Fantasy Gone Wrong

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  “Shannar, get your ass out of that corner and Root them!” he yelled, wincing in pain as he was hit yet again from behind. The feedback from his game enhancements was getting a mite too realistic; that blow had actually hurt.

  “On my way,” Shannar called as the skeleton uttered a thin cry and disintegrated.

  Tekkel launched a flurry of blows, complementing those Mirri was doing, then, as the guard keeled over, rounded on the one who had been doing him the most damage. A pair of knives flew past him to embed themselves in the chest of the third guard.

  “Meare, same target! Support us.”

  “Sorry, Boss, thought I was. Very crowded in there.”

  “Tell me,” he muttered as the third guard began to pound on his back. “Shannar, any time now would be good!”

  A bolt of energy zapped past him, making their opponent stagger back. Almost before the spell had dissipated, Zen’s next one went off, surrounding the guard in a casing of ice for a few seconds. From behind him, he caught the flash of Shannar’s Root spell going off.

  He nodded, pleased. “Good, Shannar. Nice casting speed there, Zen.”

  Tearing his attention out of the game, he looked at the monitor screen to check how the rest of the Clan were doing. Shannar was back with Jinna and using his bow, the two of them forming a bodyguard for Zen—and she was casting her spells almost without pause.

  Checking her interface on the Party list, he saw her Magic power was dropping rapidly, but that was to be expected. On his and Mirri’s right flank, Meare had placed himself against the corner of a bookcase and was throwing volleys of his knives.

  A flash of pain suddenly lanced through him and he’d barely time to glance at the clock before it dragged him back into the game.

  This time he really did gasp and clutch his side as his avatar was brought to its knees. What the hell was happening? This was not part of the game. . . .

  “You left the fight,” hissed Mirri as he slashed at the remaining guard. “Foolish! He injured you.”

  “Checking the time,” he said, pushing himself up unsteadily to his feet, trying keep his mind focused on the encounter. “Five minutes left!”

  “He leads them too well,” snarled Aziel, the hand holding the crystal clenching until long talons began to replace his fingers. “I wanted a fool, not a warrior!”

  With a gesture and brief incantation, the scene in the globe began to form on the top of his desk.

  “Time for more direct action. . . .”

  “ADD, three incoming from behind us!” Meare yelled out. “Undead Knights!”

  As one, Tekkel and Mirri sidestepped, forcing their opponent around so they could see the new assailants.

  “Zen, all of you, move! Fire protection buffs!” he yelled.

  “Shit! This is all wrong! What the hell’s happening?” demanded Meare, reaching for his sword.

  “Deal with it,” snapped Tekkel, powering up another Poison attack as Mirri let off one of his Wounding ones. “Time for that later.”

  Zenithia, flanked by Jinna and Shannar, and casting as she ran, headed past them to take up a position farther into the room.

  “Undead Knights? And too many, Zen,” Tekkel heard Mirri say quietly as Zenithia finished buffing him and began on her brother.

  “I know,” Zen snapped back tartly. “Just do your job . . . brother.”

  To Tekkel, it sounded like Miri’s low voice cracked slightly, taking on a higher pitch. Then, uttering a sound like a low snarl, Mirri flicked a small bolt of energy out to zap her: the elf woman stopped dead, frozen to the spot.

  “Stop fighting each other!” Tekkel ordered. “Time’s running out!”

  As Zenithia began to move again, a pulsating circle of fire surrounded the lead Knight. Muttering the incantation to drain health from him, Tekkel instinctively winced, then braced himself as the fire flared upward before suddenly exploding outward in circles toward them. It hurt, by all the gods of Sondherst, it really hurt, despite Zen’s buffs! Even as he gasped, a sudden icy wave swept through him, cooling then banishing the pain so he could think again. Around him he heard the others’ exclamations of pain and disbelief.

  “Fight! I will keep you all safe!” Zenithia called.

  Still shaking, Tekkel shifted his grip on his knives. He needed to warn Zen of something, but his thoughts were still scattered. The first Knight was nearly upon them and the other two were beginning to cast their fire spells. As he readied himself, he heard Zen and Mirri exchanging a few terse words in their own language.

  Calling on his weapons’ special abilities, he met the Knight with raised blades as two of Meare’s water arrows, one swiftly followed by the other, arced over him to hit the casters.

  We need them rooted and slept now, he thought.

  As he darted inside the Knight’s defense, blocking with one knife and slashing with the other, he saw their fire spell gutter and die. Then Zen’s Sleep and Shannar’s Root hit them.

  Seconds later Mirri was beside him, drawing the Knight’s attack.

  He backed off, checking the party health—all were low, too low, and Zen was almost out of Magic. “Potions everyone!” he yelled, leaping back in to attack again. This had to be finished fast.

  “I’m out,” yelled Shannar.

  “Me, too,” said Jinna, the tremor in her voice audible. “This is getting scary, Tekkel. I don’t like it.”

  An ear-piercing shriek sounded from behind him. He didn’t need to look to know it was Zenithia. “Iskahar!” He’d meant to warn her to watch out for the Castle Lord!

