Awaken Online (Book 3): Evolution

by Bagwell, Travis

  Jason scrambled to catch the book, glaring at Frank. “Really? You’re going to toss around the evil magical tome?” This earned him a shrug and a grin from the barbarian before he went back to his looting.

  Dark One’s Grimoire (Quest Item)

  This book feels heavy in your hand, and you can sense its importance even without lifting the cover. The book is currently bound shut by a heavy chain and a skull affixed to the cover. You don’t see any obvious keyhole or locking mechanism, but you assume there must be some way to open the grimoire.

  “So?” Riley asked, tapping her foot. “Don’t leave us in suspense!”

  “This looks like it’s the right item,” Jason said, his eyes skimming the prompt. “But the grimoire seems to be locked shut. I guess we’ll have to ask Morgan how to open it.”

  “Sounds like a plan. What about the giant floating marble?” Frank asked, gesturing as the sapphire sphere floating above its mana well.

  Jason glanced at the other relic with a conflicted expression. He didn’t exactly relish the idea of handing over the sphere to Lord Baen, but perhaps they didn’t have to. They could simply keep the item. He glanced at Eliza, noting that she was gazing at the sphere intently. She had helped them out quite a bit on their quest – despite the fact that she might be Jason’s competition at some point. The conversation with the Old Man and the Keeper hadn’t done anything to ease his concern about the gods’ machinations.

  But he wasn’t the Old Man. Or the Keeper. He was his own person, and his choices were his to make – for good or bad.

  “Why don’t you take it?” Jason suggested, motioning for Eliza to take the orb.

  “Really?” the water mage’s eyes were wide as she glanced back at Jason and she adjusted her glasses with a nervous finger.

  “Definitely. We wouldn’t have made it this far without you. You earned it. What you do with it is entirely up to you,” Jason replied. He hesitated, a small grin curling his lips. “Although, my vote is that you don’t give it to Lord Baen.”

  Eliza mirrored his smile. “I agree. Is this really okay with everybody?” she asked, glancing at Riley and Frank. They both nodded in agreement.

  “Just go ahead and take it already,” Frank said with a smile.

  “Yeah, what’s the worst that could happen?” Riley asked in a dry tone. “You know, stealing a magical orb from a water temple? I’m sure we won’t regret this...”

  Jason glanced at Riley. That was a good point. It seemed like every step they had taken since journeying to this island had just created a new problem. He could only imagine what would happen once they stole the orb. Yet it would be silly to leave something so valuable on the island – especially now that they had broken through the temple’s defenses.

  “Go ahead,” Jason urged Eliza. “Just be careful.”

  Nodding and taking a deep breath, Eliza approached the mana well. The orb began glowing more powerfully as the water mage approached – as though it could detect her presence. This effect wasn’t lost on Eliza, and she hesitated, reaching tentatively toward the sphere. When her fingers were only a few inches away, she closed her eyes and snatched at the orb.

  A moment later, Eliza was holding the sphere in her palm, and she glanced around herself anxiously. Nothing had happened. Jason let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding and noticed Riley and Frank relax as well. Apparently, they had all been expecting something terrible to happen when they removed the sphere.

  “Well, that was…” Frank was interrupted as a tremor suddenly shook the floor of the throne room, dust drifting from the walls. “Shit, I spoke too soon,” he muttered.

  The shaking quickly grew more violent, until the temple’s floor shuddered and listed to the side, making it difficult to remain standing. Jason could hear a loud booming crash reverberate from behind the stone throne. Thick clouds of dust wafted out from the other side of the throne, and Jason pulled the hem of his cloak over his mouth to block the debris.

  “I think it’s time for us to get the hell out of here,” Jason shouted over the crash of stone.

  “No kidding!” Frank yelled back. “But how do you suggest we do that? The way back seems to be out of the question!” He gestured at the staircase on the other end of the room leading down into the auditorium.

  Jason could see massive blocks of stone falling from the ceiling in the other room, followed by a thunderous roar as they struck the floor of the amphitheater.

