“Miss Malikah, are you ready? I’m sending the link,” Zhi said.
“I am.”
The link appeared in the HUD. Sidrie connected. She saw through the eyes of the GMs in a spilt screen as if she were in both places.
The first GM was standing among the ruins of a village. Dvergr corpses littered the ground. Several baby drakes were tearing at the bodies. One of them cocked its head to regard the GM before continuing to feed.
“Get me a record of who was here and who did this,” Sidrie ordered.
The record popped up in another minute. She perused the list. Dozens of players had passed through the area earlier. But one set of names in a group stood out. Drelan Frost, Gilda Mordian, Saba Nerubi, and Dante Blackblade. Chasing them was Setnana Botros. It was she and her Battleguards who had decimated the village.
“Show me the minutes leading up to the anomaly at the village.”
The video changed. Battleguards were slaughtering dvergar. Women and children tried to flee but were cut down. Setnana Botros was speaking to a dvergr who was spread-eagled on a stone slab, his arms, body, and legs bound. The Nomarch leaned over the man’s chest and made an incision with her haladie–a shadowmancer’s small double-bladed dagger–and proceeded to skin him. Her eyes were dead things as she worked, humming to herself the entire time.
Sidrie’s lips parted. She had eyes only for Setnana and the exquisite work the gameborn was performing. The Nomarch was an artist in a trance, drawing a masterpiece, bringing life to canvas. Setnana’s breath caught.
“Dr. Redmond, Setnana is D1030, correct?” Sidrie whispered. “Developed from one of the FPC’s Mid Ward babies? One of the first we had with her pedigree?”
“Yes.”
She had not needed to ask. She knew all there was to know about the best gameborn. “She is perfect. When her task is done in game, prep her for some time out of it. We must acquaint her to this world.”
“Yes, Miss Malikah,” Dr. Redmond said.
“The anomaly, Miss Malikah,” Zhi Yin reminded Sidrie.
Sidrie shook herself and tore her gaze away from Setnana. “Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Yes.” Squinting, she analyzed everything in the immediate vicinity but saw nothing abnormal. She frowned. “Everything and everyone is as they should be. I don’t understand.”
Dismissing the first feed, Sidrie focused on the second GM. She was inside the entrance to Imanok Sanctum, standing before a vast pool covered in algae. From outside came the sounds of a dying battle.
“Here?” Sidrie asked. “The other anomaly was right here?”
“Yes,” Zhi Yin said.
“Show me a recording of just before and during the time of the anomaly. Add a timer to the moment it spawned. Tell me the exact second it did.”
Another video feed appeared in her HUD. A clock counted down the minutes. Frost and his group approached the pool.
Two minutes.
Frost stood at the pool’s edge, staring off at nothing. Saba, Dante, and a dvergr girl waded into the pool and then dived.
One minute.
Frost was still standing there in a trance until Gilda shook him.
Thirty seconds. Sidrie narrowed her eyes, her pulse quickening as she waited for an answer to a nagging problem.
Frost told Gilda something about Barbados and Hurricane Perol. Gilda mentioned the way TNT worked.
Ten seconds. Sidrie leaned forward.
Abruptly, the screen turned to a muddled bunch of waves, the voices to unrecognizable sounds.
“No. Damn it. No. What happened? Get the feed back.”
“That is the feed,” Zhi Yin said. “There was some sort of interference that scrambled the video.”
“Can’t we unscramble it?”
“I can try, but it’ll take time. You should also know that there was a short set of code.”
“Estela,” Sidrie said.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“The code in question.” Sidrie had a hunch. “Compare its signature to the tiny bit we pulled when Alphonso uploaded into Ataxia before his accident.”
A moment of silence followed.
“It is a match.”
“As I thought.” Sidrie let out a heavy sigh. You thwart me at every turn, even in your absence, she thought. She could picture Alphonso smiling at her frustration. But I have a lead now. And I will beat you yet.
