Then she hesitated, tapping her lips as she watched the little man. He had pouches strapped to his body that were undoubtedly filled with magic crystals, and he had owned a shop full of magical equipment. She couldn’t deny how useful his crystals could be. They also had an entire crafting school back in the Twilight Throne that was still in need of a headmaster. She had no idea if Jason would approve of the enchanter, but it was worth a shot.
“Maybe I could offer you a job,” Riley suggested. “Assuming you pass the interview, of course.”
“What kind of job?” Cecil asked suspiciously as the pair stepped out of the antechamber and headed for the exit.
Riley offered him a lopsided smile. “The kind with lots of explosions. And death. And mayhem. In short, the best kind of job for a man of your talents. On a completely unrelated note, have you ever considered teaching for a living?”
Chapter 29- Confronted
Riley slammed her locker shut, hefting her bag over her shoulder. Her free hand rubbed at her neck as she made her way toward a side entrance to the school. It had been a long day. Classes had ended some time ago, and the halls were deserted. Riley had needed to stay late to make up a test she had missed earlier in the week thanks to her leg injury. Afterwards, she had decided to knock out some homework in the library. She had spent nearly every free moment in AO that week and was way behind on her schoolwork.
As she made it to the door, Riley tapped the Core on her wrist, and a translucent keyboard appearing along her arm. Her fingers danced along the keys as she stepped onto the sidewalk outside. Her breath made small puffs of vapor in the chill air. The trees dotting the campus rustled gently in the breeze, waning sunlight trickling through their branches.
If the car gets here in the next few minutes, I could probably make it home for dinner.
Unfortunately, Riley was staring at her Core instead of paying attention to her surroundings. Someone suddenly grabbed her bag from her shoulder. She looked up in alarm and saw Carrie’s familiar sneering face. Glancing to either side, Riley realized that three other girls stood around her. She could feel her stomach sink with dread. Nothing good could come of this.
“Hello there, slut,” Carrie said, practically spitting out the slur. “You made us wait. We’ve been standing out here in the cold for hours.” The girl glanced at her friends, their faces stony and impassive.
“I’m sorry to inconvenience you,” Riley replied, her eyes drifting to the ground as she struggled to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
Out of the corner of her eye, she was examining the school building. She didn’t notice any cameras – which was part of Richmond’s silly no surveillance policy. She was beginning to realize that the parents had likely pushed this. Who wanted to have their spoiled children inadvertently caught on camera committing a crime or doing something embarrassing?
“Not as sorry as you’re going to be,” Carrie said. “You should have taken the demonstration in the cafeteria for what it was – a message that no one wants you here.”
“What’s your problem with me?” Riley demanded, frustration tinging her voice.
What am I going to do? It was four on one, and these girls weren’t likely to let her go. She could only think to buy herself some time. Maybe a teacher had stayed late, but that seemed like a longshot since the campus around her appeared deserted.
Carrie put a hand to her chest. “Me? I have absolutely no problem with you. However, you insulted the wrong person. Alex sends his regards by the way.”
Riley looked up at the girl in surprise, noticing her lip curl in a sneer as she folded her arms. The events over the last few weeks suddenly made a lot more sense. Spreading rumors and teasing was one thing, but Carrie had been gunning for her relentlessly. If Alex were pressuring her – or bribing her – then that would explain her dedication.
“Then what is it you want?” Riley finally asked.
“Oh, nothing much. Alex simply wants you to leave.” Carrie glanced at the other girls around her. “Other than that, our instructions were to make you suffer. He told us to be creative.”
Carrie advanced slowly toward Riley, and she could hear the other girls approaching from behind her. Riley’s heart beat frantically in her chest. She would have given anything at that moment to be able to channel her dark mana – to feel the familiar weight of her armor on her shoulders and her daggers at her waist. She tried to channel the confidence she had felt with the Council, but it abandoned her.
“Since you ignored our message in the cafeteria, perhaps we will have to be more direct,” Carrie continued. The girl’s arm lashed forward, her palm smacking Riley hard across the face. She could feel the sting across her cheek – the sensation sharper than the pain she experienced in-game.
Carrie laughed. “What? Are you not even going to fight back? I thought you had a little more spirit in you. It looks like we won’t even have to hold you down.” Another blow rocked Riley’s head, her cheek throbbing painfully.
Inside she just felt hollow. As the next blow came, her thoughts turned to the conversation with her parents – how they had urged her to fight back. Lily had said the same thing. She remembered the pledge she had made to her newfound sisters. What had the words been? To never waver and to never balk?
What was so different about this world that she felt chained down and powerless?
Inside the game, she took what she wanted without fear or restraint.
If that was the case, why couldn’t she do the same here? The question rang through her mind with an odd sense of clarity. Why couldn’t she? How was this really different? Her whole perspective shifted, and an odd sense of calm overcame her. Riley looked up at the girls around her, viewing them as she would inside the game – enemies to be defeated.