  “It’s Aziel!” she screamed.

  Aziel? Who the hell was Aziel? He swung round, heart pounding, to see Zenithia held, a knife to her throat, by Lord Iskahar.

  Beside him, Mirri let out a string of what he assumed were oaths, then stopped and in a voice altered beyond recognition, uttered one word.

  “What the hell—” began Meare, taking cover behind the nearest bookcase.

  “Portal, Meare,” Tekkel snapped, sizing up the situation, ignoring the thought that this could not be happening. “Hurga, I need you here now,” he said quietly, risking a glance back at the Knight. He stood motionless, as if frozen to the spot.

  “On my way.” Hurga said.

  “You can’t,” he heard Davon say. “I’ll die.”

  “Then come,” said Hurga.

  “Let my sister go, Aziel,” Mirri ordered, stepping forward. “You have no business here.”

  “I want him,” said Aziel, raising a long thin hand and pointing at Tekkel. “Give me the human and your sister is free.”

  “No!” hissed Zenithia, struggling in his grasp. “He cannot be trusted—” Her words were cut off abruptly as the Lord tightened the arm across her throat.

  Mirri’s out-thrust arm pushed him back as he stepped forward. “No,” said the elf unequivocally. “He’s ours.”

  “Dammit, Mirri,” he began.

  “Wait,” hissed Mirri, holding him back again. “You’re not our Leader yet! I brought friends!”

  There wasn’t time to be confused as a motley crew of beings, including Hurga and Davon, suddenly materialized around them.

  Aziel began to laugh, the sound deep and echoing as if it came from the very bowels of the earth.

  Tekkel watched in horror as the features of the avatar altered, the hair turning black as midnight, the skin darkening to a tanned hue, the eyes . . . Oh gods, those eyes! He groaned, shutting his own, but the huge red orbs with their vertical yellow slits continued to grow larger and larger in his mind’s eye. Then his courage reasserted itself and he opened his own again, seeing this time, not just a man, but underlying it the form of something else, something that had no right existing in the world of Legacy of Heroes.

  “This isn’t real, it can’t be,” he heard himself mutter as he stared at the red dragon mage. Around him, the eight newcomers—four elves, three dwarves, and a being he took to be a half orc—moved forward to surround him and Mirri. Grim faced, with b
attered and stained armor, they were very different from the avatars he and the others used.

  “You vermin really think you can withstand me?” laughed Aziel, moving his grip till his large hand encircled Zenithia’s neck and his knife was in his other hand. “Gate in as many as you wish, elf, they’ll meet the same fate as last time!”

  “Let the Elf Maiden go!” Davon demanded in ringing tones as, sword and shield held ready, he stepped forward. “Pick your fight with equals, not women, you coward!”

  “No, Davon,” Tekkel said as all eyes focused on the Cleric. “This isn’t the time for melodrama!”

  Davon ignored him, stepping closer to Aziel and Zenithia as Mirri let his arm drop to pull his second blade.

  Aziel cocked his head to one side and regarded him with obvious amusement. “You want to die now, Manling?”

  Aziel’s attention now off him, Tekkel moved slowly behind Mirri and his friends, triggered his Shadow spell, then using the last of his Haste and Speed potions, pulled out his bow. Then he stepped forward again, his eyes never leaving Davon and Aziel, watching and waiting for the opportunity he knew must come. This time his mind was made up that he would sacrifice the Cleric for Zen.

  “Fight me, man to man, or do you prefer to hide behind a woman,” Davon taunted.

  “You bore me, Manling,” said Aziel, flicking his knife toward the Cleric and raising his eyes to the rest of them.

  As the knife tumbled end over tip, almost in slow motion, toward Davon, Tekkel began his run toward Aziel. Triggering Powered multishots, he let off two volleys of arrows before dropping the bow and reaching for his knives again.

  “Be ready!” he whispered, toggling the private channel between him and Zenithia as he leaped high and spun around in a Poison Blade attack, hitting first the Dragon Lord, then Zenithia with the pommel of his other blade as he somersaulted over the mage’s head. Coming down behind him, he twisted around, landing in a crouch. Pushing himself to his feet, he triggered his Backstab ability, checking that Zenithia had collapsed in Aziel’s grip before once more launching himself at the mage’s back.

  Aziel dropped the dead weight that his captive had become. Ignoring the four arrows sticking out of his limbs, he began a half turn to meet him, calling out an incantation to reanimate the Death Knights again.

  The chime signifying a Party death sounded loud in Tekkel’s ears as he jumped over Zen, and began lashing out at Aziel, forcing the other to take a couple of steps back.

  With a roar of anger, the mage began to cast, but not before Tekkel was surrounded by Hurga’s healing light—and the glow from other buffs as the newcomer mages worked to protect him.

  “Davon?” he heard Jinna call. “Davon! You okay?”

  Lightning streaked from Aziel’s hands toward him, only to rebound and hit the mage.

  “Forget him, Jinna!” Shannar was saying. “Get the Knights!”

  He pressed forward again, this time doing more damage to Aziel who began to back off, chanting.

