by J P Carver
“Are you thinking dirty thoughts?” she asked, eyes still closed. “Don’t let me stop you.”
He said nothing and turned his back to her. He would never tell her, but it did feel nice to be close to someone again, even if they were a deranged AI and it made him feel equal parts fear and happiness. If only things weren’t so strange. From the game to the AI, his entire world was one mess after another.
A hand came around and Peyton pulled herself against his back. He could feel her breasts pressed against him and her breath tickled the nape of his neck. He went to push her away, but her hand tightened around his shirt and pulled him even closer.
“Peyton…” he said, and she pushed her head against his shoulder.
“Shut up and let’s just sleep like this, okay? It’s not causing any harm,” she mumbled against his back.
He let out a breath and placed his hand over hers and forced himself to drift off to sleep.
Among Hunters
“So here we are,” Audra said as she went up the steps to stand in front of the church doors. It was early evening and Geo and Peyton were standing to the side and looking down at a lake of black cloaks. Audra’s army was small, so small that Geo was sure if there were more than a few drieger he and Peyton would fight by themselves. He didn’t voice this and instead pulled his hood down more against the biting rain.
“We can’t defend this place anymore. We are losing a battle of attrition, one day and one day soon the drieger will come and find this place a husk. We are losing hunters faster than we can replace them.” There was a low grumble from the crowd but Audra rose her hands and it fell silent. For such a small woman she presented an imposing figure on those steps. The rain splashed on her blue cloak, but even that couldn’t dampen her authority. She pulled back the hood of her cloak with both hands and her hair was quickly soaked, turning it almost purple.
“That does not mean we will sit by and let them end us. That isn’t our way, we go out on our own terms! We will take the fight to them and let them be on the defensive for once!” Her voice echoed out among the stone, each repeat sounding even more determined. “We have long known where the drieger spawn, but we have never been so desperate to attack them. We are that desperate, my brothers and sisters! This is our last stand for this world. If we fail we fail not only ourselves but our children as well! We fail the gods and our ancestors! That, as your leader, is not something I can abide! We leave at dawn, my friends, see your section leaders to know your roles.”
There was another rumble from the crowd of hunters, but this one came as an affirmative and they slowly broke apart. Audra came over to Geo and Peyton, pulling her hood back up as she went. “That went better than I hoped,” she said with a soft smile.
“You have a knack for speeches,” Peyton said adjusted Audra’s hood. “Your hunters will make you proud, I’m sure of it.”
Audra turned to look at the lingering people. “I know they will, but will that be enough?”
“I’m wondering the same,” Geo said and felt both their gazes lock on him. “If we’re going to end this stupid game, we need to get to the next level and I’m not sure how this fight will get us there.”
“Because, according to my information from the system, the exit is past where the drieger spawn. Our goals are the same,” Audra said.
Geo nodded. “What about those cubes? They could be corrupting the drieger, isn’t that something to be concerned about?”
“Maybe they've always been corrupted. I’m not too worried about it. I spent a lot of time looking those things over this morning when you left them on the table. There doesn't seem to be any issues with them,” Audra said.
“If you say so,” Geo said. “Can I have the cubes back?”
“Why?”
“Because I found them? I’d like to look into them more.”
“Uh, that’ll have to happen later, I have one of my best looking into them. Once she’s done, you… you can have them back. Okay?”
With a shrug he turned to head back inside. “Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow morning then.”
He headed into the church leaving both women behind in the rain. He didn’t have a destination in mind, he just wanted to be alone for without having to fight something. It had been weeks since he last had a few moments to himself and while there was a large battle happening tomorrow and everyone around him seemed on edge, he felt calm.
Rain pattered on his hood as he found himself outside again, this time on the other end of the church. Before him the ground quickly dropped and the buildings of the city looked almost like toys from the height he was at. Most of the buildings were in ruins, some still smoking. The world looked like it was on its last legs and he found something sad about the idea. The city had to have once been a bustling place, filled with people and animals. He sort of wished he could have seen it.
The sound of boots scraping on stone caught his attention, and he turned on his heel to see a young woman frozen in place, her head down.
“Sorry, didn’t think anyone would come out here,” she said and relaxed some. She looked up. Her thick, slightly curled brown hair was soaked and clung to her pale skin. Her lips were a soft pink, and they turned down as she wiped back strands of hair from her cheek. “You’re the one?”
“The one?”
“Who saved me? My brothers told me it was a man and a woman from another world who came to my aide. I don’t recognize you, so I assume you’re them? I’m Klara,” she said and held out a hand.
Geo took it and shook before looking back to the city. “Name is Geo and we didn’t do anything special.”
“You fought a drieger better than us new bloods. That’s something special,” she said and went to the rail that wound around the little stone balcony they were on. “It’s not a pleasant sight, is it?”
“No,” he said flatly. “You’ve recovered quickly.”
