“Your move, Daemyn,” she whispered. “Your move.”
***
Dennis refused to believe what he was seeing, but it was plain as day.
“Sir? What do we do?” Felicity asked over his shoulder.
The servers flickered madly around them and the last few lines of Winston’s code vanished as if it never existed to begin with. “Just gone, he’s just gone…just like Bronson.”
“Sir?”
He knew who was next. Rosalyn. Since she had disappeared from Dennis, he’d been trying to track her down through the game, but he couldn’t find her anywhere. He’d have to set some of the techs on it and find her before it was too late.
Chapter 11
Callie almost didn’t want to see Harrison, but Dennis said it was important. When she stepped out of her room, stretching her arms over her head and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she saw Jimmy, Alana, and Eric already out there.
“What’s going on?” she asked when she reached them.
“Dunno,” Eric said. “Dennis just said we needed to meet him at Harrison’s room.”
If it was good news, Dennis would have told them outright, especially after the day they had suffered. Losing two of their guild and then realizing the entire fight had been a distraction so Valen could get Winston took its toll on their morale big time. The players had a long day of work ahead of them, crafting new gear for the next set of levels, and grinding as fast as they could to reach level 80 and beat the final Demon Lord.
None of them spoke as they walked through the quiet facility, the security night lights the only guide until they reached Harrison’s private room on the second floor. The door was wide open and Dennis stood inside, speaking quietly with Dr. Sanchez beside him. Their heads were close together and, when the players reached the doorway, Eric knocked on the frame.
“Ah, good,” Dennis said as he turned, the smile on his face fake.
“Whatever it is just lay it on us,” Callie urged, her nerves fraying. “What’s wrong?”
Dr. Sanchez flipped closed the chart in her hand. “Nothing is really wrong, but Harrison’s brain activity has picked up immensely over the last few hours and his vitals…well his vitals are fluctuating.”
“And that’s bad?” Callie asked, unsure of where they were going with this.
“If his pulse stays erratic for too long and his brain activity becomes violent for lack of a better term, yes it could be bad. Harrison is essentially running out of time. Whatever this program is doing to his mind is affecting his physical body. I’m afraid his heart will be strained and, if that happens, if he goes into cardiac arrest, we’ll have to remove the head gear.”
“You can’t!” Callie rushed to Harrison’s side, taking his hand. “That could destroy his mind!”
“But there’s a chance it wouldn’t. If we can’t save him from having a heart attack, then he will die,” Dr. Sanchez said. “I wish I had better news, but whatever’s happening to him right now, it’s causing harm.”
“Because he’s fighting against himself,” Eric muttered. “He’s trying to fight back.”
“And it seems at times he succeeds,” Dennis said.
“At times, but not always. He still needs a bigger push. Watching two of our guild die was close, made him turn on Calict and kill him to save us.” Callie ran her fingers down his cheek, wishing she could see his eyes open and shining back at her with mischief as they had before. “How much time do you think we have?”
Dr. Sanchez looked uncertain as she said, “A week, probably less if we want to avoid permanent damage. I’m sorry, I wish I could give you better news, I truly do.”
Callie nodded, but couldn’t bear to look at anyone. Tears burned in her eyes and she wiped them away angrily. “It’s fine, we knew we weren’t going to have much time. We’ll just have to push through to the end, right? We’ll do it, we’ll make it in time.”
“Callie,” Eric started, and she glared at him. “Hey, all I was going to say was we need to get some sleep if we’re going to be in game all day tomorrow. You can’t sit in here for hours.”
He was right, but it didn’t make it any easier to leave Harrison behind, again. She clung to his hand as Alan and Jimmy guided her out of the room and back through the halls.
“He’s going to be fine,” Alana promised, but even she was starting to sound doubtful.
“He will be,” Jimmy asserted. “He’s the strongest out of all of us. He’ll hang on because the real Harrison Harper is in that game and he knows we’re coming for him. He just has to keep fighting a bit longer.”
Callie would’ve given anything to speak to Harrison; a few seconds was all she needed to give him that hope, to swear to him they were coming for him. They would enter the game at level 70 tomorrow and she wouldn’t log out until she was level 80 and ready to kill the final Demon Lord.
***
Calista pulled back the tree branch and grunted in annoyance. She had lost count around five hundred and decided it would be easier to just relay there was a massive army at Hillside. Much larger than the one that had attacked them with Calict leading.
“They’re like a damn swarm,” Trajan whispered beside her. “See how many generals are in there? Those bastards aren’t going to be easy to take down.”
“Won’t matter if they breach the gate at Weston. We’ll be overrun, generals or not.”
“Wait.” He pulled back another branch, eyes narrowed. “Where are those soldiers headed?”
Calista shifted her position, sidling behind another tree, and watched the battalion of soldiers moving out of Hillside. “I don’t know, but they’re not moving west. Where would they be going?”
“That’s east. What’s back east?”
Calista peeled at the bark, needing to fidget with something as her mind ran over strategies and plans in her mind. “The only thing back east that would make sense is her own fortress. Why would she move Demons here and then march them all the way back?”
