by Natalie Grey
She reminded them, before they faced him, that they were powerless to make him sane and good again.
Gracie shuddered and clamped her lips shut. She was not going to let Oryxa taunt her. This was not her failure. Yesuan had willingly plunged himself into darkness, and Oryxa had spent centuries—millennia—making him more twisted.
Whatever Yesuan had once been, he was not that any longer.
Whatever Harry had created, whatever he had dreamed, he was now standing in its way.
Gracie stepped forward with a last yell, driving her sword through Oryxa’s body. The succubus gave a scream that made Gracie’s teeth vibrate and her mask crumbled, leaving only her anger and cruelty on display as she writhed and died.
Gracie stood over her, panting. The amarok was at her side, and Jay, and Dathok. When she looked over her shoulder, the rest of the team was standing quietly. Normally, they would be cheering, but it was clear that Oryxa’s taunts had unnerved them.
“We have to keep moving,” Gracie told them. “I don’t know how long we’ve got, but if they find out we’re making this run, they may pull the servers down. We have to get to Yesuan. Come on.”
Sam watched out of the corner of his eye as Dan checked his phone for what had to be about the twentieth time in five minutes. Dan was getting nervous, as if he knew something was up.
It was time to send in the second round of distractions.
Sam nodded to the newbie, a kid fresh out of high school, who had passed the entrance test with flying colors and was eager to prove himself. Although he was very young in some ways, he’d been a model employee, and it was impossible to hate him.
Or be rude to him.
“Hey, Laurie.”
“Hi.” The kid came bounding over. “You need anything, boss?”
“No, no,” Sam assured him. “I just realized, though—didn’t you used to play disc golf?”
“Yeah!” Laurie lit up. With his round face and curls, he looked faintly cherubic. Sam wondered when he’d gotten old enough that people under the age of twenty-five looked like babies to him.
“You know, Dhruv also played disc golf,” Sam said off-handedly. “I know he thought about starting a company team for a while.”
“Really?” Laurie looked around to where Dhruv was leaning against a wall, eating a piece of pizza and staring into space. “Do you think I should… Do you think he’d mind if I…”
“No, he likes hearing from employees,” Sam assured him. “Go on, talk to him.”
He watched while Laurie headed over to Dhruv and started chatting excitedly. Dhruv, despite himself, was taken in, and Sam headed over to Dan. This was the more complicated part of the plan. He nodded to the seat beside Dan. “Do you have a sec? I wanted to talk to you about something.”
Dan was too much of a professional to do anything except nod. He gave Sam a bland look. “What’s on your mind?”
“Have you talked to Jay at all?” Sam asked. He saw Dan’s face become guarded. This was a risky plan, but Sam knew that nothing was more interesting to Dan right now than the issue of Callista. Talking about some non-core piece of it might just be the only thing that would distract Dan from going to check on the servers manually.
“I haven’t,” Dan said after a moment. “I know you want there to be good feeling, Sam, but I hope you understand. Sometimes in these situations, there simply isn’t any way to make everybody happy.”
“No, no, I get that.” Sam forced a smile. “I just thought…well, Jay was popular on this team. They miss him, and I think maybe if you were to talk to him, explain how unusual this situation is, you’d feel comfortable letting him come back. They’d all feel better, and you wouldn’t have to worry about an early employee being on the loose. Our non-compete isn’t super-strong, after all.”
Dan considered this. “Huh,” he said after a moment.
Sam made a little internal prayer: Come on, Jay, keep this thing rolling. I don’t know how long I’ve got. Out loud, he said, “Obviously, you’d want to make sure there were strict rules in place for how he spoke to the team about what happened.”
Just a little longer. He just had to keep Dan occupied for a little longer.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The trash mobs between Oryxa and Yesuan were meant to be much easier than the first set. The closer they got, the more skeletons and shattered shards of rock lay scattered around the floor. Yesuan had begun to go insane, and he was killing his allies.
