“Whoever finds the blade with have first dibs,” he told me. “It’s only fair.”
I raised a brow to that. “No one will be able to get close enough to me to use it.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said, and I half expected him to suddenly produce the sword from thin air and attempt to strike me down. Instead, he smiled as though he knew what I was thinking.
“Yeah, well, we’ve put the word out,” I told him. “We’re offering a shit ton of money to the player that finds the sword.”
“Do you think that people trust that you will put an end to all this yourself?” he asked. “As far as most people are concerned, you getting the blade is about the worst thing that could happen.”
Something suddenly occurred to me then, and I looked to the doctor with alarm. “No, a worse thing would be Kregos getting ahold of it.”
He nodded slowly. “Let’s hope that he does not.”
Doctor Marks created his own portal and left me on the ramparts of Samson Tower, and I took a moment to bring up the replay of the interview that my guild mates had given him.
“I’m here with the members of Heavy Metal Thunder per their request,” said the doctor once the intros had played out.
“Tell me, what did you want to tell the people of Rebirth Online?”
Anna stepped forward, even though Trinity tried to answer the question first.
“We just wanted to tell everyone that we’re sorry for how out of control everything has gotten. It was never ours or Sam’s intention to hurt anyone. Things just kind of got out of control when Sam bonded with the Dark Throne. We lost him for a time, but he has come back to us. Because of Sam’s bravery and his attempt to sever his bonds with the Dark Throne, Kregos, his alter ego has been created. Know that we are not in league with Kregos. Kregos is the one who was really in control when Sam opened a portal to the Underworld, and we intend on closing it.”
“Thank you, Anna, I know that it isn’t easy talking about these things,” said the doctor.
“Thank you for giving me a voice,” she said with a small smile.
“Does anyone else have anything to say on Sam’s behalf?”
“Yeah,” said Trinity, finally getting her moment. “You’re all dickheads. If the game masters hadn’t made NPC pregnancy a thing, none of this would have happened.”
“What she said,” Kit said with a scowl.
I turned off the replay and smiled when I thought of how Anna had stuck up for me. Then, with one last glance at my kingdom, I opened a portal back to the Sands of Time.
“What did the doctor want?” Anna asked when I stepped through the portal and rejoined them.
“Oh, you know,” I said with a laugh. “He just wanted to let me know that the best chance we have of stopping Kregos is me dying and another dark lord taking my place.”
“Damn, Sam,” said Tweak. “That sucks.”
“Yeah, well, shit happens. Come on, lets go clean up Aeorock.”
Trinity laughed. “Clean up Aeorock? You say it like it’s a walk in the park. How the hell are we going to do that?”
“I’ve got a theory,” I said as I opened a portal to Aeorock. “Come on, let’s see if it works.”
I called my sons through the portal and stepped out onto the snowy ground. The earth was still scorched, but a light blanket of white had fallen and masked most of it. The entire side of the mountain was in shambles, and it looked like a landslide had raged down the face. The pine forest and valley leading up to the foot of the mountain was covered in ash and blowout from Kregos’s continuous Nuclear Thunderclaps.
I could barely look at what I had done to the beloved dwarven city, and I turned my head in shame.
“So what’s this theory of yours?” Trinity asked as she came to stand beside me with the others.
“Doctor Marks told me I was so powerful that he didn’t even think that I could kill myself,” I explained. “He said it in a way that made me think that I was the most powerful being in the game. If that’s true, then is there really any limit in what I can do?”
I turned around and looked at the mountain once more, then I closed my eyes, extended my telekinetic will, and imagined Aeorock the way it had once been. I imagined the great hall, Cecilia’s pub, the mage trainer’s, the shops, battlements, and the king’s castle. I imagined the explosions that had leveled Aeorock moving in reverse, until the entire mountain was whole again.
“Oh my god,” I heard Anna gasp, but I didn’t dare look. I kept on concentrating, I kept on imagining, and I pulled heavily from the deep well that was my power.
I must have stood there with my eyes closed for a half an hour. I ignored the excited proclamations and murmurs of my guild mates. I ignored the sounds of stone rattling against stone, and the creaking of iron rods bending back into place.
When I finally opened my eyes, they filled with tears.
“Oh Sam, that was the most amazing thing I have ever seen,” said Anna.
“Holy shit bro, that was sick,” Tweak marveled.
“Big Daddy…” Kit gasped.
“I did it,” I said in disbelief.
Aeorock shone tall and strong before me in its magnificent splendor of old, and a huge smile spread across my face.
“How the hell did you do that?” Nanaya asked, and all I could do was shrug.
“I don’t know, and I doubt that I could do it again.”
“I’ll let the survivors know that they can return to their mountain,” said Cecilia.
“Good idea,” I said. “But let’s get back to Haven before other players start to arrive. This is sure to be huge news on the Rebirth Network.”
Chapter 13
We returned to Haven a few hours before sunset and gathered in the war room to prepare ourselves for a long night to come. When the sun went down, the Underworld Minions would emerge from the ground like vengeful corpses, and Kregos’s advance would continue.