“Unless they’re headed farther east, to the islands maybe.”
“Great, that’s not what I want to hear.”
As soon as they finished their recon mission here, they were meeting the guild on the docks at Seaside to take the ship to the first island on their path. A week at most. That was all the time they had left. Reaching level 100 was now out of the question. Now it was going to be a matter of finding the final Demon Lord, killing him, and then facing down Valen, under-leveled and majorly outgunned as far as numbers went. There was no more time to push to that final level.
It was now or never.
“I think we’ve seen enough,” she said, disappointment plain in her voice. Half of her hoped to see Bishop, attempt to sneak him out if she could, but they hadn’t spotted him and they’d wasted nearly two hours sitting in the mud and muck.
They backed away from the tree line and activated the milestone to take them to Weston. From there, they could Swift Travel from the stable all the way to Seaside. Calista wished they had better news to deliver, but when they met with Jimmy and the guild at the docks, all she could tell them was Hillside was filled to the brim with Demons. Their numbers were easily in the thousands and more were coming in, minus the one battalion they saw marching away.
“I don’t think we need to worry about them,” Trajan added when Calista finished her report. “For now, our focus is on reaching level eighty and finding the last Demon Lord.”
Heads bobbed in agreement and, together, they boarded the ship. The captain was there to greet them and offered his hand to Calista. “I hear you’re looking to fight off the Demon scourge taking over the islands,” he said as she took his hand. “Good tidings to you all.”
Calista watched the prompt appear and accepted a line of quests to get them started.
Quest Accepted: Seeking the Lost Barren’s Treasure
Quest Accepted: Curse of the Sirens
Quest Accepted: The Bringer of Winds
The last one seemed promising and led them to the second island along the eastern coast and was a few levels higher. “We need to aim for this quest,” she told Trajan once the captain dropped sail and the ship crashed through the waves, moving out of the bay. “Bringer of Winds? Sounds like it could be our Demon Lord.”
“Or a sorcerer of some kind,” he mused. “We’ll check it out once we get a couple of levels under our belt. Shouldn’t take long with these boosts.”
They carried the same one as the day before that would mean they only had to finish a limited number of quests to reach their next level. She tapped her fingers anxiously on the ship railing, her toes tapping as she watched the waves roll in against the ship, rocking it almost violently to the point of tipping to the side. She held on, closing her eyes, and whispering for them to get there so she could get to killing.
When the ship finally docked, the harbor had clearly not been kept up and there were very few people in sight. Those they did see were rough, dirty, and said nothing as the heroes walked down the plank to the dock. The captain wished them luck again and warned them to keep an eye on their gold while on the islands.
“Looks like we head for the heart of the island,” Jimmy said, pulling up the map. “Ready to go?”
Calista hoped there’d be a town here, but the few scatterings of huts and one structure falling apart on all sides was hardly what she’d call a town. “Yeah, let’s get going.”
Her boot touched down on solid ground when a scraggly arm from an old woman she hadn’t even noticed sitting there, reached out like a claw and snatched her arm. “Beware, my dear, he knows you are here. He knows and he is coming for you.”
Calista tried to pull her arm free, but the old bat held on tighter. “Who?”
“The one who will kill us all and blow these islands away to nothing but dust. He’s come back…after all these years, he’s returned and he will be satisfied.”
Calista crouched down. “The Bringer of Winds? Is that who you’re talking about?”
The old woman’s face paled unbelievably more and she nodded frantic, her other hand digging into Calista’s arm too, as if she could save the old woman from her horrible fate. “He slept for centuries, but the Queen has awoken him and he will come for you all.”
“Not if we kill him first.”
The old woman’s eyes widened in awe, but whatever she saw she kept to herself. Her hands detached from Calista’s arms and the woman slumped back into her hunched position, eyes glazing over as they watched the waves. Her words unnerved Calista, but at least they knew one thing for certain: the next Demon Lord was this Bringer of Winds.
“I don’t like the sound of that title,” Maverick said as they walked up the dirt path that served as a road and quickly left the spit of a town behind them. “Bringer of Winds. What does that even mean? Is he going to be a storm? Are we going to have to fight a damn hurricane or something?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Calista said, checking her map to be sure they headed in the right direction. “Let’s knock out these two quests at least and see where that gets us.”
The Barren’s Treasure was the closest to where they stood and they moved in a westward direction around the outskirt of the island before turning inwards to the heart. There were hardly any monsters to kill, but their main goal was questing to get more XP. Calista was okay with the lack of fighting. Yesterday was more than enough to last her a very long while. The treasure was buried in a tomb haunted by the ghost of the pirate himself, along with the skeletal remains of his undead crew.
Calista hung back and let Trajan lead the attack, wiping them out easily enough. They collected the treasure chest and she numbly followed the group as they turned northwards, ready to take on these Sirens plaguing the fishermen.
All the while, she reminded herself of what she had seen at Hillside. And wondered what Bishop was up to if he wasn’t there.