The feed cleared. Holding hands, Frost and Gilda waded into the water and dived.
Sidrie turned at the sound of voices and marching feet echoing down the hallway. Nomarch Setnana Botros and her Battleguards entered Imanok Sanctum. Sidrie smiled. She anticipated the clash between the gameborn and the testers.
CHAPTER 33
Frost made to warn Gilda as she surfaced beside him. But she was already looking at the void wolves and the draconid. Keeping an eye on the pack, he waded through algae toward the pool’s edge, careful not to make any sudden movement or splash. He and Gilda eased from the water and crept over beside Dante and Sigrid.
“Where’s Saba?” Frost said, voice low. He peeked around the corner. The void wolves stalked back toward their master.
“Concealed in the space between this pillar and the next.” Dante jutted his chin toward the area in question. “Arrow nocked and ready in case the pack got wind of you when you surfaced.”
“Good thinking,” Frost said.
“Didn’t expect to see draconids here,” Dante said. “Saba wasn’t too happy about them.”
Frost chuckled. “Saba’s never happy about anything dangerous. Gilda, were they here last time?”
“Not when I ran it. But I’ve heard about the possibility.”
“Alright.” Frost took another quick peek then pulled back. “I got a feeling the dvergar won’t be able to hold off Setnana and her Battleguards much longer, so we gotta make this quick. I wanna be at least a few rooms ahead of her so they gotta fight off respawns. Saba, you can hear me, right?”
“Yes,” she answered in little more than a whisper.
“Pull the lead wolf and run all the way to that wall.” He pointed to the far right. “Dante, Raging Rush to intercept the grunt without engaging the wolves. Off-tank him while we handle the pack, then we’ll finish him off.”
“Got it,” Dante said.
“Sigrid, once Dante goes, you’re gonna take up a spot between him and us where you can focus on healing him but still be able throw us a heal or two if we need it.”
“Yes, sir.” She put on a brave voice and a serious face but her hands shook. She already had the blue nebulous motes of the Heal over Time spell, Mikander’s Tears, hovering above her left hand. Above the right were the red motes of Mikander’s Blood, a direct heal that granted a set amount of health in one shot.
“You’ll do fine.” Frost reached down and squeezed her shoulder. “You won’t ever be in harm’s way. I believe in you.”
Sigrid’s face brightened. She stood a bit straighter. “Thank you.”
“Give us a countdown, Saba,” Frost said.
The void wolves reached the top of their patrol, turned, and headed back down to the draconid.
“Three,” came Saba’s soft voice. “Two. One.”
An Aether Arrow’s pale blue glow streaked from the seemingly empty air of Saba’s position. It flew across the distance toward the trailing wolf that was standing on its hind legs, sniffing the air. The arrow exploded into the back of the animal’s head, leaving a burst of arcane sparks.
The beast yowled, staggered for a moment, and then spun. Its packmates also turned, fangs bared. The void wolves paused for all of a second before they threw their heads back, howled, then bounded down the flagstoned walkway toward Saba who had done away with her Concealment and was sprinting to the far wall.
Behind the pack, the draconid grunt roared a challenge with his arms spread wide. He took off after the wolves, long strides eating up the distance between the pillars, humongous mist sword in one hand as if it weighed nothing. His footsteps reverberated off the flagstones.
The moment the last void wolf passed the hiding spot, Dante stepped around the pillar, skin flaring from crimson to scarlet. He Raging Rushed toward the draconid, becoming an eight-foot red blur swinging a crescent axe.
Frost didn’t wait to see the giants collide. “Get in position, Sigrid,” he said as he strode in the opposite direction from Dante and the dvergr, focused on the void wolves.
The wolves were moments away from pouncing on Saba when white lightning surged around them. Ensnared and hurt by the marksman’s Lightning Trap, they yowled and whimpered, trying for all they were worth to reach their prey but only able to move a few inches at a time.
