”

  She rubbed her hand through her hair.

  “I know you’re not going to like what I’m about to say,” she said. “But are we sure we can trust Will?”

  “Are you serious right now?”

  “What if he’s a double agent? Still working for Arethkar? Or secretly enslaved by their magitech?”

  I shook my head. “I mean, why would he want to betray us?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t, but he’s secretly enslaved.”

  “You did a body search of him though, right?” I said. “And there didn’t look to be any hidden enslavement devices, were there?”

  Serena shook her head. “I don’t know. I think we need to be careful. He shows up out of nowhere with the answers to all our problems. A little convenient much? Don’t you—”

  Screams echoed from below.