***
Bishop grew tired of crouching in the mud like a beast. This job was meant for lower beings than him, and yet here he was with four Demons at his back, waiting for that bloody Red Witch to make an appearance. He had spent the last day tracking her whereabouts from the old camp in the south, all the way up to the northern reaches, past the old High Ridge Sanctuary. His orders were clear: find the witch and, if possible, capture her. She was one of two final pieces his Queen needed to complete her plans. Valenastrious told him claiming the Red Witch out in the wild would be easier than having to do it later. He’d asked how she would know, but she sent him on his way with a stern growl and a warning to come back with the witch in hand.
The air changed around him and the Demons shifted nervously. He growled in warning for them to remain where they were and keep quiet. It felt as though a storm brewed. His hair stood on end and it was suddenly much harder to breathe.
The witch was here. He might not be able to see her, but she was most certainly here. He withdrew his dagger quietly and waited with bated breath.
A few more moments of tense waiting and there she was. Her red hair hung loose over her shoulders and she hummed while she walked, carrying a basket filled with freshly picked herbs. Bishop waited to see if she gave any indication of her being surrounded, but she went about her business. Several of the herbs, she dumped straight into a cauldron bubbling on the fire. She stirred it with a large, metal spoon. Bishop crept closer. Her back was to them. If he was to attack her, now was the time.
“One more step and I will kill you all.”
Bishop froze. Did she mean him and the Demons? How could she know?
Then he heard the growling and a white fur covered body slunk out of the shadows of the witch’s hut.
“Willy,” Bishop whispered. That was his wolf, one he had saved.
You can’t hurt him, the voice whispered in his mind, weaker now since Valen’s last attack on his mind. He rolled his shoulders and stood straight and tall. There was no point in hiding if she already knew they were there. He walked out of hiding, but waved his hand down to keep the Demons back and out of sight for the time being.
“He’s not happy to see you,” she said without looking up from the cauldron, as Willy planted his front legs and his lips pulled back in a snarl.
“He’s a wild animal. Why would he?”
The Red Witch turned, her brow raised. “Do you truly not remember your own companion? My, how far down the wretched Queen has dragged you.”
Bishop attempted to avert his gaze away from the wolf, but those knowing eyes drew him in. Glimpses of memories fought to surface in his mind, times he had spent with this white wolf, all the adventures together, the time the wolf had saved his life, and so on. Bishop stumbled back a step, shaking his head to try and clear away the haze that had descended once again. Suddenly, though, his Queen’s face was before him and any chance of remembering this wolf was gone in an instant.
“The Queen has requested your presence,” Bishop growled.
Willy snapped his jaws when he took a step towards the Red Witch.
“Is that so? And she can’t come herself? I find that rude, very rude indeed, especially coming from such self-proclaimed royalty.”
“She is Queen of Vorgan and all Demonkind.” Bishop moved closer again. “You will come with me now, or else face the wrath of the Demon Queen herself.”
The Red Witch sighed and finally faced Bishop. Her eyes flared bright red with power and she smirked. “I will never be the Queen’s prisoner.”
“I’m afraid I must insist.”
Bishop glanced at the wolf, inching towards his mistress just as Bishop was. He hadn’t wanted it to come to a fight, but his nose twitched as a strong pungent smell hit it. He frowned, realizing it came from the cauldron currently bubbling over and dripping onto the fire beneath it. He opened his mouth to ask what trickery she was playing at when the cauldron exploded. The potion held within it shot out and sprayed Bishop, but all he felt was moisture. The
Demons however screamed in agony and, when he sat up, he saw their skin melting from where it had been touched. A loud pop filled his ears and he whipped around to see the wolf and the witch gone.
“Damn it!”
As the Demons groaned in pain around him, Bishop snarled his rage to the sky and kicked one of the dying Demons, speeding him on his way. If he hadn’t been distracted by his other self, he would’ve had her. He stomped away into the woods, leaving the rest of the Demons to suffer and die painfully. They weren’t his problem. He hadn’t snagged the witch, which meant attacking her in a much more dangerous situation.
No matter, it would give him a chance to face the heroes again and see to their destruction as well.
You don’t mean that, you can’t!
“Silence! I have listened to you long enough and you have brought us close to ruin.” He raged at the voice, cursing as he walked and opened a portal to return him to Hillside. “I will end this once and for all, and if that includes killing everyone who gets in my way, including you, I will do so.”
Killing me means killing yourself.
“Then perhaps that time will come,” he warned and stepped through the fiery portal, stepping out back at Hillside in the bustling courtyard. “That Red Witch will be my Queen’s and I will see to it Samar bows to her, one way or another.”
The voice in his head protested, but Bishop drowned it out, diving into their plans for attacking Weston. There was more to Valenastrious’ plan than she had told him yet, but he knew their next move would be to intercept the Red Witch at the palace. How his queen knew she would be there was beyond him, but he cared not. He would accompany her to the palace and take what she required. The old Bishop needed to die for good, and killing a few more of his old friends might just do the trick. He rolled his head on his shoulders, the voice in his head falling away to nothing but an annoying ringing. He could live with that.
***
The Final Chapter Page 14
