I love you, Scott. XOXOXO
~ Origin – Also, Rhea and Aria. Uhm... and a few others you might meet... If you're a good boy.
PS: Enclosed is something I thought that you might like. Don't forget what you're fighting for. Hee hee.
PPS: Drink some water. I know you'll be thirsty.
PPPS: Sorry, Shara wanted me to say that last part...
[—]
Scott tapped on the attachment that came with the message. His eyes immediately widened and he thought that his heart might stop for a moment. "Rhea and Aria in low-cut wedding dresses..." Apparently, Origin did not mind sharing if it was with herself. That was good to know for future reference.
The image before him was of Origin in her Rhea and Aria guises. The two forms of his goddess love were wearing wedding dresses and hugging each other in a passionate embrace. Their cheeks were pressed together as they looked out at him longingly.
His face reddened slightly. Whether it was because of the mind-altering effects of ARS or because he had just seen the most absurdly beautiful sight in the world, he did not know. He lifted his Crysta-com and pressed a crystal. "And now you're my background image."
While he fiddled with his phone to set the background he discovered that he had a music folder. He opened it up and found a few musical selections were pre-downloaded.
"Ero's theme...? The High-Elf's Lament?" Scott looked through them then blinked. "The Ballad of Fat Scott?"
He clicked on the last one and listened for a moment as a female voice that he was absolutely certain had to be Shara began to sing. She sang out sweetly in a heartbreaking voice, but the content of the song was ridiculous.
"Our love went away, the day you went to your: Big. Fat. Grave..." The song rose to a powerful crescendo and the music crashed all around him. "Oh—Oooh... Fat Scott, why did you not: Eat. More. Fruit..."
He listened for a moment as she continued to sing and then zeroed in once more when her voice started to rise. "Couldn't you hear the heart behind my bountiful and lonesome breasts...? It was crying out, oh It was calling."
The voice grew somber and sweet at the same time. "Now, soft and lonely, they quiver everyday... here on my chests." The song stopped suddenly and she spoke normally in a soft and questioning tone. "I'm sad, so I can make chest plural right?"
There was a quiet moment followed by a lonesome sigh just before the music started once more. "And in the darkness of my lonely heart... My tears... Won't stop falling..." sang the sweet voice of Shara.
Scott blinked then gazed at his Crysta-com with a flat expression. "Seriously, Shara. What the hell." He kind of wanted to find Shara and give her a big hug, but he also wanted to laugh his ass off. He was so conflicted.
"This thing is fun." said Scott. Sure, it was basically just a smart phone from a fantasy world, but it was still fun.
The message floating in the air disappeared a few minutes later and a glowing doorway appeared. Scott put his Crysta-com in his pocket and then walked through the door. He walked out onto the scene of a back alley. There was a dumpster nearby and an overly large rat currently taking an equally large rat crap off the side of said dumpster. He also saw what looked like a guy who had the head of a bear passed out against a stone wall. He had a bottle of something in his hand that Scott could tell was alcoholic and incredibly sweet from the smell alone, even at the current distance.
"Welcome to the fantasy life." he remarked sarcastically.
He slipped past both rat and drunken bear-headed man, and headed out toward the street beyond. Scott looked around in fascination at the buildings and people around him. The city looked like a strange fantastical version of a near-future Earth. Just down the street he saw a couple of people arguing while standing near a massive elephant-like creature.
He could not hear what they were saying, but the huge elephant-thing sat down on top of what looked to be some sort of vehicle. There was a loud sound that followed immediately after. One of the arguing men started to scream in a high-pitched tone while he pointed at his crushed vehicle.
Scott and several others watched as someone in heavy armor rode up on a vehicle that looked a lot like motorcycle that had no wheels. It hovered like something out of science fiction, though there was the skitter and skirl of electricity underneath the body of the machine.
The officer separate the arguing men, seemed to listen to their story, and then said something to them. The owner of the elephant started arguing with the newcomer. The apparent law enforcement officer reached into a holster on their hip and pulled out a massive firearm that could not have possibly fit into such a small space.
Both men threw up their hands, and surprisingly even the elephant lifted up its forelegs. The officer took something out of his pocket, gave something to each man and the elephant, and then got back on his wheel-less motorcycle. He rode off like that sort of thing was an everyday occurrence.
After the show was over, the gathered crowd departed. Since everyone else went about their business, Scott did the same. He wandered down the street taking in the sights around him.
Eventually, he made his way to what he believed to be a city park. He walked up a set of high stairs to the top of a hill that acted as an overlook. There were couples all over the place, as well as small families. Scott was even surprised by the sight of two fairies buzzing around a small rose bush. Seeing fairies reminded him of Ero and he smiled a little. He missed his best fairy friend.
It was dark out, but the city was aglow with lights and alive with sound. The background music was subdued but had a certain whimsical and fantastic air about it that seemed fitting.
He walked to the edge of the overlook and leaned over the rail. Down below he saw a large pond, and on the pond shore he saw mermaids lazing about while chatting with each other.
