Spectres & Skin: Exodus

by RJ Creed

  Beside me, Moro whimpered and whined and I wanted to find out what was bothering her, but I was fairly occupied. The blade was yanked from my armour and I pulled back my arm to launch a Triple Strike at the monster’s arm, which knocked it away from me only slightly: enough to let me run the fuck away for a second to collect myself. I was bleeding, out of breath, and two abilities in a row had put me right back to close to 10% stamina again. There was no way I could win. The bone monster had 70% health and not a hair lower.

  I bent double and hacked, the pain clouding my vision and the exhaustion bone-deep. I had 70% health too, but he had actually only landed one almost fully blocked hit. This didn’t bode well; it really didn’t.

  “Ryken,” I coughed, continuing to use up the last of my energy backing away. It looked like under 10% my stamina continued to deplete even if I moved normally, which meant that if I didn’t sit still soon I was going to pass out and get killed. “Ryken,” I shouted. There was no response. I was going to die. Ryken may have already been dead.

  But then the impossible happened. The bone minion raised both swords above its hideous skull and then ... fell in a heap on the floor. I coughed and wheezed and pulled in a breath, desperate to get back above 10% stamina because how I felt was unbearable.

  I clutched the stinging pain in my side and my breathing rattled until I found a place of calm, and my stamina began to regen. It got to 5% … 6% … and then my eyes landed on the whimpering spectral wolf again.

  “What?” I asked, my head lolling. “It’s OK — Ryken saved us, I think. We’re fine.”

  Moro wasn’t acting frightened of the pile of bones, though … she was backing away from Gellert’s body. It was still there, lying still and pale on the floor. The blood was no longer leaking from his body. Why was he still there? I got to my feet and made my way slowly, painfully, across the cavern, lowering my stamina back to 5% before I collapsed beside the body.

  “Maybe there’s a … like a pause,” I said to the wolf. “Like he has to wait a few hours and then he respawns.” Moro whimpered again and backed away, her ears tilted back. “You big baby, it’s just—”

  Gellert’s head snapped up to lock eyes with me, and his white lips, stained with his own blood, widened in a silent shriek. He clawed with his fingernails on the soft dirt towards me, bit by bit, jaws gnashing.

  “Holy shit!” I scrambled backwards, and again lowered my stamina from 8% down to 4%, my heart hammering. “Gellert. Gellert? Dude, what’s happened?” With my back pressed against the wall and the half-man pulling himself towards me, I quickly inspected him.

  Gellert LaStr$de

  ??D&%??

  Daw#spire ?11&g;;?

  Friendly

  What the fuck?

  They sent so many beta testers in here for so long and, famously, not a single person found a bug. Not even a tiny one. So I was the first? That just didn’t seem right. I coughed again, my throat almost closed due to my exhaustion, and just about managed to wait until I hit 6% before I pushed myself to my feet and tripped along the wall, three paces away. Now on 3% I collapsed again, breathing loud and clutching my chest. Every fibre of my body hurt. I was going to die.

  And … I was possibly not going to respawn. What if this glitch affected me too? I pulled myself backwards with my hands while Gellert’s top half snapped his pale jaws and pulled himself to me. Finally I hit a wall again, whispering nonsense to a man who could have been my friend, and he pulled himself over my neck and opened his jaw impossibly wide, just as my stamina fell to 1% and I hurtled towards unconsciousness.

  9

  Something Wicked

  When I opened my eyes, there were many different things I thought I would see. I expected to still see Gellert’s jaws of death, or to see Carl and Luke standing over me, eagerly asking how my time was ... or maybe to wake up in my scratchy Dawnspire bed.

  But I was still in the cave. I sat up, groggy, and looked around as my eyes focused to see the back of Ryken’s head, and three dirt-covered young women sitting in front of a crackling fire. When I sat up, I was aching in places I didn’t even know had nerve endings, and my vision was still blurred. I blinked a couple of times and realised how desperately thirsty I was. My pack was right next to me, and still had my half-full water skin in it, so I chugged half of that and wiped my mouth.