  Arrows flew past him, hitting the mage, breaking his concentration as Mirri and his friends came rushing past him.

  Mirri stopped briefly beside him. “Dammit, that hurt, Tekkel! Take my sister and back off. Leave this to us. You don’t yet know Aziel as we do.”

  “What?” Tekkel demanded, staring at him.

  The elf’s face split in a brief grin. “Get my sister. It was me you hit, in her avatar, not her. She’s waiting.” Then he was gone, racing after his companions.

  “Well, my Dark One,” said a voice he knew well at his elbow. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready?” he echoed. “Ready for what? This is a game, it can’t be real.” A thousand and one questions were racing around inside his head right now.

  “To come with me,” she said, stepping closer. Snapping her fingers, her staff disappeared and a portal began to open, one unlike any he’d ever seen before. Reality bent, making the room seem to melt slightly around the edges of the glowing slit that formed in front of them. Wind sighed and moaned through it as flares of colored lightning sparked from one side to the other.

  “We need to get you away from Aziel, to our realm,” she said, reaching out to encircle his waist with her arms. “I thank you for your gallant attempt to save me, even though it was Mirri playing my poor Battle Mage at the time, not me.”

  “Mirri?” Suddenly her mood swings made sense. “You two, you kept switching avatars on me,” he said accusingly, even as he put one arm round her. Another thought struck him and he felt the blood rise to his face.

  She laughed gently, pressing herself close against him until he could smell the scent of her hair and feel the ample curves he knew were there despite her slim avatar.

  “Tell me again you want to share my world, Tekkel,” she whispered.

  “My Clan,” he said, pushing her back. “This battle . . . you. None of it’s real.”

  “You still here?” he heard Mirri shout. “Burn it, Zen, take our new Leader home then we can all leave!”

  “You heard my brother. We all go. Will you come now?” she asked again, gently pulling him toward the portal.

  He laughed uncertainly. There was too much that couldn’t be explained about this quest, but there had to be a rational one. “Sure, I’ll go along with your role-playing, Zen. Just don’t expect me to believe in it too much.”

  “Tekkel, Davon’s gone,” said Jinna, stopping beside them. “I can’t raise him at all. And his avatar . . . It’s all mangled, and the game doesn’t do that to us or the mobs we kill!”

  “Davon?” he called out, looking round for the Cleric’s corpse. He saw it lying a few feet from them, just as Jinna had described.

  “He’s dead,” said Mirri, running up to where they stood on the edges of the portal. “And so will we be if we don’t leave now!” He gave them both a hefty shove.

  Tekkel felt himself falling and grabbed hold of Zenithia as everything suddenly went dark and an icy coldness spread through him.

  “What the hell’s happening?” he tried to say, but his words were torn from him and shredded by the bitter wind that swirled them violently about.

  He felt her hand touch his neck, pull his head down to hers, then her breath warm against his ear.

  “Is this real enough for you?” she asked before her lips sought his in a kiss as deep and intimate as he’d been wishing for.

  Forgotten was the bitter cold of the portal, as was any thought of what was real. The kiss seemed to last forever until suddenly, with a jolt, he felt solid ground under his feet again.

  He heard someone cough, then say in a voice that sounded suspiciously like it was trying not to laugh, “Welcome to Eldaglast, Clan Leader Tekkel, and welcome back, Zenithia.”

  Blinking like an owl, Tekkel lifted his head and squinted over the top of Zen’s, seeing an elf bowing at them, realizing with acute embarrassment that he and Zen were still locked in an embrace—and that he didn’t care. He looked around the large sunlit room at the small gathering of assorted elves, dwarves, and other races he couldn’t readily identify as the rest of his gaming clan, then Mirri and his companions, began to wink into existence.

  “This is your new home,” said Zenithia, stepping back a little and talking him by the hand. “Welcome to Eldaglast’s Guild of Acquirers and Facilitators.”

  “Better known as the Assassins and Thieves Guild,” said Mirri, walking smartly over to the speaker. “Merrik, Aziel was there. We caused him some grief, and likely he’ll be smarting for a while, but he’ll be back. Send up the healers, then set guards for now. Oh and some food would be good—we’re all starving.”

  Still in a daze of disbelief, he heard a small shriek then a diminutive pixie ran up to him, grabbing at his armored leg and shaking it—just as Jinna used to do.

  “Tekkel! Oh my Godfathers! You’re a Gray Elf! A real Gray Elf!” said Jinna. “And I’m . . .”

  “A pixie,” said Mirri, stripping off his mailed gloves and handing them to one of the nonfighters. �
�The goblins of your game don’t exist here.”

  Startled, he looked down at himself, saw the pale gray-blue skin of his hand where it rested in Zenithia’s one of the same color. He looked up, seeing not the slim almost ethereal female avatar he was used to, but an elfin woman of flesh and blood, and generous curves under the skimpy clothes she wore.

  “Well am I real enough for you now?” she asked, arching a pale eyebrow at him as she pulled him to her side with a proprietary gesture. “I promise I won’t let my twin change places with me again.”

  “He’d better not,” said Tekkel, finding his voice at last as he slipped his arm around her waist.