Awaken Online (Book 3): Evolution

by Bagwell, Travis

  He grabbed him by the throat and lifted him into the air, the player letting out a gurgling noise as he struggled for breath and his hands tried to pry away Frank’s fingers. “You should learn some respect,” the barbarian said, staring at him from only inches away. “Especially when speaking to the left hand of the Twilight Throne.”

  Meanwhile, his legs had reverted to normal and wings had begun to erupt from Frank’s back, thick feathers quickly filling out the spindly limbs. A few seconds later, he flapped his wings, causing a whirlwind of dust to spiral through the area. The other players backed away and tried vainly to cover their faces. Frank soon drifted airborne, still carrying the struggling player by the throat.

  “You better fucking be watching,” Frank shouted at the other players as he rose a few dozen feet into the air. “This is what will happen to anyone that messes with Original Sin. We control this city now. Remember that.”

  With this statement, Frank casually tossed the player over the edge of the cliff. His screams echoed through the bay, causing NPCs and players alike to turn and stare. A few short seconds later, his body struck the rocks at the bottom of the cliff with a dull thud, his blood and entrails staining the rocks before being quickly washed away by a series of crashing waves.

  Frank drifted back to the ground, his wings encircling him. He stood staring at the remaining players, their amused expressions suddenly gone and replaced by a combination of fear and anger. City soldiers chose that moment to arrive, brandishing their swords. Yet they made no move to intervene or stop Frank and instead turned to face the players – a fact that was not lost on the group as they glanced uncertainly at the green and purple-liveried men.

  “Anybody else want to try something?” Frank demanded.

  A heavy silence hung in the air, the players looking at each other uncertainly. Then they stepped back, clearing a path into the interior of Falcon’s Hook. Frank snorted in amusement. “That’s what I thought. Let’s go,” he said, gesturing at Jason.

  As the pair proceeded further into the town, Jason glanced at his friend. He had changed a lot since they had begun playing. The Frank he had known only a few short weeks ago wouldn’t have dared grab a player by the throat in a crowded courtyard and then throw him over a cliff. Maybe he was a bad influence. Actually, he was definitely a bad influence.

  “Stop staring at me like I’ve gone mad,” Frank said. “I’ve listened to enough of your ‘evil’ monologues to get the gist of it. It’s a power play – pure and simple. I think I nailed it, personally.”

  Jason couldn’t help but laugh. “It was certainly effective. I was actually taking notes. Although, I’m not sure how I’m going to work in the dramatic flight thing.”

  Frank just grunted in response, his face serious and his eyes distant as they walked toward the city’s eastern gate. Jason suspected that his friend wasn’t oblivious to the transformations he had undergone inside AO – not all of which were physical.

  The pair reached the gate a few uneventful minutes later. Two skeletal wolves awaited them. Jason had sent a mental command once they had reached the top of the cliffs. The guards at the gate eyed them nervously, keeping their distance. The stream of players flooding into town simply stopped and stared – uncertain why two undead wolves were sitting patiently by the gate.

  Unfortunately, according to Jason’s summon information screen, these were also the last of his mounts. A visual inspection revealed that they were worse for wear, many of their limbs looking fragile and hair-line fractures marring their surface. They had maybe a day left at most unless he kept them underground.

  The wolves stood upon seeing Frank and Jason and the pair promptly jumped onto their backs. Alfred leaped up onto the saddle in front of Jason, sitting sedately and watching the players mill past. Jason glanced at his two skeletal meat shields. They would likely be too slow to keep up. Perhaps they could serve as a warning to other players.

  “Stay here and guard the gate,” he commanded the Death Knights. They didn’t bother to respond, lumbering over to take positions near the gate. The other players and NPCs backed away quickly to get out of their way.

  One of the guards standing near the gate looked like he was about to comment, but Frank’s glare silenced him. Then Frank and Jason kicked at their mounts, and they leaped forward, making a beeline toward the canyons north of town. Jason could only hope his other minions had fared better than the wolves.