Gracie wondered if Oryxa had known about that.
The patch on this instance, however, meant that the remaining mobs were just a little stronger than they should have been. Once or twice, new groups came at quicker intervals than they should have, and the group had very nearly had some deaths. While they could battle-resurrect in this instance, it was a mana-intensive spell that meant either Alan or Caspian would have to take time off from healing.
They made it through, however, by burning a truly insane number of potions. By the time they reached the innermost sanctuary, they still had a respectable amount of time on the dungeon timer and most of the group’s cooldown abilities were ready to go.
“Any last pieces of advice?” Gracie asked Caspian publicly.
“I expect you know what Lirael and Azrael are susceptible to,” Caspian said. He waited for the nod. “And to burn them down before you go to Yesuan, right? And the counter on his interrupt? Yep, nothing other than those. You have to stay on-point for the fight, but it’s not anything super-complex.”
Gracie nodded. “Anyone have questions?”
Everyone shook their heads.
“I think we should go now,” Lakhesis said. She emoted a smile and a flex at Gracie. “If they’re trying to slow us down, we need to take every minute we have available, right?”
“Yep.” Gracie smiled back. “Let’s go kick some asses. And if anything goes haywire, just keep your wits about you and help out where people need it, okay? I have no idea what might be unusual about this fight.”
Everyone laughed, but they were already focused on the fight. The ready check only took a couple of seconds, and then they were streaming across the barrier and fanning out, everyone giving Gracie an air high-five as they went past.
Caspian alone did not. Instead, he bowed. She heard him draw breath to speak—
A muffled voice came across his line, and it wasn’t his. Caspian said something and there was a sudden argument, escalating quickly. Caspian’s voice was rising, as was the voice of the person he was arguing with.
“Not a big deal,” Gracie heard. “Just a practice run. She’s not even—okay, fine. No. Look, I’ll hold them up. Just go get Evan. Look, seriously, I have it under control. What’s such a big deal about this?”
Everyone in the game exchanged glances. Caspian was frozen, not yet over the barrier, and the timer on the boss fight had started ticking. Thirty more seconds and he’d be locked out.
“Caspian,” Gracie said sharply. “You need to get in here. Wrap that up, whatever it is.”
Caspian said something indecipherable, and a door slammed in the background. His character ran over the barrier and Gracie followed.
“What’s going on?” she asked him bluntly.
“Thad found me,” Caspian said. His voice was grim. “I told them you weren’t around this evening, so they didn’t need to be checking the servers, and I’d just be questing. I don’t know why he came to find me, but he saw where we were.”
Dread settled into the pit of Gracie’s stomach. “So…”
“So we need to kill this guy quick,” Caspian said. “Because they’re going to tell Dragon Soul we’re here.”
“You heard him,” Gracie told the team. “Everybody move. Give me twenty good minutes, no mistakes. You can do this. I know you guys have it in you.”
“Drag Lirael to the right and Azrael to the left,” Caspian said suddenly. “I just remembered—we noticed it all works better when you do that. No idea why. Might just be a coincidence, but—
”
“We’ll take anything we can get,” Gracie said. “Lakhesis, you go for Lirael. I’ll take Azrael. Alan, Caspian, you be ready with your corrupts on Azrael, and Ushanas, you go all hellfire and brimstone on Lirael. Boost your power as much as you can right now. Whatever potions you have, burn ‘em. It does us no good to get through those two unscathed if they take the servers down. GO!”
The team scattered. Lakhesis darted to the left around Yesuan, grabbing Lirael and pulling her to the right, and Gracie did the opposite with Azrael.
“YOU THINK TO JUDGE ME?” Yesuan yelled. “YOU HAVE SEEN NOTHING, AND YOU KNOW NOTHING. I HAVE SEEN THE FACE OF DEATH.”
“Woof,” Dathok muttered.
“Yeah, this guy has no chill,” Caspian said, with a laugh. “He’s—”
“YOUR SPELLS HAVE NO POWER HERE!” Yesuan yelled. An AoE spell interrupt followed, breaking the mages’ larger spells.