  The women turned around and eyed me nervously, glancing towards Ryken and pointing in my direction. Moro was at my side, lying down with her chin on her paws, keeping watch.

  “What happened?” I managed to say through a clenched jaw, wincing as I pushed myself to my feet. The wolf looked up at me with worry in her golden eyes. Ryken hopped off the stool and wandered over to me, handing me a chunk of bread.

  “I have no fucking clue what happened to G,” he said, looking pale and just as confused as I was. I gratefully accepted the bread and ripped it with my teeth to chew. It was a little stale, but I was hungrier than I thought. “But these women … man I came in here to kill them, all ready to do it, but I overheard them talking. They’re not…” He shook his head, looking suddenly furious.

  “Witches?” I finished for him, and then with a nervous glance up at the staring women, I sidled closer to him. “But they’re Necromancers, and they must have cursed Gellert or something to make him … wrong, like that.”

  “I don’t think it was them. When I came in there you were out cold and I pulled G off you. He tried to fuckin’ eat me, man.” He shook his head hard. “It was insane. I had to stab him.” He tapped his own temple. “The women, they were as surprised as I was. Said they’d never seen anything like it.”

  “Like a zombie,” I muttered.

  “A what?”

  I guessed that monster wasn’t super common in this world, if they existed at all. I assumed that they did, if Necromancy was a thing. “You know, the walking dead.” I tried to imitate a zombie with my arms up but accidentally did the Thriller dance instead. “Zombies, dude. He was undead.”

  “Right,” he said, that word seeming to carry more weight. “Yes, he was undead.”

  “But he should have respawned,” I muttered. “Maybe he still did. Maybe he’s waiting for us back at the spire.”

  “Are you fucking insane? Seen one of your friends die and now you’ve lost it? Fucking hell, man, level up your Fortitude and move on.”

  I stared down at the ground, the rest of the stale bread crumbling in my fist as I squeezed it. “No, he’ll be back at the spire. I know he will. We can’t die.”

  If Gellert was dead here, no respawning … was he dead in real life? Or had he disconnected from the game? I remembered the glitchy information above him, though; it didn’t seem like what happened was exactly programmed in. What had happened to him, whatever it was, had clearly not been intended to.

  I looked up. “I might have to leave,” I said quietly. “Gellert and I … we were from the same place. We aren’t supposed to ... die. Not like that.”

  Ryken’s eyes narrowed. “Shut up. What are you, then? You look human.”

  “We are human, but we’re not from here.” I rubbed the back of my head with my hand. “Never mind. I think it might be too hard to explain.”

  “Fine. Come and meet the women who healed you.” He jerked his head towards the three staring witches. They didn’t look very frightening, but they had just killed my friend, who was supposedly immortal in this world. That made them a little more scary in my books.

  I cleared my throat and approached them at their table in front of the fire. “Hello,” I said, casting my eyes over all of them. Sandre, Level 7, Seline, Level 5, and then the older of the three: Alina. Level 14. She looked exhausted, dirt set deep into the crow’s feet around her eyes, but she managed a half smile.

  “I’m … so sorry about your friend,” she said quietly, and a small tear slipped from her eye. “We spied on you when you set off the trap, saw you were from the Collective, and we knew that you were here to kill us.” She sniffled and rubbed her nose and
eyes, smearing dirt around.

  “We were,” I said, falling onto the nearby stool and stretching out my painful limbs. My health was full but my stamina was climbing slowly, and still only at 67%. My leather jerkin was laid out on the floor and I was topless with a bandage expertly tied around my middle.

  The two younger girls exchanged frightened looks, but Ryken waved his hand and took a long drink from a pewter mug. When he’d swallowed and set it down, he spoke. “We were going to, when we thought you were monsters.”

  “How do we know they aren’t fooling you?” I asked my only remaining teammate, trying to keep my voice low but failing.

