Charlotte nodded, “I know, which is why only those of us fit to fight will be doing any fighting. That means you Tuomas, one last fight.”
Tuomas nodded, “I know, I had planned on it.” he got out from another coughing fit, “I will be ready.”
Scott looked at Tuomas, “You feeling sick?” he asked.
Tuomas looked at Charlotte, who shook her head, “So you haven’t heard.” Tuomas said at Scott, “I am dying of cancer.”
The words hit Scott like a truck hitting a brick wall, “When did that happen?”
“Diagnosis was about three weeks ago, already at a stage four and terminal,” He said, “I am still trying to figure out how I never noticed until I was given the diagnosis.”
Scott slowly bobbed his head from Tuomas’ words, “I am so sorry my friend.”
Donovan looked over at Scott, “I am glad you are back to your old self too.”
Scott looked at Donovan, “Sorry I almost killed you…” he trailed off.
“That wasn’t you.” Donovan countered, “I know you wouldn’t have if it was really you controlling the pilot seat. Don’t worry. The Doc said I will survive and be back up in a few days.”
“Not to fight you won’t.” Alissa scowled him.
“Yeah, I won’t be doing any fighting anytime soon, so you have to carry us.” Donovan laughed out still addressing Scott, “I know you will brother.”
“I fight for all of you.” Scott’s responded, “I will do whatever it takes to save all of us and this world.”
They all nodded, then Elana finally spoke up, “And you better make it home alive too, we don’t need to lose you again, for real this time.”
Everyone seconded what Elana had said, they just got him back, and they didn’t want to lose him again. Scott ducked out of the room, he said he wanted to get some practice in and do what he could to mentally prepare himself for whenever the goddess arrived.
Charlotte looked at everyone else in the room, Alissa spoke up, “Are you sure he is okay to fight?”
She shrugged, “If he is or isn’t really a matter of choice right now.”
“Has anyone else tried to pick up the sword?” Tuomas asked her, “If anyone else can, he may not have to try alone.”
Charlotte shook her head, “I haven’t but if he is willing we should try, but I doubt it. Archangel probably made it encoded to him.”
Tuomas acknowledged that, “I didn’t think about that, but we should just in case. We don’t know for sure until we try it.”
They all agreed and Charlotte agreed to approach Scott about the sword he had called Exuberus, which Archangel had him hunt for. As much as they wanted it to be viable for all of them, they all had the gut feeling that it would not, and Scott would be the one who had to wield it, alone, and defeat the goddess.
A few hours had passed, before anyone reconvened. Charlotte had found Dracus and Liliana and they had provided the information to the clan leaders, which some found it skeptical for a beta to run a full scale raid in beta, but Liliana came up with some convincing arguments about why they would, particularly why only clan leaders would be told about it as well. ‘To have the hard core players test the balancing. To get detailed information about glitches and broken combos that could break a game.’ Along with trying to convince them to be ready at any time since the release date hadn’t been finalized.
Dracus and Liliana gave an estimation of about two hundred players would show up with the all the clans combined. They were still skeptical so they would only be bringing their A-teams to go through it. And only have their B-teams come if more information was released to them to plan out the larger team effort. Charlotte reported the information to Tuomas who retrograded it to Elana to take to the king about the adventurers who have ‘pledged’ help to defend the city.
Unlike the players from the real world, it didn’t take too much convincing the king from the previous reports. The massive amounts of magical dissonance from the world was concerning and there had been a prophecy that one of the magical advisors had found, describing the return of an evil god and a single hero arising to wipe it off this plain of existence once more.
When everyone heard about the prophecy, they all thought about how cliché each moment getting closer was to a bad movie or video game plot. But they also knew that there was nothing they could do to change the course that they had been put upon by Archangel, as much as they wanted answers from him, they couldn’t get him to appear. Tuomas had tried using the rigged port he made to transfer the world to a gaming platform and get people in to play a ‘game’ to help them out of the world. Tuomas started to understand that Archangel had most likely done more to secure that outcome than Tuomas had thought. Keeping the game alive, and protected against any outside digital attack from Virtual Industries, or other entities that wanted them gone from the real world.
Tuomas kept running the variations in his head, thought about all of the timing that he normally would have done, and found that there was much more to Archangel than they possible know. Tuomas wrote out what he knew from programming the Evermore Seed that built the world that they were in, and finding that there could be an infinite amount of worlds that could be hidden away in the seed that he didn’t account for when he built up this one. He came to the conclusion that Archangel was an anomaly that was created by the Evermore Seed to watch over all of the worlds, which had given him the most freedom to come and go as he pleased.
Scott gave Tuomas as much information as he could about the little bit of time that he had with him, and his mentioning of saving worlds. Scott was very prominent about the emphasis of the plurality of worlds. Then that Archangel had picked him to save not just this one. Tuomas sat quiet for most of that conversation, taking notes and aligning his thoughts, Scott’s thoughts and the events that they have been a part of, and the supposed events to come. Tuomas was afraid that now Scott may not be making out, that Archangel will take him to the next world that he deems in need of another hero.