  It took the pair quite some time to make it back to the canyon they had traversed on their way to Falcon’s Hook. They were forced to take a more circuitous route to avoid the main road and the endless stream of players journeying toward Falcon’s Hook for the world event. Jason’s newfound sovereignty ended at the city gates, and they needed to travel with care.

  “This looks like the place,” Frank commented some time later, canyon walls now towering on either side of them. “I guess…” he added, gesturing at the former cave entrance. The opening had been caved in, and now rubble blocked the way inside.

  Frank’s brow furrowed as he inspected the canyon and he stooped to inspect the ground nearby. “Is this blood?” he asked a moment later, his fingertips coming away covered in crimson fluid. Alfred stepped up beside him and sniffed at the congealed substance delicately, baring his teeth and backing away as he caught the smell of blood.

  Jason bit his lip. “It looks like it. Let’s just hope that’s a good sign.”

  With a mental command, he ordered his remaining minions to come to him. The ground nearby suddenly shifted erratically, and a group of skeletal molekin appeared a moment later, their decaying claws digging furiously at the dirt. There were only four of the creatures now, but their rotting skin was in better condition than the wolves. They had likely spent most of their time underground.

  “Are there any others?” Jason asked, not bothering to check his map.

  “We are the only ones left,” a ragged voice came from nearby. Jason turned to find his lieutenant dragging himself out of the nearby cave, another molekin having cleared the rubble. His left leg was ruined, and he dragged it behind him as he moved.

  “Report,” Jason ordered.

  The creature gave a hacking cough, ejecting phlegm and congealed blood on the dirt of the canyon floor. “We are down to four molekin, two wolves, and myself. As per your orders, we have secured this canyon and built a series of passages to help waylay any travelers. We have collected the corpses back in the caves,” he added motioning behind him.

  As he spoke, the zombie had made a few shambling steps forward. However, his good leg landed awkwardly on the last step, causing him to lose his balance. Jason stepped forward quickly and caught the rotting man, trying his best not to get covered in congealed blood.

  “I’m afraid my time is nearly over,” the lieutenant reported. Another racking set of coughs ravaged his body. “The damage to my body and the decay is too much. I tried my best to stay in the caves during the day, but we encountered several situations that required my supervision.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jason replied quietly. “You did well. Your actions will not be forgotten.”

  “Thank you…” the lieutenant tried to reply, but another round of coughing interrupted him. Jason decided to put him out of his misery and canceled the summoning spell. A moment later, the zombie dropped lifelessly to the ground.

  “Hmm, this doesn’t seem like much,” Frank said, surveying the remaining molekin and the two decrepit wolves.

  “No not exactly,” Jason said quietly.

  “Well, let’s see what they managed to collect,” Jason replied. Then he turned to the molekin. “Show us the corpses.”

  They nodded their little round heads and then skittered back into the cave, leading Frank and Jason through a series of dark passages. Without his Night Vision, Jason suspected he would have gotten lost almost instantly. To make matters worse, the moles would occasionally stop and gesture for them to proceed along a specific path, Jason’s Perception skill picking out c
arefully concealed traps. His lieutenant had been cautious.

  After they had walked for what felt like an hour, they entered a massive cavern. Frank and Jason froze, their jaws dropping open in surprise. A veritable mountain of corpses lay inside. The lieutenant had divided the creatures by type. A pile of what appeared to be some sort of giant stag or goat lay along one side on the cave, and a separate pile contained a number of humanoid corpses. Any loot or equipment had been piled near the entrance.

  “Holy shit,” Frank muttered, eyeing the mountain of loot. “I take it back. I’d say you should give that zombie a raise if he hadn’t already died.”

  Jason couldn’t help but agree. He walked among the piles, an excited grin curling his lips as he thought of the endless possibilities these corpses afforded him. With his many building materials, he could reconstruct his army and then some. The only question was what to build and what to do with the leftover materials.