  “I just know,” he snapped back, and I rolled my eyes.

  “If you get us killed…” I began, and then dread began to truly swirl in my gut for the first time since I had arrived here. If I died here, would I be able to come back?

  Was the dread more at the worry I wouldn’t be able to get back to my old body, or the worry that I wouldn’t be able to stay here? Whatever had happened to Gellert, I needed to find out what it was, and how it affected the rest of the players who had come to this world, especially those who were planning on staying here for years.

  “So,” I said, when I had eaten more of my stale crust and forced more water into my body, and my stamina had crawled closer still to full, “who are you ladies, then?”

  One of the younger ones, Sandre, kept openly staring at my exposed chest, but I was too tired to be happy about the attention.

  It was Alina who spoke, clearly and carefully. “We were banished from Dawnspire for learning a different school of magic.” Her eyes trailed over to Moro and she paled further and looked at the ground. “We scried and saw your spectre at the entrance, and we were certain you would kill us.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “a lot of people seem to think she means that I’m a loyal member, but…” I shrugged instead of finishing my sentence, and it seemed to do the trick. “I didn’t get a spectre on purpose.”

  “No, it means that Titania chose you,” Seline cried suddenly, and then clapped her hands over her mouth in fear.

  Alina waved a hand. “The girls were loyal servants, studying for their initiation, but their curiosity was too great. They heard a rumour that I was able to study skin magic and they couldn’t stop their questions. They … tried a spell one night, not understanding that the goddess would be able to tell. When they went forward to the Father to ask to become Acolytes, they were banished instantly from the city’s gates. I went with them, of course, since it was my fault.”

  “And the ritual murder of livestock..?” I had to ask.

  “No,” Alina said simply. “Lies. We stole, yes. We stole plenty, and perhaps, morally, we shouldn’t have. But we have the right to live just as anyone else.” She folded her arms over her chest and still wouldn’t look me in the eye, as if expecting me to argue with her.

  “I agree,” I said, gritting my teeth as I checked my bandage. It felt fine; the cut seemed already healed. Whoever had patched me up must have had a high level in First Aid. The girls looked surprised at my words.

  “Your friend here came out of the shadows to tell us that you meant no harm; you just wanted answers.” Alina nodded at Ryken, and I looked sideways at him, kind of impressed.

  “If you’re no harm to us, then we’re no harm to you,” I said. “I have no interest in hurting someone who isn’t hostile to me.”

  Alina looked relieved at the sincerity she must have heard in my words. “Thank you…” She paused and a cold trickle ran over my skin. “Matthew Blake.”

  “No problem,” I said, and took another drink of water. I was getting to 90% stamina now, and feeling really much better than I had when I’d just woken up. Now that I was sitting here and talking to these women, my concerns about the Dawnspire Collective being the faction I had found myself aligned to were growing fast. What would I do? It looked like I’d had it really good in this game so far, living in Dawnspire. But if the conditions for living with a full stomach and a dry bed were to murder innocent non-players who couldn’t respawn, I wasn’t happy about that.

  And time was getting on. It was day 3 of 7 in this world and Luke hadn’t made it to the spire. If he hadn’t made it there by the next day, I would leave Dawnspire. I wasn’t going to align myself with these crazy weirdos any longer. This game was supposed to be fun, and Luke wouldn’t be envious of a time I’d spent helping a murderous cult take over the world. I wanted to make him jealous.

  Luke. A coldness touched my veins when I thought about him. Was he … even alive? If we didn’t respawn, maybe I should start to get worried about him.

  What if right from the beginning he had spawned into danger, kind of like I had, but worse? What if he was all glitched like Gellert, just groaning and pulling himself around by his fingernails somewhere?

  And if that happened to be the case, what had become of his body?

  I shivered and looked away from the others as they chatted about their struggles in finding and digging out this cave, with the help of their bone minions. Apparently shaping bones into minions was a skin magic ability, and therefore since I had a spectre, one I would never be permitted to learn, since you could have one or the other.