The question of if he would be alone, if not, who would be taken with him. Tuomas’ first thought that it would be Charlotte, if Archangel was watching all of their moves, he would know she was Scott’s anchor. At best, Tuomas thought it would be just the two of them. At worst, they all would be taken to the next world, and none of them would be making it back to the real world.
Tuomas told Scott that it would be best for them to keep that whole conversation quiet and deal with it after the goddess was dealt with. Scott agreed, even though he wasn’t sure that keeping it from Charlotte would be the best idea.
The night crept up on them as they were busy preparing for the moment that the sorcerer would appear and summon Hela. Using her ability as the new team leader, Charlotte called for an all hands meeting, which turned out to be a group meal. The first meal they had together since they had lost Scott. Some of the servants had helped Donovan get to the meal hall for him to join them. He wanted to be there and nothing was going to stop him from doing so.
As much as they were all wanting to be there and share a meal again, there was not much talk. They ate and drank but they were mostly silent, which was not what Charlotte had in mind, she wanted them to be merry and enjoying each other’s presence. Since no one would start a conversation, she decided that she would. She stood up with her tankard in hand, “We are glad that we are all back together again.” She started, getting everyone’s attention, “We have Scott back, everyone is on the mend and we are one big family again.”
Family: the word echoed through their heads. The word sat differently than they thought it would of each having their own variation of the word and idea of this family. They looked around at each other, most with smiles, others still holding a blank slate upon their faces. No one disagreed with Charlotte’s words, but the way that she said them, was not how they thought it would have been approached with the situation they had been dealing with before Scott’s rescue and return to them.
“I know that there is st
ill some issues we all need to work on.” She continued, “However, now is the time for us to come together and overcome those issues. The issues of trust and secrets. We need to work together if we are going to defeat Hela and get out of this world and back to our own.” They all were agreeing with her, but they wondered how they would do that. The divide between Alissa, Nick and Donovan, to the Tuomas, Charlotte and Elana was wide, and Scott was a wild card to most of them since he had not been there when the sides began to split. Charlotte was hoping that Scott would bring them back together, just like Nick had said to her the day they went to save him.
“I want to be the first to apologize for my part in our separation. I sat and let it fall apart in my presence. I fell apart after I thought I lost Scott, and I pushed away those who wanted to be there for me.” She looked at Alissa, Donovan and Nick, “And I have no excuses anymore to not mend what was bent and broken.”
The three of them nodded: A start: what the three of them were thinking: but a long road ahead.
“We don’t know when Hela will appear, it could be tomorrow. It could be a week from now. I won’t speak for anyone else, I will say that I will do what I can to mend the relationships we once had.” She looked at Elana and Tuomas, “I hope we can come back together, and rebuild that trust.”
Donovan bobbed his head, “I think we all do, and now that we have the one who held us together back, it shall start.” he pointed to Scott, “We didn’t know what we had lost when you…” He paused again, “Fell off the cliff and having the thought you were dead. But now you are back, I think you will be that glue that kept us together.”
Scott laughed, “You know, I didn’t think that I would be the one holding anything together, you were the reasonable one Don, but if you all think that. I will not push back, one thing that I agree with is that we all need to work together, even if you don’t like each other right now.” he pointed at the ground symbolizing the time of the moment, “But we will come back together, even if that means I have to be the middle ground for a while.”
Everyone else nodded at Scott’s words, it was that moment that they saw him as the leader, but Scott didn’t want that position, he had been there before and he told them that he would never be put in that position again.
***
The night was quiet after they ate and retired to their rooms. The servants helped Donovan back to his room, with Alissa tailing them for she would not leave his side. Nick disappeared to his room as normal, Elana and Tuomas to theirs. Charlotte and Scott to theirs.
Scott closed the door behind them and stood at the door for a few more seconds before turning to face Charlotte, “You asked me about Grashers …” he said hesitantly.
She nodded, “I did.”
“Before I dive into that…” He paused again, “Can you tell me why you want to know?”
“Because I want to hear it from you. And to tell you my side of that story too…” She trailed off.
Scott cocked his head, “What do you mean your side of the story. But you weren’t in Cogs of War, I know everyone who made it out… I can still see their faces.”
Charlotte shook her head, “I mean out here. You know that I am a bit older than you, like almost five years older than you.”
Scott nodded, “Yes, I know that.”
“Well my father owned Grashers, and I was hired right out of college to be one of their negotiators, a digital wartime ambassador for gaming issues with companies to governments and people.”
Scott stayed silent, Charlotte continued, “I was one who was on the negotiation team that defended the company when you all got stuck in there…” she drifted her words. “ I fought for the lives of the developers and design teams. I made the horrid argument that those who played the game made their choice to play it…” She started to tear up, “But that isn’t where it ended. I continuously got hounded after, and I wanted to get away from it all. I didn’t advocate for any help to you who survived the game. I was… am a monster.”
Scott walked up to her. Charlotte was fully crying at this point, placing her hands over her face, she stood there in tears. Scott put his right hand on her shoulder. “You probably hate me now for knowing the truth.” She choked out over her tears.