"Mummy! Mummy! Whazzat!" asked a little girl excitedly as she pointed down at the mermaids below. They were well lit by a nearby lamp that caused their scales to sparkle and gleam in the light. The little girl was cute. She had a little stubby tail, short hair, and white-furred ears that were rounded but triangular. She also wore a pretty little floral print dress.
"Sweetie, you know that it's not polite to point. We have to be mindful of others and the appearances that we keep." explained the older version of the little girl. She was motherly, but a beautiful young woman with bright blue eyes and gleaming white fangs. She wore a sleeveless dress with a fur-fringe and had her hair done up in an elegant manner.
"But mummy, daddy always says that a honey badger doesn't give a fu—" began the girl in a sweet, but excited tone of voice. Her mother whipped her hand down and covered her mother. "Never mind what your father says, dear."
"Is it because he's low-class, mummy?" asked the little girl, who was apparently kin to a honey badger.
"Yes dear, but not necessarily the sort of class that you're thinking of at the moment." She said it with a warm, motherly, smile. Scott could detect a hint of long-term suffering in her voice, however. Daddy honey badger no doubt caused her no end of concern.
The mother continued to show her daughter around and Scott listened in to their conversation in a casual way. It was not every day that a man heard two honey badger people speak in a faux-British accent. The fact that there was no reason for the accent to exist outside of Earth was even more interesting.
Eventually, the little girl and her mummy wandered off to some other part of the park. Scott stayed in place and continued to people watch. It was a strange, yet familiar, sort of city.
Several hours passed while he stood there on the overlook. If not for the sudden explosion of a nearby building and the panicked screams of terror, he might have stayed there the full nine hours and some change that he needed to wait for Ero and Herbert to log in to ARS.
Scott whipped his head around to the location that the sound had erupted from and saw the devastation of what once had been a substantial building. Nothing but a smoldering ruin remained.
The wind wh
ipped up and soon the formerly cloudless sky became heavily overcast. It was not until someone on the overlook pointed to the sky in the distance and screamed out the words, "Thunder Reign!" that Scott knew where to look.
Hovering in the sky at a good distance was a brightly shining mass of lightning that had taken the form of a bird. A shrieking sound echoed through the air followed by an incredibly bright flash of light. A thunderous sound like an explosion, rocked the air and another tall building took damage. Instead of exploding, it fell sideways and collapsed in a way that blocked the road.
Air raid sirens began to blare loudly and soon a strange blue energy field arose over the city. Scott stood there slack jawed as lightning shot down and slammed against the new shield.
"Hey you!" snapped an authoritative voice. Scott turned and saw a man in heavy black armor rushing over to him. "Get to a shelter now!"
"What's going on?" asked Scott excitedly.
"Do I look like the damned answer police? The Storm Tyrant summoned Thunder Reign, if you don't want to die get underground!" snapped the officer before pointing toward a group of people running toward a small building on the other side of the park.
Scott looked to the officer then the panicked people running toward the structure in the distance. It looked like an oversized subway entrance. He started forward but suddenly he felt the hair on his head and arms beginning to rise up. Static electricity rose all around him.
"Dammit! Go!" snarled the officer before he rushed toward the edge of the overlook. Scott chased after him and followed his lead as the man leapt off the side.
"Fuck Beaaans!" shouted Scott as a bright flash of light erupted from the hilltop. A thunderous explosion drowned out the rest of his obscenity as he hurtled toward the water. Before he hit the surface a wave of force lashed out that sent him skipping across the water like a thrown rock. He skipped twice, was knocked further into the air by a second wave of force and went flying end over end for a brief moment. He flailed his limbs spastically while he screamed for his life. A brief few seconds later he crashed down into the center of the pond with a loud splash.
Scott lost consciousness momentarily, but somehow made it to shore anyway. He did not bother to look back at the ruination that had once been an overlook for the park. He was currently more concerned with saving his own ass. That underground shelter idea sounded quite good right about now.
Chapter 5
Explosions rocked the air as the occasional lightning bolt made it through the city defense field. The warding was powerful, but spread thin due to the necessity of covering such a large area. As time passed it would temporarily weaken in certain areas. When that happened lightning strikes, or worse, managed to get through.
Exploding buildings were bad enough, but the monsters that began to spawn in certain areas would hunt down survivors. They were weak as monsters might go, but compared with many of the less active citizens those monsters were hellish beasts.
Scott, for all of his recent training, was having a tough time of things as he raced through the city in search of a place to hide. Unfortunately for him, he had reached the park shelter too late. The guard turned him away because they were at full capacity. What sort of man turned away another man in a crises because space would be a little cramped? Scott had discovered quite quickly that the city guard valued a little elbow room more than his life.
So it was that the twilight sorcerer fled through streets filled with rampaging monsters, chased by lightning that seemed to follow him exclusively. Though, the latter issue was most likely all in his imagination.
Scott rounded a corner then swiftly ducked down to avoid a hard swing of a biting steel axe. The beast, some sort of living armor or machine doll, quickly whipped its massive axe back toward him with the reverse side. Forced to roll away from the powerful strike, he was only narrowly able to avoid a surprise strike from another of the eldritch monsters.
