Forever Fantasy Online

by Rachel Aaron

  Marvelous green light bathed the dusty road, and the gnoll’s sundered face started to reconstruct itself. Watching it, James nearly lost his lunch. It was one thing to see this stuff in a movie, but actually being present for bones and flesh knitting back together was almost too gross for him to take.

  Fighting not to barf, he heard a cracking noise as his earthen hand spell from earlier finally ran out of magic and began to crumble. Shaking off the nausea, James forced himself to pick up Arbati’s knife with his good hand. To do what, though, he couldn’t say. After what had just happened, killing anything else felt forever off the table.

  To his left, the magical light of the healing spell finally faded, and the gnoll he’d almost killed got up. It touched its paws to its healed face in wonder, then it grabbed its fallen ax and yelped at its buddy. The two gnolls barked and whined at each other for several seconds, eyeing James the entire time. They were both distracted, leaving James a prime opening to attack with his knife, but he didn’t move. Instead, he stood there, staring at the gnolls until, with a final bark, they both turned tail and ran, vanishing into the tall grass as swiftly and silently as rabbits.

  James could have collapsed from the relief, but he didn’t have time. Up the road, Arbati was still under attack. James was about to go help him when the warrior beheaded the last gnoll, roaring like a lion as the hyena-man’s head bounced across the rutted dirt road. It was still rolling when Arbati whirled on James.

  “You traitor!” he bellowed. “I knew you couldn’t be—” The warrior’s rampage was cut off as he fell to the ground, his body shaking violently as white foam began to froth from his open mouth.

  “Shit!” James ran to the seizing warrior’s side. One look at the energies flowing through Arbati’s body confirmed that the arrow still stuck in Arbati’s leg was indeed poisoned. He didn’t see any of the black death magic that had covered Lilac’s wound, or the cinders of the ghostfire, but the poison would still kill him if James didn’t act fast.

  Arbati’s lips were turning gray when James jammed his knife handle into the warrior’s mouth to stop the jubatus’s sharp teeth from puncturing his tongue. When he was sure the warrior wouldn’t choke, he frantically attempted another cleansing spell. His right arm was still an aching, bleeding mess, so he had to grit his teeth and do it one-handed. Again.

  He botched his first attempt due to his nervous shaking. Seedlings of grass started to sprout around them as wasted nature and water magics spilled on the ground. The second casting held together, though, flowing through Arbati like a gentle stream as James swept the poison out of his blood and into the ground.

  Arbati’s violent shaking stopped the moment the poison was gone, but the head warrior didn’t wake up. Nervous, James checked the jubatus’s breathing and pulse. Both felt fine, or at least what he assumed was fine for jubatus anatomy, and his life energy was still strong and bright despite the blood loss.

  Satisfied Arbati wouldn’t die in the immediate future, James slumped to the ground against the body of his dead runner. For several minutes, all he could do was stare at the four blackened corpses his lightning had made. Even with the constant wind off the savanna, the foul smell of charred flesh and burned fur hung over the road like a judgment, twisting his stomach into knots. He would have sat there forever if the terrible ache of his arm hadn’t forced him back to the present.

  The wave of dizziness when he looked down reminded James that he was still seriously bleeding. When he examined his bicep, though, all he found was a deep gash, which made no sense. He’d been struck head on with an ax at the end of a two-handed swing. The gnolls weren’t weak. That blow should have shattered his bone and sinews, leaving his arm useless, but James could still move his fingers just fine. Other than blood loss and the pain of the cut itself, he’d taken almost no damage. Lifting his arm, he marveled at the bright, colorful energies he could see inside his body. Until he saw how those same beautiful green, gold, and blue flows were leaking out of his arm onto the ground.

  “Shit,” James muttered, quickly pulling together more life magic. As the green glow blossomed across his right side, he was almost blown away by the euphoria. The moment the healing magic touched him, the whole world grew brighter, smelled better, and sounded clearer. All the pain was gone, leaving only a perfect feeling of rightness and contentment. It was easily the best high he’d ever had, and James lost himself in it for the entire twelve seconds the spell lasted.