Scott pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t hate you.” He answered, “Because I love you.”
She continued to cry, “But I am a monster.”
“Not to me.”
She took her hands off of her face and wrapped her arms around Scott, “Why?”
“Because that is the past, and no matter what happened to me, and everyone else in there, I did what I could to survive, and I am here, with you, and even if that was what you did, you were doing your job, and you left didn’t you? You couldn’t handle the regret, and now you are facing it again.”
She sniffled, “But…”
“I lost many friends in that game, I lost my brother too, I lost my first girlfriend, and her brother. I will never be rid of that stain on my memory. I don’t talk about it, and I still keep most of it to myself, and I probably will. The gore and violence that I was put through, was nothing like I have seen here or back in the real world. I am overcoming it all, and you can too.” his voice cracking from emotional pain.
Charlotte didn’t respond, she didn’t know how to, that was the most since the first time he told her about Grashers, his brother, his first girlfriend and her brother. “What was her name?” Charlotte asked.
“Brie,” He answered.
“What was your brother’s name?”
“Nate.”
Charlotte pulled him tight, “How do you handle the pain?”
“It is a struggle, there were many nights that I didn’t sleep, weeks where I barely ate. The horrors of that game still follow me. The screams, the cries for home or their loved ones. Parents… Seeing missing limbs, bodies flying, dead landing at your feet…” He started to cry in full as well. “Watching my brothers face melt off from poison gasses…”
He began to shake in her arms. Letting go he fell to his knees and put his hands over his ears and began to cry and mumble out words that Charlotte couldn’t make out. She wiped her tears from her face. It took her a moment to realize what she had just done. She sent him into a PTSD attack, “No, no, no,” she started, kneeling down to him.
His eyes were closed, he was rocking back and forth, and tears fell from his eyes. He was breathing hard, as if trying to breathe through a gas mask. “Put it on,” he said in a low tone, “Put it on. Put it on.” He repeated.
Charlotte wrapped her arms around him from behind, she let him lead with his shaking movements. “You can’t die on me,” he cried, “No, you need to lead us. Nate don’t leave me!”
She listened, and held him, there was nothing she could do at that moment. Being there to keep him safe was that she could do. About ten minutes passed before Scott started to calm down. He tried to speak but Charlotte kept him from doing so, “Just relax.” She said, “I am right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
She rocked him back and forth like a child. She was scared, she finally saw what he had been hiding away for so many years, the horrors. The connection was finally made. “I need my watch back.” he finally got out, “I need it back, I need to log this, it will help me settle down.”
“Okay.” Charlotte said, “Stay here, I will be right back,” She kissed his neck and slowly stood up from where they were on the floor.
She left the room, and ran down to Tuomas’ room and banged on the door. Tuomas answered the door with a sour look on his face, “Do you know how late…”
Charlotte cut him off, “I need Scott’s watch back, now, like right now.”
Tuomas snapped up at her words, “What, wait what is going on?”
She hesitated, “He had a PTSD attack, and when he started to calm down all he asked for was the watch. I think there is more to that watch than meets the eye.”
“Okay, okay, come on, it is in the st
udy,” Tuomas started towards the study at a brisk pace as Charlotte was breathing hard from sprinting to his room.
The study door swung open and Tuomas made his way to his desk and slid open one of the drawers. He picked up the watch and tossed it to Charlotte, “Go get that to him.”
She nodded and started back to the room.
Entering the room she saw that Scott had not moved at all from where she left him. He was breathing hard and still had tears running down his face. “Babe, I have you watch, give me your hand.”
Scott lifted his arm up. Charlotte kneeled down and wrapped the watch around his arm and clipped it in place. Scott brought his arm back down and his left hand started tapping at the holo-screen like a trained reaction.
A few minutes passed before anything else happened, Scott calmed down enough to crawl to the bed. Charlotte sat next to him on the floor, using the side of the bed as a brace for their backs. “I’m so sorry.” she said to him, “I didn’t mean to do that.”
As calm as he could Scott replied, “It’s okay, I shouldn’t have thought too much about it, it has been a very long time since I thought about that day.” he swallowed, “I have been trying to compartmentalize my memories for a long time, and when I start to venture back, I run the risk of that.” his voice was referencing the events that had just occurred. “I think whatever substance you used to get me back rest most of my blocks.”
“I still am sorry for making you do that. I never realized what actually happened in there.” Charlotte continued, “I just wanted to know more about it and how it shaped you to being the man sitting next to me.”
She put her head on his shoulder. Scott kissed her, then slowly lowered his head onto hers. “I won’t ask again, I promise,” She said to him.
“Thank you.”
29:
The night calmed down for everyone and Scott and Charlotte were able to sleep. Tuomas told the servants to not disturb them for he had a hunch they had a long night.
Scott woke first, on that morning, he looked at his watch to see the time 10:42:34 am. He yawned and looked over at Charlotte who was still asleep. He laid there: It has been a long time since that day. Rest in peace Nate, I hope it is peaceful wherever you are…
The Seeds of Evermore Page 25