  Ryken could, though, and I was curious why he wasn’t pressing them more to ask how to do it. Unless he was still set on the idea that he was supposed to get a spectre one day. But how, if not during the initiation process?

  Oh well. I took a deep breath and stood, and the conversation ceased as the women looked up at me.

  “Right, well, obviously we’re not going to kill you,” I said, “but if we go back and tell the Collective that we didn’t do it, we might face banishment too—”

  “Or worse,” Ryken muttered.

  “Exactly. So we’ll need to prove, somehow, that we have killed you. Even though we’re not going to. How would we do that?”

  There was a long pause, and one of the younger girls started to cry softly. Alina buried her head in her hands. What? What had I done? Ryken wasn’t glaring at me, which was a good sign, but rather carefully surveying the women.

  “I … I have something,” Alina said finally, lifting her head and wiping away thick tears. My brow knotted and I waited for her to continue; I had no idea what exactly I had said that had upset them all so much.

  “What is it?” I prompted.

  “Please,” she sputtered, shoulders shaking. “Give me a moment to come to terms with this.”

  “With what?” I asked, looking around. Now Ryken was glaring at me, and I still had no idea what I’d done wrong.

  Finally Alina reached under the dark blue collar of her dress and pulled out a thick golden chain. On the chain was a single gold ring set with a shining amethyst. Fresh tears sliding down her cheeks and onto her lap, she fumbled with the clasp and removed it from her neck. She whispered goodbye to the ring, kissed it, and handed it to me. I blinked, holding the object in my hands and frowning at it.

  Attention! The parameters of your current quest have changed.

  I waved away the text and looked at the quest.

  Active Quest

  Something Wicked...

  The Father wishes for you to eradicate the skin magic users who are stealing food from the nearby farmlands.

  Alina wishes for you to return the ring she keeps around her neck to the Father instead, and pretend that they are dead.

  Reward: Unknown

  “Are you alright?” I asked, but before I could close my hand around the ring she snatched it back.

  “Wait,” she said simply, and pulled a small knife from her waist where it had previously been hidden. My hand went instinctively to my own waist, but instead she pricked her thumb deep. A big bead of red blood rose from her skin and she tried hard not to visibly flinch from the pain. She grabbed the ring and closed her own hand around it, staining the steel with her blood. “There,” she said, and then reluctantly passed it back to me with a short sniff.

  “I’
m sorry about this,” I said. “Maybe one day I can get this back to you.”

  She looked into my eyes, hers still swimming, and smiled. “We were only married for three years,” she said. “They killed him.”

  I swallowed, averting my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I, we, only joined a few days ago.”

  “I don’t blame you, boys. We do what we can to survive. For him that was stealing a shipment of silks for some thieves. He was caught red-handed and … Rae ended his life. On the street, like livestock.” Her eyes welled up again and I carefully wrapped the bloody ring in the map and put it in my pack. She stood and took a few deep breaths. “They know me. They know I wouldn’t give the ring up … unless I was dead. It breaks my heart to do it, but I must, to save these girls.”

  I nodded at her. She was doing the right thing. I turned to Ryken. “This is all getting pretty heavy.”

  He stood and didn’t acknowledge me immediately. He pulled a handful of coins out of his pocket and spread them on the table instead. “Sorry,” he grunted, and turned around to pick up his pack.

  “It’s nice of you to give them money,” I said, joining him out of earshot. I felt, for some reason, like constant praise and reassurance was the way to get Ryken to soften up, and it seemed like it had almost worked at least a little, so far.

  He made a hollow noise and didn’t look at me, packing up his things. “I didn’t,” he said.

  “I just saw—”

  “I returned all the money I stole from them when you and G weren’t looking. This whole thing is fucked, it’s much bigger than us. It’s bigger than gold pieces, it’s bigger than…” He rubbed at his forehead and grimaced. “It’s bigger than whether or not you or I deserves to use spectral magic. Whatever. Let’s get back and turn in the quest.”