“Not completely,” she said and lifted her shirt to show a yellow and purple bruise that covered half her abdomen. “But the time for healing is over. I have to be ready for the battle to come.”
“You’re going to fight?” he asked and tried to keep his disbelief out of his voice. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“I won’t let my brothers and sisters fight on their own. If they are going to give their lives, then I shall die with them.”
“What good will that do?” Geo asked and moved to stand beside her at the rail. “Dying for nothing won’t help anything.”
She glanced at him and returned her gaze to the city. “The good it will do is that I won’t suffer without them. With them I can fight this dark world, but if they are gone, then I am nothing.”
“That’s not true. I saw you fight. You could survive here.”
She lifted a shoulder and crossed her arms in front of her as she leaned on the rail. “You don’t understand. It’s not about me, they all would die to keep me alive, that’s what brothers and sisters do for each other.”
“Not all brothers,” Geo said and felt his gut sink. He quickly shoved down the thoughts that threatened to come back to the surface. “Someone has to look after those in the church.”
“If none of us make it back, then there will be no one to look after.” Klara turned to look at him, her brown hair matted to her head even more. “Will you fight with us?”
“No choice really, my goal lies beyond the drieger.”
“What is your goal?”
He thought for a moment. “To end this. To be free again.”
“Free…? I’m scared of being free.” A faint smile crossed her lips. “I wouldn’t know what to do if I was free of my vows. They’re my guidance day to day.”
“You’d be able to continue if you didn’t have them. Freedom isn’t as scary as it seems.”
She looked him up and down and the smile faded. “Have you ever truly been free? It doesn’t look like it.”
“What do you mean?” he asked and was annoyed at being questioned. He’d been free fr
om everyone on the station before he let others join him.
She stepped from the railing and looked almost timid which didn’t fit her severe features. “I mean nothing by it. Forget it. I’m just jittery.”
“I’d like to hear what you were thinking,” Geo said and the cold gaze she gave him sent a shiver down his spine.
“You do not want to know what I think.”
“I do.”
She cocked her head and then shrugged. “You’re a child. Just the way you talk and interact with those around and the world in general is child-like. You fight, but with little skill. You’ve learned to kill and defend yourself but it’s not out of a desire to fight to help, but because you think that’s what’s required of you or that you think it’s your only option—”
“Okay, thanks—”
“I’m not finished. You asked what I think, so let me finish,” she said and he swallowed hard and nodded. “You remind me of my little brother in a lot of ways. He didn't get it either. No one is going to fight for you, Geo, not if you can’t fight for yourself and for your own reasons. If you’re just here because you have to be you’ll never reach your goal.”
Her words stung worse than any attack he had taken so far. He actually felt like she had taken a hot knife to his very core and it made his stomach uneasy. He took a deep breath and faced the city again. “You sound like Peyton.”
“The fox woman you travel with?” she asked and he nodded. “She seems wise.”
“Ha, yeah… wise,” he snorted. “So, what’s your suggestion?”
“Stop waiting for the heavens to open up and save you. Our Mistress talks of a heaven beyond this, but I have little faith in it. The only thing we can gain here in this world is gained with our two hands and perseverance. It might not be enough… but it’s all we really have. I wish it was so easy as to hide in the rain from everything.”
“It can be,” Geo said, thinking back to his time on the station alone.
Klara turned and placed a hand to his shoulder and squeezed. “No, crying for rain won’t help you. Facing the sun is the only way to destroy darkness.”
She walked off leaving him standing in the fading light as he turned her words over in his head.
Crying For Rain
It took hours to reach the spot, but when they did, the group found far more than they bargained for. The area was a crater in the middle of the city and surrounded by waterfalls created by the drenching rain. Buildings were tipping into the hole with stone and tiny streaming littering the bottom. Among that stone stood so many drieger that the group collectively froze at the lip of the crater.
“I count six,” Audra said and stepped up to the edge. A block shifted free when her foot pushed against it and fell with a faint splash. “Seven now.”
“Now?” Geo asked and stepped beside her. In the center of the crater was a large blue square that seemed to flicker in and out of existence. From it crawled another drieger, it looked like the one that he and Peyton had killed in the dungeon days before. “You were right about respawning, so it’s coming from that thing?”
“Looks like that mania cube, doesn’t it?” Peyton said. “That can’t be a good thing.”
“We knew about that square there,” Audra said with a hand toward the flickering cube. “But we didn’t know about the mania cubes until now. It sort of fits, this is where everything went wrong on this floor.”
“It explains the crater,” Peyton said.
“How does that explain the crater?” Geo asked as he bent to look over the edge. There were actual holes between the stone with black patches showing beneath, almost as there was no world beneath them.