Thanks to the ward of protection that the game masters had put on all levels below 50, we didn’t have to worry about Kregos laying waste to those zones.
Not yet anyway.
Considering what I had accomplished with my imagination back at Aeorock, I knew that if he put his mind into it, Kregos could eventually get through the protective wards. But I was intent on stopping him well before that happened. He would focus first on the zones that he could easily move through, and I thought that I knew where he would be headed next.
“We’ve only got a few hours,” I told my guild mates. “If I know Kregos, he’ll attack tonight.”
“If you know Kregos?” said Ember. “He’s like…your subconscious. Can’t you read his mind or something. Or I mean, read your own mind. Ugh, this is so confusing.”
“Try being me,” I said absently. I was considering what tactic Kregos might utilize. Which direction would he come from? Would he send in winged attackers, ground troops, or both? I knew that he would attack us next. That’s what I would do anyway; get the hardest opponent out of the game first. He had enough trouble with the real-world players and NPC’s that he was fighting, and he didn’t need me on his ass.
He had left me in the Throne Room to rot, but taking back Aeorock for the dwarves definitely cued him into the fact that I was back and as strong as ever. He would strike tonight, and he would strike hard. The only problem was that I didn’t have the mythical Sword of Untold Fates, and until I did, it would be damned near impossible to destroy Kregos.
“Any hits on the Sword of Untold Truth?” I asked Cecilia.
“None,” she said. “A few bull shitters trying to make a buck, but that’s about it.”
“If and when you kill Kregos with the sword. Who will take your place as the Dark Lord?” Nanaya asked.
“Whoever the Throne deems worthy I guess,” I said with a shrug. “You’re not thinking of…”
“What?” she said, looking surprised by the idea. “Oh hell no. I’m just thinking ahead.”
“To tell you the truth,”
I told her. “I don’t care who takes my place.”
“Is that so?” came a familiar voice from behind me.
I leapt from my seat and conjured my Fire Shield, and my guildmates took up a defensive stance as well.
Megulla stood by the big map of Haven against the south wall and laughed at us all.
“How the hell did you get in here?” I asked her pensively.
“One of our children let me in. Fine lad that Legion is,” she said with a smile.
Gone were the dark horns, the dark hair, the black lipstick and fingernail polish. Megulla looked like an angelic version of her former self, and I couldn’t help but be drawn to her glowing voluptuous form.
“I thought you were dead,” said Nanaya.
“Silly succubus. Death is for mortals,” Megulla said with a little chuckle. “Sam may have ravished me. He may have chopped off my pretty little head and stolen my throne. But he did not kill me.”
“I did what I thought I had to do at the time, Megulla,” I said with a small bow. “But for what it’s worth, I apologize.”
“Don’t apologize,” she scoffed. “It makes you look weak.”
Megulla suddenly disappeared and reappeared right behind me. I felt a dagger poke into my back, and she whispered in my ear. “And you’re not weak, are you Samson?”
I teleported directly behind her in the blink of an eye and pressed my sword into her back. Then I leaned forward and whispered. “No, I’m not.”
“Get a room,” said Ember annoyedly.
Megulla disappeared again, and a moment later she was standing by the map once more.
“What do you want?” I asked her bluntly.
“I want what was taken from me,” she said dangerously. “The Dark Throne.”
“I thought Nymphora saved your soul or some shit,” I said. “Aren’t you a uh, good goddess again?”
“Do I look like a good goddess to you?” she asked with a sexy little wink.
“Oh my god,” said Cecilia. “He killed you, killed your father, and destroyed your sister’s realm, and you STILL want to screw him?”
“I want to do much, much more than screw him, my little blonde slut,” said Megulla.
“If you want the Dark Throne, you’re going to have to get in line,” I told her. “Or else find the Sword of Untold Truths.”
“I have heard of that blade,” she said, taking on a suddenly serious demeanor. “I thought it was a myth.”
“Nope,” said Kit. “It’s real.”
“With it, you can kill me or Kregos,” I informed her. “It doesn’t really matter which, we will both die.”
“Why do you want to give up the Dark Throne?” Megulla asked. “You are perhaps the most powerful Dark Lord I have ever seen.”
“Meh,” I said with a shrug. “It gets old. And I’m not a big fan of the Underworld. It smells like rotten eggs and feet, and it’s so damn gloomy.”
“You are strange creature, Samson Sullivan.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“And why do you think that one needs to use this blade?” she asked, looking me up and down. “Surely you can be defeated without it.”
“You want to give it a shot?” I asked.
Her face dropped slowly, but then she grinned.
“Very well,” she said. “I shall put my angels to the task at once. And when I find the blade, I will enjoy shoving it into your belly, just like you enjoyed shoving your c—”
“Alright,” Trinity interrupted. “You can spare us the details.”
Megulla winked at her, bowed coyly to me, and then disappeared.
“Alright,” I said with a sigh. “Where were we?”
“Planning our defense against Kregos and the whole of the Underworld army,” said Tweak.
“When you say it that way, it sounds pretty bad,” said Kit.
“It is pretty bad,” I told her. “But when hasn’t it been?”
