“Kylia?”
“Yeah? Yeah! Sorry, he’s the one who hacked Daemion and kicked me out of the car.”
“What!? But how did-”
“Shh!” I hissed, my name cropping up again indicating to me that I should probably turn my attention back to the gunman.
“This man resulted in the unjust arrest of not just Kylia Redmond, but others like her, like us, who are trying to get by. All we wanted was a chance, and the government refused to give that to us, but we, the mighty UBR, demand justice for those who have been wronged by our so-called ‘protectors’.” the gunman said, each word from his mouth getting heavier and angrier as he went before turning his attention to Bishop, “Do you have anything to say for yourself you piece of human trash?”
Bishop looked into the camera and spat out a mouthful of blood from what I could only assume was from an earlier beating and smiled, “We’re all prisoners in this world, I just chose to be the one on top. I stopped playing the game and started running it.”
“Poetic.” the gunman spat before raising his gun to Bishop’s head and, without the dramatic cutaway I’d come to expect from years of television consumption, pulling the trigger, splattering blood out the other side of his prisoner’s skull as Bishop’s neck snapped with the blast.
Gerald and I were left with that image a while, blood dripping from the head of the man who’d told me the big truth last time I’d seen him, followed up by kicking me out of a moving car.
To say I had mixed feeling about the ordeal would be a wild understatement, and when the feed cut out I fell back against the couch and stared at the black screen.
I couldn’t believe it, genuinely. My brain simply couldn’t even process what I’d just seen.
“Are you okay?” Gerald asked, a slight tremor in his voice that I completely understood. Two shot people in one day? If I weren’t trying to be such a hard arse since getting out of hospital I’d probably have been the same.
“You know what?” I asked as I turned to face my clearly very confused boyfriend, “I have no fucking idea.”
Gerald opened his mouth a few times, nothing but shock and mild surprise on his face at the time, before sighing and asking in a significantly stronger voice than before “What do want to do?”
What could we do? Our world was in shambles, the little group that was supposed to be responsible for the occasional protest or riot depending on your political swing had just murdered a man on live television, a man that I personally knew, and I couldn’t feel anything other than surprise.
“Well…” I said, turning my attention back to the TV and giving a deep sigh, “I guess we just keep playing the game.”
An Epilogue
Bishop blinked hard a few times at the camera after he’d been told filming had stopped. The sound of the gun being fired had been absolutely deafening, and he was pretty sure the neck snap he’d done had pulled a muscle.
“Do you think they bought it?” Lawrence, or Larry, asked hopefully as he ran back to the front of the bus and started it up.
“They bloody better have,” Bishop groaned, steadily getting off his knees and to his feet after Paul undid his ‘restraints’, “I’m gonna be hearing bells for a week.”
Lady Ferra, as she liked to be called, rolled her eyes and spun her chair to face Bishop, “We had to get the sound as realistic as possible, didn’t we? And before you say ‘could’ve been done in post’ remember that it had to be streamed live or no one would buy it.”
“Still though,” Bishop said after accepting the cloth Paul had been using to hide his face to wipe the fake blood off his own, “everyone else got earplugs, why couldn’t I?”
Lady Ferra scoffed and gestured for Bishop to join her at the computer at the back of the bus, “Look at that screen and tell me that, at that resolution, people wouldn’t have been able to tell. Twats up top’ll be combing through every frame of this for weeks looking for discrepancies, it was hard enough making sure the green screen worked.”
Bishop knew she was right, she always was, but at the same time he was still quite irritated, “It’s only 4K, I doubt anyone would’ve noticed. Anyway, what’s done is done. You wanna help Paul and I clean up this mess?”
“Your bus, your problem. Besides, I’ve got things to do, or have you forgotten the reason you got me on this little suicide mission of yours? Larry to drive the bus, me to make sure the MPs don’t find the bus, and Paul to… well, you’ve always been friends with Paul.”
“Sod off Ferra,” Paul laughed, “you know as well as I that no one in this thing can fight like I can.”
“Oooh, that’s right,” Lady Ferra said condescendingly, “glorified bodyguard.”
‘Right again.’ Bishop laughed internally as the two of them argued.
Paul, Larry, Lady Ferra, they’d all been handpicked by Bishop because he knew he could trust them to get the job done, and to get it done right. None of them liked the government they’d worked for alongside Bishop, and all of them had their own reasons for wanting to live in a truly free country.
It was going to be one Hell of a ride.
Legends of Tarthirious
Book Four of Kylia’s Story
A LitRPG
by
Zachariah Dracoulis
For my perfect wife,
Love you sweetie. Thanks for putting up with me for this long.
Armelia: Chapter 1
I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened to Bishop, an instant replay of his head snapping and the blood spraying going through my mind over and over again. The more I thought about it though the more I started to think there was something wrong with the footage.
There was something off about the whole thing, the gun went off, his neck snapped, blood sprayed. The gun went off, his neck snapped, blood sprayed. There was a sequence, you know? And I couldn’t shake the feeling that it should’ve all been instant.