  “I think the entrance is clear!” Riley reported, sprinting back around the throne. With her enhanced Dexterity, she was less affected by the tremors and had managed to scout the area behind the throne. “Come on. Hurry!” she urged them, gesturing for the group to follow her.

  She didn’t need to tell them twice. They followed Riley’s lead and soon stood at the base of a staircase. Boulders and debris dotted the stairwell, but the tremors had managed to clear the entrance and sunlight drifted down the stairs. The group raced up to the surface, scrambling over the rubble as best as they could.

  As they reached the top of the stairs, Jason held up a hand. “Wait,” he said in a low voice despite the roar of stone behind them and the tremors that still rocked the island. “Let Riley go ahead and scout.” At Frank’s skeptical look at the stone crashing down around the staircase, Jason clarified, “There were hundreds of lizardmen in the courtyard before. We can take a few seconds to see what we’re facing before we run headlong into a group of enemies.”

  Frank’s eyes widened, and he nodded in agreement. Riley didn’t hesitate, dropping into Sneak and creeping the remaining few steps up the stairs to investigate the courtyard.

  Jason used this short reprieve to pull up his map. They needed to recover the sailor zombies if they were going to make it off this damn island. Maybe they could use the earthquakes and collapsing temple to rescue his minions and make their escape. Luckily, his Tactician skill allowed his zombies to update his map data – which might make this next part easier. He twisted and spun the three-dimensional map that hovered in front of him, homing in on a cluster of green dots.

  It looked like the lizardmen occupied a cave complex adjacent to the courtyard. Jason remembered seeing the entrance to the cave before they had jumped down the hole in the center of the enclosure. His sailors were being corralled in a pen near the surface, although one of the green dots disappeared even as he examined his map.

  “Damn it,” Jason muttered. “I think the earthquakes are also affecting the lizardmen’s den. They must be causing cave-ins. Our sailors are dying.”

  Riley chose that moment to reappear. “It gets worse. The lizardmen are freaking out. I counted dozens – if not hundreds of them – pouring out of the entrance to the caves. It looks like they are trying to save their eggs.”

  A massive tremor interrupted their conversation. Riley immediately lost her balance, and Jason caught her, his back slamming into the stone wall and her body pressing against his. As the most recent earthquake passed, he helped Riley back to her feet, the archer mouthing the words “thank you.”

  “So, what’s the plan?” Frank demanded. “Because I don’t think we can stand here much longer.” Eliza was also staring nervously back down the stairs.

  Jason’s mind was racing, but he didn’t have a brilliant plan. He forcefully summoned his dark mana to settle his nerves. He needed to think clearly. They were about to run out into a courtyard full of potential enemies – which was a safe assumption since, not only had they not killed the Tentacle Horror, they were also to blame for the earthquakes. They needed a diversion if they were going to get the sailor zombies out of the pens and back to the beach.

  Jason’s eyes rested on Frank.

  “Oh great! I know that look!” the barbarian shouted over the din of crashing stone.

  “You need to be a diversion again,” Jason said. “It’s the only way to give us time to get the sailors out of the caves and you’re the only one of us that can fly. You just need to draw some of the lizardmen
to the north and then circle back to the ship.”

  Frank rolled his shoulders and grumbled something unintelligible.

  “What was that?” Jason shouted over the roar of crashing stone.

  “Screw you!” Frank yelled back. “You fucking owe me for this. Again!”

  “I know, I know! Now go!” Jason said, shoving Frank toward the temple’s entrance.

  The barbarian surged up the stairs and stood at the entrance to the temple for a brief moment in hesitation, his body framed in sunlight. The muscles in his back rippled and contorted, spindly tendrils erupting from his skin and a dense patchwork of feathers quickly filling out his wings. As the transformation completed, Frank stepped forward into the courtyard. He pulled his axes from the loops at his belt and flames were already curling up the blades as he channeled his meager mana through his gauntlets.

  Meanwhile, Jason and the rest of the group moved forward quietly, hiding in the entrance to the temple as they watched Frank’s performance. The barbarian entered the courtyard, his wings spread out around him. Riley hadn’t been lying. Hundreds of the scaly creatures were packed into the area, running frantically as they tried to save their supplies and their younglings.