  As the green magic faded, the world returned to its normal burnt-hair-and-sticky-blood smells. His arm still ached, but he wasn’t bleeding anymore. Just deeply bruised. Still, James was amazed by the spell’s effectiveness. Without his gear, it should barely have done anything. Of course, without his gear, James had a tiny health pool, which meant tiny spells would work on him just fine.

  “A dollar is a feast for a beggar,” he muttered, rubbing his arm.

  Of everything left over from the game, James was most grateful for strong healing spells. Thinking back on the battle, he wondered if he was stuck in the Naturalist’s healing specialization. It was impossible to tell without the interface, but being a full healer would explain why he only had one offensive lightning spell and why it took so much of his mana to use. That was fine with him, though. Having no good attack magics sucked, but James would take healing abilities over lightning any day, especially since this battle had confirmed that he could now fight with whatever weapon he could pick up.

  That thought made him smile. James didn’t want to go around axing people—especially not after what had happened with the gnoll—but being able to defend himself in hand-to-hand combat was a game changer. He might not be much of a spell-slinger, but James had been practicing martial arts since he was a kid. His character was much stronger than he’d been back in the real world, too, though James wasn’t sure how that strength stacked up here. Arbati, for example, was clearly much stronger than he was. Still, it felt good to know he had options.

  Thinking about Arbati made James look down at his companion. The huge cat-warrior was lying on his back in the dirt, completely out. Part of James wanted to leave him that way, but as dearly as he would have loved to ditch the hate-fueled jerk, he’d vowed to kill the lich at Red Canyon, and as a gearless healer, there was no way he was pulling that off without Arbati.

  With a grimace, James started weaving more healing spells around himself and his abusive chaperon. Flourishes of green light and vibrant euphoria filled James again and again as the pain was washed away. As glorious as it all was, he was still grossed out watching arrows remove themselves and seeing bloody gashes regenerate, but at least he didn’t feel the need to barf again.

  Eventually, his mana ran out. He was trying to gauge if he’d managed to heal them enough when Arbati’s eyes snapped open, locking on James with a look of pure, furious hate.

  “You filthy traitor.”

  Chapter 7

  Tina

  “Bring it and see, cunt.”

  There wasn’t much to say after that. Tina raised her shield and charged the Berserker, whose name she still didn’t know. He lifted his ax to meet her, bracing his feet in the dusty road. They met with a crash like two trains colliding. Tina’s charge was as powerful as a big rig, but Berserkers wore a lot more Strength gear than she did, and it showed. He met her charge with a swing of his ax directly into her shield, throwing her off balance with raw power.

  As she struggled to keep her guard up, Tina saw the other players forming a circle around them. The nearest was only about fifteen feet to her right. She hoped they had the sense to move back. The last thing she needed was for someone’s arm to get chopped off by accident, but she had no attention to spare worrying about bystanders. She had to look out for herself, ducking behind her massive shield as the Berserker swung for her head.

  His excessive strength made his oversize weapon much quicker than it should have been. The seven-foot ax came at her lightning fast, and as polished as Tina’s parry skills were, s
he still wasn’t quick enough. Her shield came up a split second too late, allowing the club-sized butt of his giant ax to slip over its edge and slam into the side of her head.

  Tina’s skull rang as her vision went blurry. By pure luck and years of battle instinct, she turned her shield to the right in time to block the next strike, but the Berserker was roaring now, his eyes flashing red as he began hammering on her with his weapon like he was trying to pound her into the dirt.

  The ring of steel was constant and deafening. Tina took most of the hits on her giant shield, but his ax nailed her across the shoulder at least twice, leaving two huge gouges in her three-inch-thick shoulder plates. It was a terrifying reminder that players did a lot more damage than normal monsters, but his constant attacks meant she had no chance to strike back without risking her defense.