  “Look at these!” Frank shouted from across the room. Jason hurried over and saw that Frank was staring at a pile of dead Rocs, their brown feathers stained a dark red with congealed blood. They had been dumped in a messy pile, and Jason counted at least two dozen birds.

  “They must have found a nest,” Jason murmured, noticing many smaller birds among the corpses. They must be infants. “How did they pull this off?”

  “Maybe they used the molekin to dig up under the nests?” Frank said, thinking aloud. “Actually, that would have been incredibly effective since they wouldn’t have been able to fight easily in a tight space.”

  Jason glanced at his friend in surprise. “That’s brilliant and makes a lot of sense. They probably could have used a similar strategy for players, and that might explain the molekin emerging from the roadway. Maybe I underestimated the effects of this lieutenant spell.”

  “Maybe,” Frank agreed, staring at the other piles of bodies stacked throughout the cave. “What now? You sort of have that crazy, mad genius look on your face again.”

  “Now I get to build,” Jason said with a smile. “You might want to move back to a safe part of the cave for now.”

  “You don’t need to tell me twice! I’ll go guard the entrance.” Frank said, retreating quickly. He had already witnessed the maelstrom of flying bones that was Jason’s crafting process and had no interest in being nearby.

  Jason summoned his dark mana in a rush, the power flooding his veins with a familiar icy chill as his hands wound through the gestures of Custom Skeleton. A moment later, the control console had appeared in front of him, highlighting the piles of corpses in a blinding blue light. As Jason reviewed his inventory of building materials, he stood frozen in shock. He doubted he would be able to use even half of the total corpses in the cave.

  Shaking his head, Jason forced himself to focus on the question at hand. “Now what am I going to build?” he murmured to himself, his voice echoing strangely under the time compression effects of the spell.

  His Control Limit had nearly reached one hundred. He now only had the few molekin, the two wolves, and the two Death Knights under his control, which left nearly ninety remaining minions.

  First things first, what sort of area do I need to defend? Jason thought, recalling the advice of his military treatises. He was in the unique position to be able to create minions to address any situation, so he should take advantage of that fact.

  His thoughts drifted back to the layout of Falcon’s Hook, and he could visualize the area in his mind’s eye. The city was built on a cliff overlooking a semi-circular bay. The exterior of the city that faced the road was walled off with thick stone fortifications nearly thirty feet tall. However, as he had told Riley, Jason suspected that the lizardmen would likely attack from the bay. He could only assume that they would have some way to travel the long distance from Anguine Isle by sea – which seemed like a safe assumption given that the game’s water god had admitted to creating the creatures.

  The cliff face leading down to the docks was an awkward place to defend. No real fortifications or bulwarks had been built along the edge of the cliff – perhaps because neither Lord Baen nor Lord Cairn had anticipated an attack by sea. They could likely burn the ramparts to slow down the lizardmen horde. However, the image of their clawed hands and rippling muscles was still burned into Jason’s mind. He had no doubt that the creatures could scale the cliff wall given enough time.

  Which meant he needed a creature that could attack from range or something that could fly. He thought about building his skeletal catapults again, but he couldn’t afford to launch corpses like he had done in the dungeon north of Peccavi – even with his surplus of bodies. If he didn’t use his minions, then he also didn’t have anything suitable to launch. Venom Spitters wouldn’t work here since he didn’t have any access to pools of acid or any other projectiles.

  “Which leaves some sort of flying minion,” he murmured, still deep in thought.

  His eyes drifted to the pile of Roc corpses. He certainly had enough winged building materials, but he had never tried to create a flying skeleton creature before. Without feathers, how would he manage to obtain the same lift? It seemed impossible, but he could only hope that the game’s mechanics would accommodate his goal.

  With a mental command, Jason tore apart a Roc and the bones of its wing reformed in the air in front of him where he could examine it more closely. The bird’s wing had a hinged set of bones running along the top, yet the original feathers appeared to have been attached to this skeletal limb by spines of cartilage jutting down from the wing’s base. He might be able to mimic the effect by attaching rods of bone to the wing and then connecting them with panels of dark mana.