Bracing himself for recoil, Frost opened fire with Divergence’s five Aether Shot spread and followed with Aether Bomb and Concussion Blast. Even as the shots hit their targets, the Aether Bomb exploded among the wolves with a whomp. Covered in flames, they yowled and yipped, trying to run this way and that but unable to do so because of the Lightning Trap. Concussion Blast impacted a second later. A hollow boom. The ability staggered a bunch of wolves and knocked them into the air.
Beside him, Gilda was casting, her chakrams alive with blue and red luminance. Ice and Flame Globes shot forth, following their intended targets whether on the ground or still suspended from the Blast. In moments, the pack was nothing more than a bunch of carcasses leaking dark and light tendrils. Aether drifted into the air, swirling, before zipping into Frost and the others.
Frost ignored the IM concerning exp gain and the building of Aether Overload as he and the others turned their attention to Dante and the draconid. The gurash wore a smile and appeared to be thoroughly enjoying the duel. The two circled each other, attacking and countering.
Sigrid flicked her hand out, sending a blue mote of Mikander’s Tears into Dante. Mist rose from him when it landed. The HoT spell would rejuvenate his health periodically, ticking every few seconds.
Frost was tempted to allow Dante to solo the elite monster. The thought lingered for but a moment. Time was against them. Setnana and her Battleguards would have finished off the dvergar by now. Frost waited for Dante to turn the draconid until its back was to the group before he started his attack. The others followed suit. Between the five of them, they made short work of the creature.
“A ruined mist sword.” Dante held up the only loot available from the corpse.
“You know what they say,” Frost said, “a ruined hierka is better than no hierka.”
Dante shrugged. “Maybe. But I got a thing for my axe. I’ll keep the sword to sell on the Market.” The mist sword disappeared into his inventory.
“I’ll go skin those void wolves,” Saba said. “I know a leathersmith who could craft me some rare armor.”
“No time,” Frost said. “We gotta get to the next room.”
Even as he said the words, he checked the pool. An erada man’s head broke the algae’s surface. The man’s eyes widened as he took them in. A moment later his hand rose, a glowing blue chakram in it. Before Frost could open fire or shout, an arrow blossomed in the man’s eye. He sunk beneath the algae.
“Nice shot,” Dante said to Saba.
“Damn it,” Frost growled. “Even if we clear the next room, they’ll be here before this one respawns.” He tried to think of a way to stall the Battleguards.
“I have an idea,” Saba said.
“If it involves running away, there’s only two ways to go.” Frost pointed. “Deeper in or back the way we came.”
“No running away this time.”
“Really? No running?” Frost looked at her askance.
“I didn’t say no running. I said no running away.”
Frost blew out an exasperated breath. “Alright, let’s hear it.”
She pointed toward the roofed colonnade. “There’s a niche in the wall on the other side of those pillars. Hide there. Let Setnana and her Battleguards come in.”
“We can’t fight them here,” Frost protested. “Not if we wanna win.”
“Who said anything about fighting?”
“Then what–”
“I’m going full Leeroy Jenkins in the next three or four rooms, running back here into Setnana’s group, and then whoosh… Concealment.”
“You’re mad,” Dante said. “And I like it.” He grinned, showing his canines.
Frost wanted to tell her no, that they would clear the way as fast as they could then pick a better place to fight. But he knew the odds were against them. Saba’s method would help with that. If she succeeded.
“What do you think?” Frost asked Gilda.
She shrugged. “I like.”
“Alright, let’s do it.”
They headed to the roofed colonnade. From the walkway they had a good view into the next room. Where the colonnade’s pillars ended, there was another draconid grunt, two void wolf packs, and six nalarr. If a god had stripped the fur from a sabretooth tiger, made it stand on two legs, and carry a great axe, then he would have made the nalarr. Their red, white, or blue bodies rippled with muscle.
Dante whistled. “You said three or four rooms, right?”
“Yep.” Saba was staring ahead, her face a grim mask.