  But taking damage was what Tina did. She’d never bothered with PVP back when FFO was a game, which meant she had zero experience fighting other players, but the habits and instincts she’d honed over years of tanking came to her rescue. As soon as the damage started leaking through, Tina drew strength from the stones at her feet and put it into her body just as she’d done against the skeletons. The stonekin’s Earthen Fortitude ability hardened her whole being with the toughness of the Bedrock Kings, turning her normally glowing magical armor and bright-copper hair as gray as the stone at her feet.

  This didn’t stop the Berserker’s ax from falling. At least the blows only dinged her now instead of gouging, but even though he was doing no damage, he kept the onslaught up. Even after his red-glowing eyes returned to normal, he just kept hacking away at her as though he was trying to hew down a tree.

  “GG, Care Bear!” he taunted, slamming his ax down on her stone head. “You blew that ability way too early! We’re just getting started!”

  Inside her shell of rock, Tina huffed. He was right. Earthen Fortitude’s long cooldown meant it couldn’t be used in rapid succession, and it only lasted for six seconds. It was also as obvious as hell, which meant the moment it started to fade, her opponent knew. The Berserker’s eyes gleamed in delight as the last of the dull bedrock color faded from her armor, and he swung his ax high over his head for a downward chop. Watching it fall, Tina cursed silently. The bastard clearly knew about the half second when Earthen Fortitude ended but she still couldn’t fully move. What he didn’t know, though, was that full movement wasn’t necessary. Since Tina had frozen with her shield up, all she had to do was lift her arm a few inches higher to catch his big attack square in the center of her bulwark.

  The impact vibrated all the way down to her feet, but her shield was a rare drop from Grel’Darm the Colossal’s bonus chest, which only became available during certain achievements. It was the best in the game, and the Berserker’s giant ax bounced off it like a pinball. Cursing, he tried a hooking strike at her right side next. Tina turned to meet it with her sword, but the attack was a feint. The moment she moved, he spun the ax in his hands like it didn’t weigh a hundred damn pounds, reversing the strike to smack her hand with the butt of the weapon.

  The blow stung like hell. If Tina hadn’t had metal for bones, it would have crushed her hand, gauntlet or no. But while her fingers weren’t broken, the attack still made her hand go numb, causing her sword to slip from weakened fingers.

  The blade landed on the road at her feet with a ringing clatter, the red runes on its edge shining angrily through the dust. Her first instinct was to dive down to pick it up again, but Tina knew better than to take her eyes off her opponent. She backed up instead, circling to avoid backing into the cheering players behind her.

  The moment she started to retreat, the Berserker roared again, his eyes flashing red. Tina had never played a Berserker, so she couldn’t remember exactly what that ability did, but it had been bad news the last time he’d used it, and she didn’t have Earthen Fortitude this time. Desperate and weaponless, she braced both hands behind her shield and rushed him for a shield slam. She was just hoping to knock him off balance and waste his cooldown, so she was surprised when the impact knocked the six-foot-six human right off his feet, sending him flying several yards across the road before landing on his back.

  Tina blinked in amazement. Shield Slam had never done anything like that in the game. Now that real physics was involved, though, it made sense. Humans—even giant muscle-bound idiots like this one—were hundreds of pounds lighter than a stonekin. Add in her armor and door-sized shield, and Roxxy was a freight train. No wonder the guy had been sent flying. He wouldn’t stay down for long, though.

  Across the road, the Berserker was already rolling back to his feet. Cursing herself for getting distracted, Tina took what was left of the opening she’d made to dive for her sword. She grabbed it just as her opponent stood up, and they started circling each other. Tina was sure he was just buying time for his stun and disarm abilities to refresh so he could do all of that to her again, but she had no idea how to stop him. Everything she had—her abilities, her gear, even her weapon—was designed to let her take damage, not dish it out. She had to figure something out quickly, though. Even she couldn’t defend forever, and if she didn’t figure out how to turn this fight around soon, she wouldn’t be able to at all.