  “Come and get me you cold-blooded assholes!” Frank roared, holding his blades high. “We have destroyed your god’s temple, and now you’re next!”

  At this statement, Frank’s wings flapped powerfully, throwing up a thick cloud of dust as he took flight. The lizardmen turned to witness Frank’s challenge, the sound of violent hissing filling the air. A wooden spear immediately raced toward Frank, but he sliced at it with his axes, fragments of wood tumbling to the ground.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” the barbarian challenged. “Come and get me!” With that, he fully took flight, racing over the courtyard as wooden lances suddenly filled the air. Frank spiraled and rolled, avoiding most of the spears – although the occasional missile grazed his skin and left a bloody trail in its wake.

  As most of the reptiles began chasing Frank toward the entrance to the courtyard, Jason motioned his group forward. They exited the temple and hugged the wall of the courtyard as they approached the entrance to the cave complex. Jason sent a mental command to his zombies, instructing them to try to break out and make it to the surface. They weren’t very far underground, and he was hopeful that the continuous tremors had destroyed whatever cage or pen had likely kept them trapped.

  “Jason,” Riley murmured, putting a hand on his arm. He turned to look at her and found she was pointing at the serpentine spire that jutted from the island. Streamers of blue energy were curling and circling around the tower, the blue energy collecting in the serpent’s mouth – its head pointed at the sky.

  “That can’t be good,” Jason whispered. “We need to move fast!”

  As they neared the entrance to the cave, they could hear a commotion coming from the tunnel. Jason saw on his map that the undead sailors were running toward the courtyard – having successfully escaped in the confusion. Yet, even as he watched, he saw a marker disappear from his map.

  “Hurry, we need to assist the sailors. They’re killing them!” he said to Riley and Eliza.

  Riley nodded, pulling her bow from her back and sprinting toward the tunnel’s entrance. Meanwhile, Eliza began casting, tendrils of blue mana winding around her hands and a series of magical sapphire runes appearing along the entrance to the cave complex. Once the magical traps were set, she pulled another wand from her pack and began channeling Obscuring Mist, the water vapor taking on a sickly yellow light as she depressed a crystal on the side of the wand.

  The remaining lizardmen in the courtyard had noticed the commotion around the entrance to the cave complex and turned to face the group. Acting on instinct, Jason began casting Curse of Weakness as quickly as he could, black needles of darkness soon embedding themselves in the reptiles and slowing their movements. Eliza capitalized on the distraction, her yellow cloud sweeping through the courtyard and overwhelming the weakened creatures.

  The reptiles breathed in the cloud in great heaving gasps. As the vapor entered their lungs, they coughed and spat, their clawed hands clutching at their throats feebly and their limbs constricting painfully. “It won’t last forever,” Eliza shouted at Jason. “They’re resistant to poison. This will only stop them for a moment.”

  Jason glanced back at the cave entrance. Riley’s bow repeatedly hummed as she released arrow after arrow into the cave. Jason sprinted to her side, and his eyes widened in shock as he saw the undead sailors racing toward the entrance – the teeming mass of lizardmen in hot pursuit.

  His hands began moving automatically through the gestures of Specialized Zombie, raising the corpses of the lizardmen as quickly as Riley could take them out. The creatures rose from the ground, grabbing at their former kin. Their corrupted claws raked across scaly skin and their teeth clamped down on exposed flesh. This served as a better distraction as the reptiles began trying to fend off the attack from within their midst.

  The sailors broke away from the lizardmen and made it to the entrance. Jason ordered them back against the wall of the courtyard, instructing them to move toward the roadway leading back to the beach. Riley immediately switched her attention back to the courtyard, where the other lizardmen were already recovering from the effects of Eliza’s sickly yellow mist. Dark mana collected at the tip of her arrow, before racing away into the pack of lizardmen. The dark energy exploded in a torrent, drawing in the reptilian creatures like a miniature black hole and tendrils of darkness flaying their skin.