“Either this is going to be epic,” Dante said, shaking his head, “or you’re going to be very dead. Go big or go home, I guess.”
They continued to the wall and followed it to where it appeared to end in six joined pillars. But the wall formed a corner at the first pillar, continued on for about eight feet, then made another corner extending behind the six pillars and out over the pool. Saba’s niche was the space between the pillars and the wall. They squeezed into that space.
“Don’t peek out,” Saba instructed. “No matter how tempting. No matter what you hear. You don’t want the Battleguards or the mobs seeing you beforehand. I’ll shout go right before I use Concealment.”
“Yelling go is lame,” Dante chided. “It ain’t a Leeroy without the Leeeerrrroooyyy.”
“You got it.” Saba grinned. And then she was gone.
Silence followed. The quiet stretched like yards of linen wrapped tight around the mummified remains of sound. A rag stuffed into a mouth. Stifling. Within that quiet lived disquiet, their every breath loud to Frost’s ears, his heartbeat a thunderous monotone, the stink of their bodies and sweatiness as boisterous as any noise. The silence spanned an eternity.
And then, a splash. A voice. Several voices. Many more splashes. The telltale sound of swimming. A deep male baritone shouted orders. Footsteps reverberated in a pattern that spoke of formations.
A chorus of howls and roars echoed from deeper within the Sanctum. Faint at first. But they grew. The howls drew closer and closer. Louder. Frost’s blood curdled as he imagined the number of void wolves and nalarr needed for such a ruckus, the number of beasts chasing Saba.
Setnana and her people in the room must have heard the monsters because the baritone shouted for quiet. The howls and roars were clear now. As were the bellows and screeches of something or some things much bigger. Far more dangerous.
Orders for men to form up came in a flurry. Booted footsteps hurried to comply. Armor and weapons jangled.
The howls and roars echoed from the room before the colonnade. Frost felt the beasts through the floor, a resounding dissonance for which it was impossible to attribute an exact number. There could be dozens of elite mobs. The thought dried his mouth. And yet he wanted to laugh. A smile formed despite his racing heartbeat.
“This is going to be epic,” Dante whispered, mirth in his voice.
“They won’t know what hit �
�em,” Gilda added.
Seconds later, the enormous lure was galloping down the roofed colonnade. Their footsteps were thunder, joined by the raucous dissonance of their screeches, roars, howls, yips, and snarls. Frost felt the malevolence rolling from them, the violence, the need to rip and tear. Slaughter. He prayed that the waiting Battleguards did not open fire with their spells and aether cannons the moment they saw something, anything, between the pillars. That first thing would be Saba.
“LEEEROYYY JENNKINNNS!” Saba yelled above the tumult. Her scream was followed by the unleashing of spells and cannon fire.
Frost eased forward and peeked around the pillar. The room was chaos. Void wolves, draconid grunts, nalarr, and much larger draconid overseers with storm lances made up the brunt of the mobs. Towering above them was a hulking void revenant, its appearance that of a raven, its wings draped about it in a great tattered cloak, its face a skull of pure white bone, even its beak.
From within the void revenant’s skull glowed four red eyes. Two dark horns protruded from either side of the skull, curling forward then up and back. Dark tendrils of void energy pulsed between the horns. The void revenant’s wings spread to reveal a humanoid body. In one clawed hand it held a massive war maul. The creature beat those wings once, blowing back several warriors. It charged after them.
In the midst of the Battleguards and Deathguards was a beautiful erada woman in red robes. Not one woman. Six of them. Mimics. They cast Shadow Globe after Shadow Globe, quickly followed by Nether Lances which left black trails in their wake. Shadow Flame burst from several mobs.
Frost’s gaze met hers. In those eyes and writ large upon that face was an air of command. Arrogance. She could be none other than Nomarch Setnana Botros.
Her face contorted into a rage-filled mask at the sight of him. She pointed her haladie in his direction. Shadowy tendrils of aether congealed around her hand and the double-bladed dagger.
Void Legion Page 34