  ****

  SilentBlayde was having a hard time watching Roxxy get her ass kicked. He shifted anxiously from foot to foot, his hands white-knuckled on the hilts of his blades, but he couldn’t do anything. This was Tina’s duel. If he tried to help, he’d do more harm than good.

  It was a shame, too, because he could have ended this in seconds. As was appropriate for a highly geared and good-looking Assassin such as himself, SB had done a lot of player-versus-player. Tina, however, had not. It was the only part of FFO that she hated, so he’d never pushed. Watching her get chewed up now, though, SB deeply regretted all those times he’d let her turn down his invitations to fight in the arenas.

  The Berserker—a player SB knew was named Killbox, though he didn’t remember much else—was actually pretty good. He’d opened with a stun, then he’d used his most damaging ability, Frenzied Strikes, while she couldn’t defend properly. Finally, just when Roxxy had been about to recover her defense, Killbox had disarmed her. It was a textbook player-versus-player takedown, and Tina was falling for it like a newbie.

  “She’s gonna die,” NekoBaby said beside him, biting her lip with her sharp cat teeth. When Killbox’s ax took another chunk out of Roxxy’s armor, the Naturalist squeaked. “That’s it. I’m healing her.”

  “Don’t,” SB said sharply, grabbing her staff.

  “Why not?” Neko hissed.

  “Because if you heal Roxxy, it’s going to undermine her whole point here. Worse, if you heal Roxxy, then someone sympathetic to Killbox will heal him.”

  NekoBaby bristled. “You think I can’t out-heal Anders or David? Just ‘cause my robe is busted doesn’t mean I’m gimped. Can’t loot skillz!”

  “That’s not it,” SB said, nodding at the circle of players watching the fight, a good number of whom were cheering for Killbox, not Roxxy. “If you heal her, and someone else heals him, what’s to stop others from taking sides as well? This whole thing could dissolve into a brawl if people start jumping in.”

  “Like him?” the jubatus healer asked, flicking her ears toward the other side of the circle.

  SB looked where Neko’s ears were pointing. Sure enough, on the opposite side of the fight, one of their clerics, a Roughneck named David, was quietly gathering golden light in his hands.

  “Yeah, like him,” SilentBlayde said quietly. “Be right back.”

  With that, he stepped down into the shadows at their feet. It was a strange feeling. The dark was cold and slick, like jumping into a pool of crude oil. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. The Assassin class’s ability to move through the Lightless Realm had always been questionable. He often heard things whispering as he walked on the opposite side of the light. Back when this was a game, SB had always assumed they were just a
mbient sound effects to make sneaking through shadows feel more dangerous and mysterious. But things were real now, and the whispers were still there, making him distinctly on edge as he walked through the shadowy reflection of the world.

  The fight was below his feet now, the duelists’ movements moving below him like reflections in dark water. Time was distorted on this side, letting him watch Roxxy block a hit from Killbox’s ax in slow motion. He breathed a sigh a relief as the blade slid off her shield before turning back to his goal.

  His target was a short, blue-scaled ichthyian fish-man. David was a friend under other circumstances, and a long-time raider in their guild. But while SB usually enjoyed playing with him, the Cleric was famous for being a first-rate troll. He was at it again now, his bulging fish eyes locked on Killbox’s wide back as he gathered golden magic for his healing spell. SB wasn’t sure if David was planning to heal the Berserker out of legitimate sympathy or just to screw with Roxxy, but either way, he couldn’t allow this to continue.

  David’s spell was almost complete when SB stepped out of the shadows behind him and pressed his sword against the Cleric’s back, the blade sliding discreetly under the fish-man’s white-and-gold cloak to rest between his shoulder blades. Blue scales shimmered as his target jumped in surprise, but SB’s other hand had already grabbed his arm, pinning him in place.

  “You’re casting that healing spell for the blisters on your feet right?” he whispered in David’s ear hole. “Because I know you aren’t thinking of doing something so unfair as to heal Killbox.”

  David lowered his glowing hands with a sigh. “When did you become Roxxy’s dog, ’Blayde?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder. “This is sad, even for you.”