  “We need to get back to the beach,” Jason shouted, trying to get Riley and Eliza’s attention. Both women nodded, and they began to move toward the roadway as a group.

  A crash echoed through the courtyard and Jason could see that some of the lizardmen had finally made it out of the caves. They promptly stepped on Eliza’s traps, spires of ice jutting from the ground and piercing the flesh of the leading wave of creatures. They hissed in pain, their blood staining the icy spires. The water mage had carefully placed the runes at even intervals so that the spikes of ice effectively formed a makeshift wall. Jason suspected that this wouldn’t hold the bulky reptilian creatures for long and he could already see the wounds of the trapped lizardmen knitting back together as the creatures’ natural regeneration kicked in.

  Jason yanked a mana potion from his pack and chugged its contents. He repeatedly cast Specialized Zombie on the new corpses that Riley was creating with each arrow she launched. The new lizardmen zombies pulled themselves from the ground, forming a defensive line between Jason’s group and the remaining reptiles and giving Jason and his teammates an opportunity to retreat back to the entrance to the courtyard.

  Jason glanced at the ruined stone walls on either side of him. This was a good choke point. He could hold off the lizardmen here for a few minutes. That might buy Riley and Eliza some time to make it back to the ship. It was the best plan he could think of under the circumstances.

  “Retreat!” Jason yelled, ordering a few of the lizardmen zombies to assist Riley and Eliza. “I can keep them back for a little while.”

  “We can’t leave you!” Riley shouted.

  “Yes, you can. I can hold them off to buy you time. Go!”

  The archer looked conflicted for a moment as she glanced back and forth between Jason and the lizardmen approaching from the courtyard, but a look of resignation finally settled over her face. Riley’s eyes hunted for Eliza and eventually found the water mage standing near a rock formation at the entrance to the courtyard.

  “Come on, Eliza,” Riley called out, racing over and grabbing the girl.

  The water mage shoved something into her pack before turning and following Riley back into the forest. The sailors and a small contingent of zombie lizardmen raced behind the girls. Jason spared one last mental order for the group of minions, instructing them to follow Riley and Eliza’s instructions and ordering the lizardmen to start pushing the ship off the shore a
s soon as they arrived at the beach.

  Then Jason turned his attention back to the courtyard. The lizardmen trying to exit the cave were already breaking through Eliza’s traps, their claws scratching against the ice and their muscles bulging as they ripped apart the frozen spikes. Meanwhile, black needles of energy continued to erupt from Jason’s hands, stabbing through the flesh of the creatures and dramatically slowing their movements.

  I just need to buy some time, he thought desperately.

  In the chaos that surrounded him, Jason’s dark mana surged through his veins. The sensation was nearly overwhelming and, for the briefest of moments, he recalled a glimmer of the scene that had played out in the deathscape and the raging power that had rushed through his body. As the memory returned briefly, he instinctively gave himself over to the dark, abandoning himself to the energy that throbbed and pulsed throughout his body.

  Jason began acting without thinking. His hands moved automatically as he cast spell after spell at the waves of lizardmen, raising new minions and directing others. He ordered his zombies forward so that they formed a defensive line in the chokepoint created by the crumbling walls of the temple. The creatures acted in unison as Jason issued a constant stream of mental orders.

  A weakened lizardman stumbled forward, yet a pair of decaying claws intercepted its throat, spraying the ground in fresh blood. Another zombie immediately decapitated the wounded creature with a crude axe before stepping back in line. A few seconds later, the newly-deceased lizardman’s body pulled itself from the ground and joined Jason’s ranks of zombies.

  Even as fast he was casting, Jason could see that he was fighting a losing battle. More and more of the creatures continued to swarm out of the cave complex as the last of the ice shards finally fell. Their regeneration also made them incredibly resilient. His defensive line of lizardmen wouldn’t last forever. He needed to get the hell out of there.

  His eyes grazed across a pen along the side of the courtyard, noting the massive snakes curled in the enclosure and hissing violently as the battle raged around them. Acting instinctively, Jason ordered a zombie forward, the reptile slicing through the bonds that held the pen closed with its claws.