“That’s one,” Kevin called. “He’s going quick, so be ready to scatter when you need to, okay?”
Everyone agreed. Lakhesis was already back in motion, and Gracie could dimly hear the sound of fiery arrows rushing overhead and fireballs striking the ground. Ushanas was not about to let anyone survive her firestorm.
Azrael, meanwhile, was snarling his rage as he clawed at Gracie. Unlike Oryxa, his angelic appearance was real…in a way. Azrael had been an angel, one of the few who had been tasked with creating the Aosi. He had been unwilling to let go of the idea that the Aosi were the chosen ones, and he had joined Yesuan in his exile.
He had become just as crazy as Yesuan, it seemed.
“You lack the will to triumph!” His words were a hiss. “Yesuan alone sees what must be done.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Gracie kept burning him down as Caspian and Alan stacked corrupts on him. “Just die already, would you? I don’t have time for this shit. Lakhesis, how’s it going?”
“She’s on fire,” Lakhesis called back. “Going slowly. Maybe a third left?”
Gracie didn’t respond. Azrael was twisting, clawing, and growing. His skin flickered gray-green, showing the rot inside him. He had been unearthly before, his skin deep blue, as luminous as the night sky, and his eyes like stars.
But the evil he had been exposed to had begun to decay him from the inside out. His night-black hair was turning brittle, graying and falling from his head as the fight progressed.
“YOUR SPELLS HAVE NO POWER HERE!” Yesuan yelled, and Gracie blinked, trying to remember if—
“SCATTER!” Kevin called. “NOW!”
Everyone ran. No one had a plan, they just ran.
It was good, though, because the stun and damage spells came quickly, one after the other.
“Now, back in!” Kevin yelled. “But keep listening. Harry’s in there now, and he’s going to do whatever he can to fuck with us.”
“Shitballs,” Gracie muttered. “Is that why we scattered after two instead of three?”
“Yeah. I saw him moving differently.”
“Good looking out.” She gave him a feral grin and swung her arm to send her shield flying toward Azrael. “Just one lucky crit and I’ll be…dammit.” She charged him and brought one arm up to catch her shield before slamming it sideways into his body, and followed that slam up with a slash of her sword. Azrael went rigid, then his body collapsed. Some streamed up into nothingness like stars in the night, and the rest crumbled to the floor like rotten leaves.
“Ew,” Alan muttered. “Seriously, ew.”
“One—more—fireball—” Ushanas called from between gritted teeth, and a moment later there was a series of whoops from their team. “Lirael’s down!”
“Scatter again!” Kevin called.
Everyone ran like hell, and Gracie knew she had only just made it out of the way when the stun went off again, followed by a wave of damage that would have killed any of them.
“Back in,” she called. “Don’t let him cut me off from the group this time. We fight together, and that’s how we’ll win.” She already had her character running for Yesuan. “Hi, Harry,” she said as she launched her shield forward in a stun. Yesuan staggered back. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Evan was on a conference call when Thad burst into his office.
“They’re in Yesuan’s Haunt,” Thad said. Evan frowned at him, and Thad resisted the urge to growl. “You know how we had that conference call? They just went in. Jamie’s trying to slow them down, but…”
His voice trailed off.
“But?” Evan asked. “Look, how much time do we have before—”
“Son of a bitch,” Thad said quietly.
He recognized the scenery behind Jamie’s character. They were already at Yesuan. That meant they’d been in the instance for a while, and that meant that when Jamie had told them Callista wouldn’t be online that night…
He must already have known that she was planning to run the instance.
Fury came in a rush, and he left the room at high speed. Evan called after him, but Thad didn’t care. He jumped most of the way down a half-flight of stairs in the stairwell and barely recovered in time to keep from wiping out. He didn’t even notice the rush of adrenaline, he was so infuriated.