As Carrie’s hand whipped forward again, Riley caught her arm. The movement seemed natural, like the type of block she would use in-game. Maybe this really wasn’t any different. She looked up at Carrie, noticing confusion wrinkling her brow as she tugged at her arm.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Carrie demanded.
Before the girl could react, Riley moved. She shifted her weight and lunged forward, punching the girl in the stomach with her free hand. Hard. Carrie doubled over coughing as the other girls moved toward Riley. She automatically ducked one girl’s blow, just like she had dodged the attacks of Jerry’s training dummy, lashing out with her foot at the girl’s knee. As the girl toppled with a scream of pain, Riley’s leg collided a second time with her head. She abruptly stopped moving.
Another girl grabbed her from behind, and Riley twisted, clutching her opponent’s shirt and side stepping neatly. She used the girl’s momentum to swing her into her friend, causing the two girls to collide. Riley didn’t hesitate. She approached the pair with a steady step, her knuckles immediately colliding with one girl’s face. There was a crunch, and she fell to the ground. Her friend backpedaled away, looking at Riley with fearful eyes.
“I…”
She never managed to finish her sentence. Riley’s foot lashed out, planting itself firmly in her stomach. The air evacuated the girl’s lungs in a rush as she fell to the ground gasping. The next blow knocked her unconscious.
Riley stood on the sidewalk, looking at the four girls on the ground around her in surprise. The scene was surreal, and she half expected to see system notifications in the corner of her eye. Through it all, she felt oddly calm. No guilt clouded her mind. Only wonder at how easy that had been. Had her training inside the game begun to bleed over into the real world? It certainly seemed like it.
“Fuck you,” someone whispered behind her. Riley turned, discovering that Carrie was beginning to stand back up, glowering at her as she held her stomach. “You are going to regret this.”
Riley knew what she had to do. She had seen Jason do it in-game. Even her mother had pushed her to take this next step. She needed to send a message to the others. She needed to make certain this would never happen again. Human psych
ology didn’t change – inside AO or out.
She strode over to Carrie, grasping her hair and lifting her face to meet hers. The smirk was gone, and the girl’s eyes were wide and frightened.
“There are no cameras here and no witnesses, which is why you chose this spot,” Riley said coldly. “No one is going to believe that I took down all four of you alone. You have nothing. Absolutely nothing on me.”
Riley wrenched the girl’s hair, watching her wince. “If you ever fuck with me again. I will do worse to you. That goes for anyone else Alex sends after me. I’m here to fucking stay, and he better get used to it.
“Spread the word.”
Then Riley’s fist collided with the girl’s face. Carrie dropped back to the concrete unconscious. Looking at the girls on the ground, Riley decided she needed to get out of there. She could see the headlights of her driverless car pulling into the nearby circle drive. Moving quickly, she grabbed her bag from the ground and jogged to the car.
A moment later, the car door slammed shut, and Riley was staring out the window at the schoolyard. She could just make out the shadows of the girls as they pushed themselves slowly from the ground. She massaged the knuckles of her right hand. They throbbed painfully and already showed the beginning signs of bruises. She hadn’t realized punching someone would hurt so much. It didn’t feel that way inside AO.
She hesitated, remembering an offhanded comment Melissa had made. She had said that everything was a game and that some people just didn’t know that they were playing. If so, then Riley sure as hell hadn’t been playing in her real life. Her eyes hardened as she stared out the window at the passing buildings, her hand clenching into a fist despite the pain that radiated from her knuckles.
That was going to change from this point forward. Riley would make sure of it. She was a Fury in-game or out, and she would make them realize that.
Epilogue
That evening after dinner, Riley stepped into her bedroom. The lights immediately flickered on as the house sensors registered the presence of her Core. Her parents had acted oddly during the meal, noticing a change in her. However, they hadn’t said anything about the growing bruises on her knuckles or the cuts on her cheek where Carrie’s nails had scratched her. Her father had only patted her on the shoulder on his way to the kitchen, and her mother offered her some ice cream for dessert.
She padded softly to her bed, lifting the heavy plastic helmet that rested on her blankets. Her fingers ran lightly across the surface of the helmet as she sat down, and her thoughts drifted back over the events of the last few days.
Shaking her head, Riley lifted the helmet onto her head. A moment later she was sitting beside a campfire back within the radius of the Twilight Throne’s influence. Cecil lay on a pallet beside her, snoring loudly. With her Night Vision, she could make out the forms of the undead soldiers standing guard around the makeshift campsite. She had requested that Frank send a division once she neared the kingdom’s border.
A rogue dropped from stealth nearby. “Ma’am, there have been no issues while you were away. We stand ready at your command.”
Riley nodded, her eyes on the campfire. “Continue to maintain your sentry positions. We will remain here until morning. Cecil could use the rest,” she added, eyeing the enchanter. “I just want to attend to a few things.”
“Of course,” the undead rogue said, backing away and quickly vanishing into the forest.
Riley tapped her lips with her fingers as she stared at the flames in front of her. As her thoughts drifted, she noticed a few notifications flashing in her peripheral vision. In their haste to leave Vaerwald, she had forgotten to check her system prompts.