I’d lost nearly one-hundred each of my silver and golden sons, but that still left me with over 2,000. They were also over level 100, thanks to the underworld succubus that they had been mating with—the implications of which I didn’t even want to think about.
My sons were strong, but they weren’t immortal, and I didn’t like the idea of using them as cannon fodder. Legion and Leviathan meant something to me, and the thought of losing any more of them filled me with anger and worry.
“We’re facing more than two million Underworld Monsters,” I told my guild mates. “And I have no delusions about us making a legendary stand and defeating them. If they march on Haven, the city will fall. But if I can use NPC mind control combined with the power that I must still have over them, then perhaps I can hold them at bay, or better yet, send them back to the Underworld.”
“Won’t Kregos just summon them again?” Stormy asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “But at least it will keep him busy.”
“And what happens if you can’t slow him down?” Kit asked. “What happens if you can’t stop him?”
“Then we lose everything,” I told her and glanced around at them all.
“Well, at least we’ll still have each other,” she said with a watery-eyed smile.
“And a huge fucking pile of gold,” said Cecilia.
We all shared a laugh, and the girls all surrounded me and gave me a big hug.
“It’s good to have you back, Big Daddy,” Kit purred.
“It’s good to be back,” I said as I held them all tight.
When the sun finally set, I stood upon the battlements of Samson Tower scanning the horizon north to south, east to west. An hour passed, and then two, and I began to wonder what Kregos was waiting for.
The civilians and even the soldiers had been sent below the castle where a portal waited to bring them to a deserted island off the Shimmering Coast should things get out of control. They would be safe there for a time, and they would have everything that they needed to live a descent life if it all ended today.
They deserved that much, NPCs or not.
The thought occurred to me that Kregos might try to attack one of the other four zones that I had conquered, but when I inquired with Miramar, he told me that all was well, even in the still smoldering Red Plains. Aeorock hadn’t seen any action, and I had spent a little while watching the report of my miraculous reconstruction of the city. People’s opinions of me were now more mixed than ever, and no one knew what to think of the war between myself and my ego.
But I didn’t really care what anyone thought. Well, that wasn’t true. I cared what my guild mates thought of me. I had nearly lost them in my quest for power. I had become so consumed with revenge that I had hurt the ones I loved.
I shivered to think of what I might have done had I continued down that path.
“Sire,” said Miramar. “The enemy has arrived.”
“Which direction?” I asked.
“From all directions, Sire,” he said in a low, defeated voice.
“Prepare for battle,” I told him.
“Yes sire.”
“And Miramar…”
He stopped and turned to face me. “Yes Sire?”
“I just wanted to say thanks. You’ve been a great help. If we lose Haven today, I would like you to go with the villagers to the island. Help them rebuild.”
“I’m honored, Sire.”
He disappeared, and I remained at my perch until I saw the black cloud descending on Haven. I turned a full circle, and indeed, the shadow was encroaching on my city from all directions.
“Sam!” Cecilia cried from behind me, and I turned to see my guild mates all rushing across the battlements.
“What is it?” I asked as they skidded to a stop before me.
“The sword,” she said as they came to a stop before me. “Someone has found it.”
“Who?” I asked.
“No one knows,” she said. “But it just came up on the Network.”
I tapped on the exclamation point icon that I hadn�
�t noticed before flashing in the corner of my interface, and the breaking news began to play.
“Wiz D here with some exciting news,” said the wizard Donovan. “It appears that someone has found the Sword of Untold Fates. Whoever it was hasn’t come forward yet, but I have a chance that we will learn their identity very soon. Let’s go live to our field reporter Phil A Mignon, who has just arrived on the outskirts of the Dark Lord Samson’s kingdom. Phil, what can you tell us?”
“Hello Donovan,” said the minotaur. “As you can see behind me, Kregos and the minions of the Underworld are now descending on Haven.”
“Then it is true what Sam’s guild mates told Doctor Marks,” said Donovan with astonishment. “Samson and his alter ego are really two separate avatars?”
“It appears that way, although they have not been seen together as of yet. Nevertheless, players are flocking to Ozara in preparation of what has been deemed the Battle of the Dark Lords.”
“Incredible,” said Donovan. “But who do they fight for? Kregos or Samson, or neither?”
“The field is split,” said the minotaur. “But since Samson’s reconstruction of Aeorock, many players feel that the hero we once knew has returned. Some of the players have joined Kregos, while still others are just going along for the ride. No matter the outcome, this is sure to be a battle that will go down in Rebirth history as one of the bloodiest of all time.”
The dark shadow that I had seen on the horizon crept over the sky above Phil, and the camera zoomed in to reveal thousands of demons, harpies, succubus, and imps, along with undead dragons, griffins, and other winged beasts. When the camera paned back to the minotaur, the Underworld hordes came into view behind him.
“Gods help us all,” said Phil as darkness crept across the land.
There was an explosion, and the image filled with static, then abruptly returned to Donovan. I swiped the image to the side and glanced at my guild mates.
“It sounds like whoever found the blade will make their way here,” I said. “Cecilia, raise the reward for the blade to five million in-game gold. That might get their attention.”
“Done,” she said as she tapped away at her interface.
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