“You alright?” Gerry asked from across our room where we’d decided to spawn a few minutes prior, the idea of plopping down in the middle of a conversation with Vilor and Lyrias making us both more than a little anxious.
I nodded and smiled as best as I could, “Yeah, just tryin’ to decide what to do with my SPs. What do you reckon I should do with ‘em?”
He knew I was full of shit, but he was nice enough not to mention it, “How’s your Wisdom lookin’?”
“Not bad,” I said as I decided to actually pull up the menu, “I think it’d be best if I went Intelligence though. That’s gotta start to come into play soon, right?”
“I’d say so, yeah.”
HP upgraded!
HP: 4500/4500.
Attributes upgraded!
42 Strength
42 Dexterity
44 Intelligence
47(+5) Wisdom
As I put the finishing touches on my stats I realised just how messed up I was. There was a spark I normally felt, a little sort of buzz that came along every time I levelled up, but that time around I felt nothing, not so much as a tickle.
I needed to get back out in the game, that’s what I figured anyway, go do all the crap I’d been doing for the past few days and watch as all the pieces fell back into place.
I wasn’t an idiot of course, I knew that it wouldn’t work that way and that I’d just feel worse and worse until I felt better, but I could at least pretend for a little while.
“You wanna head out there now?”
“Hm?”
“Vilor and that, I think they’re still waiting, you reckon you’re up for it, or do you wanna do something less demanding?”
He was just trying to be nice, but I felt like he was treating me like a child who just needed a nap, something that on any other day would’ve had him experiencing my full and mighty wrath.
“Nah, I think I can handle it.” I said with the best smile I could muster, “You need to organise anything?”
Gerry seemed happy with that response, genuinely happy, and shook his hea
d, “Everything’s sorted on my end. After you.”
Taking point wasn’t exactly something I was looking forward to doing, but every little thing that showed that I was at least trying to be confident seemed like a step in the right direction.
Walking out to Lyrias and Vilor had been a silent, emotionless trip, however as soon as we stepped out of the doors smiles became plastered on our faces and I immediately engaged Vilor in conversation.
“What shall we do now?”
Lyrias smiled and produced a hide wrap seemingly out of thin air, “Firstly I believe you should take these,” she said, handing me the wrap, “wouldn’t want people to think you’re still a Journeyman, would we?”
Received Robes of the Master: Weight: 5(-5), Durability: 200/200, Enchantment: Master’s Buff (+10 Wisdom).
There wasn’t much of a difference between the Journeyman and the Master robes with the exception that the Master ones appeared to have significantly more padding and swapped the brown out for a more regal looking purple.
Unequipped Robes of the Journeyman.
Equipped Robes of the Master.
“They suit you well,” Gerry said proudly, “what do you think?”
I looked over myself a few times in the desperate hope of at least finding satisfaction with my awesome new robes, but the little drone I dropped down into my brain just found the emotionless pit that I’d expected.
“I love them.” I lied through an apparently incredibly convincing smile.
“Good, good, you wanna keep up the conversation with Vilor, or do you want me to tag in?”
“Trust me, I think I can handle a bit of chit-chat.” I laughed, knowing full well that I wasn’t sure if I could handle a bit of chit-chat, “Thank you Lyrias, I shall wear them with pride.”
“You’re most welcome. Now, to the task at hand, Vilor, would you like to tell your fellow Master here what we discussed?”
I gotta say that leaving for few minutes definitely did the game a few favours in terms of immersion. Too often have I had conversations with NPCs that have a split in the middle from when one line of dialogue finishes and the next begins where they claim to have done some big thing since we last spoke five seconds prior.
When? Hm? When did you talk to the Mayor about our last quest? When did he have time to craft that gorgeous trophy for me?
Sorry, I blacked out there for a second, what were we talking about?
Oh yeah.
“Why of course Grand Master.” Vilor said with a tone so posh that I half expected him to curtsy afterwards, “Aldok, Master druid, still remains the greatest threat to Tarthirious.”
“I love the mage storyline,” Gerry whispered in my ear, “it’s always so dramatic and apocalyptic.”
I laughed enough to make sure he knew I’d heard him before returning my full attention to Vilor, “So what are we going to do?”
“Exactly what we were planning to do before the attack. We take the fight to him.”
Lyrias squirmed slightly at that and looked away making me think that perhaps not everyone was so excited by the full frontal assault thing as Vilor.
“What do you think Grand Master?” I asked, drawing a concerned look from Vilor to her.
Lyrias snapped her head back forward, shook her head, and struggled a smile, “It’s nothing. The plan should go ahead as initially decided.”
Because I have at least some form of social capability, and maybe because I was starting to feel that feeling she was exuding, I could tell that she was less than sure about the attack and decided that it was best for me to press, “What’s changed?”
The Grand Master, after sharing a serious look with Vilor, sighed and looked to the college, “I have my concerns about leaving so quickly after an attack. Before we were able to leave with the college in the care of the other mages, but now that we’ve lost so many… I’m just unsure as to whether or not it would be in the best interests of Girit and the students for me to leave.”