As she tapped the notification menu, a cascade of notices greeted her. She skimmed through the notifications, seeing that she had leveled five times and she had received various skill increases. Sighing, she swiped the windows away and opened her Character Status screen.
Her new class was interesting. All of her mana had been transferred to her health pool, giving her an incredible number of hit points. However, some experimenting showed that all of her spells now cost health to cast. Since the cost of her Marked for Death ability effectively neutralized her natural health regeneration, this might be as large a handicap as it was an advantage.
Riley pulled Lily’s bow from her shoulder. Her fingers traced the petals of the crystalline roses. She now knew whose heartbeat throbbed within the petals. Lily was standing watch over her. With a thought, she brought up the information on the bow.
Vendetta
This weapon was created by a talented enchanter out of desperation and anger. This bow has seen lives taken in the name of vengeance – and it never forgets.
Quality: A
Damage: 40-95 (Pierce)
Durability: 99/100
+20 Strength
+20 Dexterity
+30 Vitality
(Soulbound)
Special Ability Unlocked
Unlocks the ability, Vindication, which sacrifices the user’s health to overcharge an ability. The damage of skills and spells is increased by 10%/second while this ability is channeled.
Cost: 300 Health/Sec
Cooldown: 15 minutes
Riley’s eyes hovered on the special ability. She had known that something happened in her earlier battle against the Prefect and this finally explained it. It was an interesting ability, although it seemed to carry substantial risk. What happened if her health hit zero while she was channeling the skill? Would she die?
Her gaze moved back to her status window. Given her new abilities and the health cost of casting spells, Vitality was now critical. After thinking about it for a few moments, she placed her available points into Vitality, increasing her health by over three hundred points. She might need to continue to divide her points between Vitality and Dexterity from now on. She suspected that this was what Marie had done. She was still something similar to an assassin or an archer, and not a front-line fighter. Yet she could already see impressive support potential with her health transfer and drain abilities. She would have to talk to Jason.
Thinking of her missing Necromancer, Riley pulled up her chat window. She wondered if Frank had ended up going over to Jason’s aunt’s house. He hadn’t said anything. Thankfully, Frank chose that moment to come online, and she shot him a quick message. She heard the ding of a response only a few seconds later.
Frank: Riley, I got your message. I think we need to talk. I’ve been trying to call you for the last few minutes and figured you must be online when you didn’t answer.
Riley: Yeah, I just logged on a little while ago. What’s the matter? Did you get in touch with Jason?
Frank: That’s just it. I went to his house. Well, there was police tape up everywhere. The police saw my Core show up at the house and detained me for questioning. They just released me a couple of hours ago. Something terrible has happened.
Riley: What? What are you talking about? Police? Is Jason okay?
Frank: I’m not really sure how to explain. I think it would be easier if I just showed you the news coverage. Here, I’ll send it over the chat.
Riley’s UI dinged a moment later, signaling that a file had arrived. Her finger hovered over the screen in front of her while her stomach churned. After being attacked by Carrie’s group outside of her school, she could only imagine what might have happened to Jason. Alex seemed to be getting more aggressive.
Closing her eyes, she pressed the file.
A new screen appeared in the air before her, showing video footage from the perspective of an aerial news drone. It was night-time and the view hovered beside what she assumed was Jason’s house, spotlights shining down on the street. Police vehicles ringed the house, their lights flashing an alternating blue and red.
“We are outside a home in Highland Park registered to Angie Pogue,” a newscaster’s voice said over the video footage. “It appears that the suspect is a young man, approximately eighteen years old.”
Riley could feel her heartbeat speed up at the report. Was that Alex? “The police haven’t yet provided a formal report, but, from what we can tell, two teenagers have died in a possible double homicide….
“Wait, the suspect is being taken out of the house now.” The video shifted to follow a young man being lead through the front door. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and two officers flanked him, their faces obscured by tactical helmets.
The drone’s camera zoomed in on the teenager’s face, and Riley gasped, her hand covering her mouth. Within seconds, a school photograph of Jason appeared in the corner of the video.
“It appears that the suspect is Jason Rhodes, a former student at Richmond High School. His record indicates that he was an honors student and recently left the school for an unknown disciplinary issue. We will provide more information as this story unfolds.”
Riley tapped the video again, the image freezing on a zoomed-in photo of Jason’s face as he was leaving the house. His eyes looked confused and frightened – not the gaze of a killer. She knew him better than that. At least she thought she did. Her fingers drifted toward the screen, passing through the translucent surface as tears budded in her eyes.
What was going on?
The End
Thank you for reading!
I hope you enjoyed the story! I’m underway on the third book in the Awaken Online Series, and I’m trying for a release by early-to-mid 2018. I know that sounds like a long time, but my day job leaves me with only a little free time to write each day.
I may also have something a little different for you all in the near future. I have taken a stab at writing another story – the completion of another side project I started last October. I’m super excited about this novel, and so far the feedback from my beta readers has been ecstatic. Sign up for my newsletter to stay posted.
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