  It’s worth a shot, he thought with a mental shrug.

  Not having anything to lose, Jason set to work. He used a humanoid body for the base but removed the arms and replaced them with the wings from one of the adult Rocs. Then he attached spines of bone to the wings. That was the easy part.

  Squinting in concentration, Jason then summoned a ball of dark mana. He flattened the orb with a thought and lengthened and stretched the material until it created a thin, almost fabric-like appearance. Acting quickly, he attached the flap in between the spines of bone. He repeated this step several times until he had created a dark-mana infused set of wings.

  They certainly look impressive, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll work.

  Taking a deep breath, Jason commanded the wings to flap while still under the effects of the Custom Skeleton spell. It took him a few tries to manage to get the wings to beat in sync. Yet after a few minutes of cursing, he managed to get them to flap together slowly. The humanoid body drifted slowly from the ground, and Jason let out a shout of victory, his cry rebounding through the empty cavern full of corpses.

  Clearly, the idea worked, and it might be more effective when the creature was acting under its own autonomy. He could only hope his skeletal creature was more competent at flapping its own wings than he was. Now he needed to weaponize his new minion.

  His thoughts wandered back to the image of Frank tossing the player over the edge of the cliff. He might be able to replicate something similar here, using the new creature to grab lizardmen as they scaled the cliff and then drop them onto the rocks at the base of the cliff.

  With that in mind, he removed the creature’s humanoid feet and replaced them with the Roc’s massive clawed appendages. He strengthened the legs considerably, weaving together bands of bone until the limbs were nearly six inches thick. They would need to be able to carry a struggling lizardman, after all. As he finished, Jason took a step back to examine his new creation.

  The effect was a little disconcerting. The skeleton had a humanoid head, massive darkly-glowing wings, and viciously clawed feet. Yet it still felt like it was missing something. His new creation was intimidating looking, but it felt fragile, and Jason was already intimately familiar with how strong and resilient the lizardmen could be.

  “Ahh, that’s it!” he exclaimed to himse
lf. He dug into his pack, and, a moment later, pulled out one of the bags that Cecil had given to him ages ago. Opening the pouch carefully, he pulled out a glowing yellow crystal and examined it carefully.

  Lightning-Infused Mana Crystal

  These stones are infused with lightning mana and will explode on impact. Other effects and combinations unknown.

  Quality: C

  Damage: 20-30 (Lightning)

  Durability: 1/1

  With an excited grin, Jason attached one of the crystals to the interior of each his new creation’s claws. He then added a protective layer of dark mana to avoid damaging the crystal when the creature grabbed a victim. The tentacle horror they had encountered was one of the Hippie’s guardians, and it had been weak to lightning. He hoped that the lightning crystal might do more damage to the lizardmen or might stun them – effectively incapacitating each victim.

  It was worth a shot at least. He had little use for the crystals otherwise.

  Now he only needed to name the new beast. As Jason surveyed his creation, the only word that came to mind was “vile.” Honestly, the creature looked like an evil, unholy combination of a bird and a human, its claws crackling with yellow electricity.

  “I think I’m going to call you a Vilewing,” Jason announced out loud, saving the design.

  This step completed, Jason turned back to the remaining corpses in the room. He still had an army to assemble, and he was worried about leaving Riley and Eliza alone. Besides, the clock was ticking. They only had a couple more days in-game before a lizardmen army would be standing at their doorstep.

  Chapter 32 - Calamitous

  Alexion stood inside the interior courtyard of the keep, auburn sunlight barely cresting the lip of the cloudy crystalline wall that ringed the enclosure. His nephilim lined the fortifications, their white wings flapping in the breeze that drifted through the city as they manned the dozen ballistae that now pointed toward the interior of the courtyard. Massive, steel-tipped bolts rested against taut strings as each of the siege weapons focused on a point in the center of the bustling square.