A terrifying sensation tore over him as a wave of dark energy rippled out. Scott screamed in fear and rolled away quickly in order to get away from the hellish thing. The armored monstrosities had the power to cause hallucinations while instilling a demoralizing fear on their target.
Up, up the fallen debris of a ruined house Scott clambered. He rose atop the debris and did his best to shake off the fear effects while the monsters gathered round. They were not particularly powerful, but they were durable and disregarded most physical attacks. At least, they disregarded his physical attacks.
The aura of fear, the desperation to flee that it inspired, and the physical representation of his waiting death; all of these things combined to make it incredibly difficult to concentrate. However, with that simple moment's respite he was able to begin the process of calming himself, of reaching within to begin taking the steps to fight back.
Energies of storm and the celestial forces above began to surge within him as he envisioned the pattern for his spell. Within his mind's eye he could see the forces of nature and the heavens above converge and express themselves via the power of his will. Scott lifted his hand above his head and unleashed that power. "Starlight Flare!"
Brilliant in its luminescence, a sphere of bright white light and crackling lightning appeared overhead. An auric effect raced outward that would light the world around him while it also damaged those considered to be opponents. The dark aligned and demonic would take special damage. Though uncertain whether these beasts counted as either dark aligned or demonic beings, it did not matter. The spell was his best hope at present.
Sluggish due to his lack of skill and overall experience, the orb floated down as his will directed. The axe-wielding monsters unleashed unholy screams and their armor began to spark wildly as they were touched by the celestial energies. While they could defend against axe or sword, they were no match for a power that ignored standard magical defenses.
Scott was greatly surprised when several of the beasts fell over sideways, destroyed by the light. Starlight flare was an area-of-effect spell, to be certain, but it did not do a great deal of damage even to the dark or demonic. Of course, this event was not like the tutorial dungeon. These monsters were not scaled to his stats.
Unlike the hellions, the living armor beasts just continued to try and get to him without care or concern. Even as smoke roiled off of their armor they did their best to terrify and destroy. They were mindless creatures created by an evil will. Soon, they were nothing but charred armor and the remnants of a nightmare.
Scott sighed slightly then slid down the debris to check the wreckage for loot. He was uncertain of whether he would even survive this event, but if he did, he wanted to get paid for his troubles.
It was a scene that replayed itself constantly throughout the next few hours. Scott, uncertain of where to go in the city, roamed around in circles. He fought the automaton beasts, or whatever they might be called, whenever he could find a safe vantage point outside their reach. He ignored them the rest of the time. He had a strong suspicion that their axes would neatly cleave him asunder. Theirs was a game of cat and mouse. It was a most peculiar variant of that game however; one where both the cat and the mouse each had a cannon, but their bodies were made of glass. The first shot to hit would win.
He slipped under a bit of debris to hide from a passing contingent of the armored beasts. Dozens of them marched by his hiding place never suspecting that sweet, sweet, mortal meat resided only a short distance away. Scott would not have said that he cowered before their numbers, but he would not have denied it either.
After the rattling bastards passed, he crawled out of the debris and started moving along the street once more. He had yet to find another shelter, but had run across many badly ruined corpses. Men, women, children; it did not matter to the things that stomped through the streets. If they sighted the living, they did their best to tear that life away.
"So, this is war in a fantasy world." said Scott softly in a voice slightly louder than a whisper. A whisper might give him away as it was often more
harsh than words spoken in a soft tone. It would carry farther through the desolate streets.
Through an alleyway he slipped, his hands at the ready and his eyes alert to the dangers of the world around him. It was hard to sense the energies of man or monster in the ruination of this part of the city. What was not difficult to sense was the fear in the voice of the young child who began to scream just up ahead.
Scott launched himself up the chain link fence that blocked off the alleyway then flipped over the top to land on the lid of the dumpster on the other side.The child screamed once more, before he went terribly silent. Around the corner, the gruesome sight of six of the beasts repeatedly slamming their axes down to tear apart the remnants of a former life could be seen.
Blue eyebrows pressed together. Scott's eyes narrowed. He was tired of seeing things like this. Sometimes the monsters stopped to make sure a corpse was a corpse. Yet, this was far worse. He had arrived too late to even try to do anything for the boy while he lived. But he would be damned if he let those things continue to desecrate his corpse.
Enraged, but alert, eyes scanned the area for some vantage point that he could use to easily finish the beasts. There was none. It was an open parking lot, but none of the vehicles were high enough off of the ground to use as a stable point of attack. "Fine, we'll have to dance a little."
Scott checked the area once more then nodded. He could not be perfectly safe, but he made a plan of attack then called out his spell. None of his other abilities were defined enough to be of any real use in this fight, but he knew that starlight flare would kill these things if he could keep them from killing him first.
He ran toward the gathered monsters and snatched up a chunk of stonework that he saw on the ground in passing. With a snarky cry of, "Hey, ugly." he threw the bit of shattered building at the closest monster. It smacked into the side of the beasts helm and all six of the monstrosities ceased movement.
Origin ARS 5 Page 14