I understood why she’d be reticent toward leaving, after all it turned out she practically fuelled the place, but at the same time I kinda felt like taking on the ‘world’s greatest threat’ was one of those ‘all hands on deck’ situations.
“I’m sure that Girit will be fine.” I said calmly, “This place has had its fair share of upsets, I promise that they’ll be able to hold up until we get home.”
She didn’t seem entirely convinced, but after a few seconds of shuffling her feet and tilting her head slightly she finally nodded, “You’re right. Defeating Aldok is what is most important.”
After spending a few seconds waiting for the +1 Speech Skill that clearly wasn’t going to come, I smiled and gave Lyrias a confident nod, “So, what’s the plan?”
“Well,” Vilor said, practically jumping at the opportunity to hear his own voice again, “I think that’s mostly up to you. Should we all go together, or do you need to grab some more supplies first?”
“What do you think?” I asked Gerry, snapping him out of his mini space out session.
“Uh… Oh, um… I don’t know, it might be a good idea to all go together, we’ll be able to fast travel that way and get it all over and done with in a few minutes.”
He had a point, there was certainly some appeal to the idea of just finishing the quest up and shutting down for a while. It was certainly the logical choice, but for some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to choose it.
“I think we should go our own way. It might be fun to stretch our legs a bit, you know?”
Gerry wasn’t buying my story, couldn’t blame him either, at least he had the good graces to not mention it though, “Sounds good to me.”
“Alright, Vilor, I think it’d be best if we met you there, we have some loose ends we should probably fix before leaving.”
Vilor and Lyrias both nodded, “We’ll see you there.”
Progress made in mission: The Necromancer’s fate.
Objective added: Meet Vilor and Lyrias at Aldok Dethrisr’s Hideout.
After the two were well and truly out of sight I made for Shadow-Stal with Gerry in close tow, mounting the beautiful horse and guiding him towards the exit of Girit.
“So,” Gerry said, breaking the ten minutes of complete silence we’d been stewing in since we’d left, “what’s going on in that head of yours?”
“Well, I just can’t stop thinking about Aldok,” I replied, “do you really think he can bring about ruin to Tarthirious?”
“Kylia, I’m serious. Ever since… you know, you’ve been ki-”
“Dude, I’m fine,” I interrupted with a little scoffed laugh, “seriously. And don’t break character, it ruins it.”
“Are you serious?”
It was at that point that I realised that the best way to work through everything that I was dealing with was to shut down LoT and have a serious discussion with Gerry.
I didn’t want to do that though, I was perfectly happy with playing make-believe and looking out of the gorgeous vistas that surrounded us.
“Kyl-”
“Just stop, okay? I just wanna play the game and have some fun for a while, alright? I don’t need to be constantly reminded how shit everything out there is.”
“Out there? You mean the real worl-”
“I can distinguish the real world from Tarthirious, it’s not hard.”
“Can we go five seconds without you interrupting me?”
I couldn’t believe that we were gonna have our first fight as a couple on top of Shadow-Stal.
Poor horse.
“Gerry,” I said flatly, “I’m gonna go ahead and give you a minute to really think about what we’re arguing about here, okay? Do you know what that guy did to me? Remember how he-”
“I know, it’s jus-”
“I’m sorry, did I sound done? Because I assure you I wasn’t.” I snapped venomously, “I love you Gerry, you know that, but right now I don’t need this ‘We should talk’ bullshit. What I need you to do is sit down, play
the game, and love me. Is that too much to ask?”
The air was dead for a while after that, the faint sounds of swords clashing against shields the only thing keeping the rest of the vibrant world alive for me.
“I suppose I should order another pizza then?” Gerry finally piped up, some of his initial calming demeanour having returned, “Maybe grab a few drinks?”
I let a quiet little happy huff escape me before nodding, “You know what? That’d be great. Something different this time though, yeah? I don’t know if it’s the best idea in the world for us to keep having the same meal.”
“Puh-lease, pizza is breakfast, brunch, elevenses, lunch, and dinner. Everybody knows that.”
“Alright,” I replied, forcing as much judgement into my voice as I could without laughing, “as long as we finish the other one first.”
“Deal.”
Maybe it was him backing down or maybe it was the prospect of inbound food, but as soon as Gerry went idle as he opened up his browser and made our order I started to feel a bit better.
That’s when I knew everything was gonna be okay and that I’d be able to get through whatever came next, as naïve as that makes me sound.
It’s funny, I thought that that lingering feeling of… I don’t know, guess you could call it guilt, would loom over my head for weeks to come, and as sure as I was that I’d get the occasional pang of whatever the emotion was, I knew that I’d be able to get through it.
“I hope you’re ready,” I said as quietly as I could in the hopes that no one would hear how geeky I was about to sound, “because I’m coming for you Aldok, and there isn’t a thing in the world that can stop me.”
Armelia: Chapter 2
Grathmal Bridge discovered.
Journal entry made.
“What do you mean there’s been a bridge collapse?” I groaned at the poor gnome builder, “Isn’t there some way I can get around?”
Legends of Tarthirious : Books One-Four of Kylia's Story (Legends of Tarthirious (A LitRPG)) Page 40