He reached the small solo playing room within a minute, heedless of the stares he was getting from the rest of them, and put his shoulder into it as he turned the handle. He might tackle Jamie sideways, but the man deserved it.
Unfortunately, Jamie had thought of that. The door shuddered but didn’t open.
He’d locked himself in.
“JAMIE!” Thad yelled. He pounded on the door.
There was no answer.
“Sooooo, they definitely know what we’re doing,” Caspian reported. “Also, not super-important, but I am all kinds of fired.”
“Join the club,” Jay said with amusement.
“Focus,” Gracie said. “We’re on the clock.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jay sounded like he was laughing.
Harry watched them approach. There was no mistaking that a person was controlling this character, and Gracie wondered savagely if he was enjoying being Yesuan, as he’d always imagined himself to be.
“Too afraid to fight me alone?” he called to her. “Too much of a coward?”
Gracie only smiled. If you believe you’re going to use some outdated notion of chivalry to make me do stupid things, you’re very much mistaken, she thought. She said nothing, however. She didn’t want to give Harry anything to work with.
This wasn’t a normal fight, and that gave her considerable freedom. She had some stuns in her rotation, and some high-damage strikes. Normally, she wouldn’t use those in a fight like this, concentrating instead on attacks that generated threat and kept her enemies focused on her.
But with Harry in the other position, threat was useless.
No force of habit, Gracie told herself sternly. You told them to give you twenty minutes with no slip-ups, so you give them the same.
That steadied her. She had never liked reacting, pushing back. It meant the other person controlled the fight and the direction. But she realized that she did like doing her best for a team to lift everyone up.
That was the part Harry didn’t understand. He viewed leadership the same way Yesuan did: him against the world. That was why he’d written the character. He didn’t understand that a leader, like everyone else, needed to strive to be their best self, inspired by the ones they led.
Gracie charged, feinted to the left, and sent her character into a roll the other way, feeling a shudder through her haptics as Yesuan’s staff thudded on the floor.
“Everybody out of range!” she called.
The spellcasters had already been at their farthest range, so it was only the melee team that needed to run. Gracie watched them scatter, and she was just out of range when the stun came, followed immediately by the heavy-damage strike. Harry wasn’t going to play by Yesuan’s rules. He was going to use these abilities as oft
en as he could and destroy them.
Alex gave a yell, and Gracie turned to see Teef stretched out on the ground, dead. The panther hadn’t been able to escape quickly enough.
Oh, hell no. You killed pets, you were a hundred percent the scum of the earth. That was Gracie’s rule.
“For Teef!” she called as she charged back in. “Jay, let’s have some fun.”
Jay gave a yell of agreement. “For Teef!”
“Everyone, go hard frost!” Gracie called.
Alex was the first one to take up the challenge, switching to frost enchants on his arrows and beginning a heavy damage rotation. Gracie could sense his fury radiating through the room. Teef wasn’t “real,” but Alex also hated anyone who hurt animals.
With Kevin, Freon, and Lakhesis added to the mix, Harry was suddenly snared and slowed without respite. The team settled into a rhythm quickly, calling out to one another. Kevin would send a smaller freeze and the amarok would dart in with complementary damage, then Alex would loose an ice volley, Lakhesis would use her freezing stun, and Freon would finish with an ice spear. When they were done, Gracie used her own stun, taking deep pleasure in the feel of her fist striking the carpeted floor of her living room.
It occurred to her that her downstairs neighbors probably despised her and Alex.
Oops.
“You think you can win?” Harry shouted. “You’re starlings, scavengers, attacking the better fighter.”
“You’re an asshole,” Jay called back, “who wants everything to be his way or the highway. And you know what? If you weren’t such an asshole, you’d have a team at your back, too.”
Gracie gave a small smile and spun, ducking as she did so to slide under a bolt of holy magic from Yesuan’s staff. Everything about him was corrupted, dark magic playing around the light, woven through it.
You could only pretend to be evil for so long. Then the mask became your true face.