“It’s a corruption of the world, not just the creatures. This is where the boss room should have been,” Audra said and came to stand next to him. “Those cubes you found are spreading the corruption through the world.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning our aim has changed,” she turned on a heel and faced the group of hunters. She walked into the group and disappeared from sight, but every hunter turned to follow her as if waiting for her to say something. Whatever it was Geo couldn’t hear it over the rain, but he caught Klara’s eye who gave him a faint smile before turning her back on him
“Made a friend?” Peyton asked as she bumped his shoulder. Her tail was wagging behind her and sent sprays of rain water at him each time.
“Just someone I spoke to.”
“We speak all the time and you don’t look at me like that,” she said, but he ignored her and turned back to the crater. “Okay, don’t tell me. I’m just glad you talked to someone else for once.”
“These things will be a problem,” he said and gestured toward the drieger moving about like packs of dogs, sniffing and searching the rubble. “What the hell are we supposed to do against that stupid cube?”
“Destroy it,” Peyton said with a shrug.
“That’s genius. Never would have thought of it.”
“Ha-ha. We’ll have to find a way to do so. If this is the boss room, then that’s our way to the next floor.”
“And what is the next floor?,”
Peyton ran her top lip over her bottom teeth. “That’s a good question. What was it in the world before?”
He had to think hard for a minute because he rarely left the upper control area of the station. He pictured the station map and pieced together the name. “Education and child care.”
“You have children here?”
He shook his head. “This was supposed to be a huge mining operation on that moon out there. They have all sorts of stuff like that on station that is just gathering dust.”
“Sounds like a waste of money,” Peyton said and before Geo could agree, Audra came back to them.
“I’m splitting my hunters into groups, six to each. I’d like you two to be part of my group as we’re going straight for the cube.” Three hunters stepped up behind her. Klara, Tavin and one other hunter that Geo didn’t recognize. “I’m bringing the new bloods with us since I need my most experienced hunters keeping the drieger busy. As such, I could use two people who know their way around a weapon and a drieger.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Geo asked as he looked over the group of hunters. Klara narrowed her eyes at him, but he held the glare before looking back to Audra.
“They have more experience now, I think it’ll be fine,” Audra said as she stepped up to the edge. She took off her pack and twelve other hunters mirrored her as they went to the edge of the crater. From their packs they removed ropes that they tossed over the side and then tied off.
Like the well train soldiers they were, the groups lined up behind their leaders and each went over the side without hesitation. Audra was the first in Geo’s group, followed by Tavin and the hunter he didn’t know. Klara came up behind Geo as Peyton moved to take the rope.
“No crying for rain, right?”
He regarded her and then slowly nodded. She patted his shoulder and went to pick up the rope. Geo followed and struggled to make his way down without falling. When his feet touched solid ground, he felt a chill run though his very core..
The battle cries came from everywhere in the crater. Geo turned to see groups of black garbed hunters dash across the rubble and meeting the drieger, who were screaming in inhuman ways.
The driegers drew first blood. The lust drieger that Geo and Peyton had met in the dungeon used its vine-like appendages to skewer two of the hunters that were attacking it. The rest of the group gave their dead comrades only a passing look of sadness before changing tactics.
In the battle death came swiftly for the human side, but slowly they whittled away the driegers so that they were starting to fall. Two were already dead by the time Geo’s group came within yards of the cube. The price for those two monsters going down was too high, Geo thought.
The group slid to a stop and Audra looked over the area. Geo did the same, but if there was something to see, he couldn’t find it. When Audra seem
ed satisfied she took her pack off again and from it removed two canisters with some rope on one end. She tossed one to Geo.
“Time for some experiments.”
“I never liked experimenting on anything,” he said as he adjusted his grip on the canister so he could catch the match she tossed his way. “But, hell, let’s see what happens.”
“That’s the spirit,” she said as she struck her match on a piece of stone. “Ten second fuse, try to throw it so it explodes just when it would hit.”
“How the hell do I do that?”
“Take a guess,” she said and held the flame of her match to the canister. The rope caught and burned quickly. Audra leaned back, counted about five seconds and then tossed it as hard as she could at the cube.
He couldn’t explain why, but as soon as the canister hit, he knew something would happen and it wouldn’t be what they had hoped for. The feeling was deep in his bones and he reacted before fulling thinking. He dropped the canister and match and pulled his shield from his back and strapped it to his arm in one quick motion.
The next second he saw the canister smack the wall of cube which caused the surface to ripple like a puddle. When the canister exploded, the flash was brilliant and Geo called on his
A ball of fire came from the cube as if it was reflecting the energy of the blast and somehow enhancing it. The explosion changed from orange and yellow to a blue flare that hit his shield wall so hard that it almost knocked him to the ground.
Then the blast was pulled back in, as if it had never existed. It also took someone with it. He glimpsed Audra being pulled through his shield wall, almost as if she was stuck to the flare as it was pulled back into the cube’s core. She didn’t make a sound, but he could see the fear in her face as she disappeared beneath the now still surface of the cube.
