by Baron Sord
Tiygar:> Some days it feels like I do. Heh heh heh.
KingFarthurT:> I hear ya, brother. Hey, any chance you and Q might come with us to find my sister? We could really use that Tiger Fury of yours. Qoorie’s too. Plus I miss looking at that tiger ass of hers.
Tiygar:> Heh heh heh. You and me both, dawg. We would love to, but we spent the whole week in RO. We both real tired. We old, dawg. We need a week off after our week off, ya know? Otherwise we’d login tonight after work and join ya. Feel me?
KingFarthurT:> Absolutely. I’m gonna need a month off myself after this is over. If I’m lucky, I might even get my old job back.
Tiygar:> They’s always a need for suckin’ dick, dawg.
KingFarthurT:> Hahaha.
Tiygar:> If you still need help next weekend, you lemme know. Orchid, I mean Q and I’ll be itching for an RO fix by then.
KingFarthurT:> Will do, Ty. Thanks again, man.
Tiygar:> Call me Arnold. Arnold Washington.
KingFarthurT:> Call me King. King Fart Hurt. Or Logan Byrne. Lololol.
Tiygar:> Heh heh heh. Catch you around, Logan Farts That Hurt.
KingFarthurT:> Later on, Arnold.
Tiygar:> Peace out, dawg.
I blinked my eyes, reorienting on Jason.
He said, “Can they login and help?”
“Nah. You were right. They’re working all week.”
Jason nodded. “Well, that means everybody’s geared up for the raid. Are you?”
I nodded absently, thinking about it. It took a moment to reorient myself to really being inside RO. I’d been immersed in the real world of Bangkok for the past several days. I had to remember that Reternity was a world all its own, with its own rules and dangers. Time to get my head back in the game. “Okay, yeah. Let’s do this thing.”
Jason’s giant chariot and the white and black dragons waited for us in the courtyard with his squad of Law soldiers. Instead of 12, this time there were about 50, all of them around Level 35.
“Is this your entire army?” I asked Jason. I’d been expecting hundreds or even thousands of men.
“No. We don’t have time to move the entire army into the Deadlands. This is my elite team. It’s the best I can manage on short notice.”
“I hope it’s enough.”
“Me too,” he said ominously.
I noticed that the chariot was even larger. Now it had two levels, and the one on the bottom had an indoor portion. Made me think of a stubby white-black yacht on wheels.
I said to Jason, “Is this the same chariot?”
“Yup.”
“Man, it’s a frickin’ transformer, isn’t it?”
Jason grinned, “Gotta love it.”
“Does it turn into Optimus Prime?”
Jason’s eyes grew big. “No, but it should. I’ll get some mages on that when we get back. Next time.”
“Definitely,” I chuckled.
One of the soldiers waved at me. “Hey, Kill Stealer! Good to see you again, man!”
“Soldier 4,” I said, amused. “What up, buddy?” I walked over and clapped him on the back of his plate armor.
“Nothing much. How you been?”
“Fair enough. Hey, what’s your name anyway? I’m Logan.”
“Craig.”
“That your real name?” I asked.
“Yeah. Is yours Logan?”
I smirked, “It’s not King Fart Hurt.”
“I was gonna say,” he laughed. “You should’ve gone with something else.”
“Genius at the time, man.” I couldn’t believe how happy I was to see Craig. I guess I knew he’d re-spawn after that failed raid, but the last time I’d seen him, he’d been crushed to death when the Moleax Miners had collapsed that tunnel. I pushed away the painful memory.
“You ready to kick some ass?”
“Did Jason tell you where we’re going?”
“Yup. Heart of the Deadlands. The most dangerous place in Reternity. I guess your sister’s trapped there?”
“Something like that.” I didn’t wanna go into details. I didn’t know if Jason had told his staff that our sister was actually kidnapped and missing in the real world. Best not get into it.
Jason said, “May I have everyone’s attention please?”
All heads turned to him.
“You’ve all been briefed about the mission objective and the dangers. Many of you will most certainly be killed, but hey, you’ll re-spawn.” Scattered laughter. Except for Layna, who frowned. She was probably still touchy after nearly dying the other day. “Our objective is no laughing matter. My sister, my and Logan’s real sister—”
“My daughter,” Dad added.
“Yes, your daughter,” Jason continued. “She’s trapped and we have to break her out. The enemy doesn’t know we’re coming. Surprise will be our best weapon. Best case scenario, this’ll be an in and out operation. They won’t even know we’re there.”
“What’s the worst case scenario,” one of the soldiers asked hopefully.
“Worst case is they have an army waiting for us.”
Shouts of approval from the men.
Jason grinned, proud of his elite team. “As you all know, we’ve gone over every possible contingency and we’ve armed ourselves accordingly. Stick to your training and I promise you, we will be victorious.” Cheers from the soldiers. “All of you will get hefty quest XP for your efforts, and I expect we’ll score some legendary loot after the battle is over. You can rest assured the foes we’ll fight won’t be pushovers.”
“We’ll push ’em into their graves!” Craig shouted.
The others roared approval.
Jason smile proudly.
A status window appeared in front of me.
Quest: Rescue the Princess. An innocent maiden has been captured by evil forces and is being held deep within the Dark Kingdom. Rescue her and bring her back safely to the Freelands and gain increased respect from the Order of Law.
Difficulty: Life threatening.
Reward: 10,000 XP, earn +25 Law points and +25 Fame points.
Do you accept? Y/N
Absolutely.
Jason said to the group, “Board the chariot, people. We leave in 5 minutes.”
Layna walked up to me as we were boarding and whispered in my ear, “We’ll find her. I just know it.”
“Yeah,” I said absently. How many times had I heard that before? Jason’s speech had sounded too much like this was just a game.
It wasn’t.
This was everything.
—: o o o :—
As the white and black dragons soared through the clouds and pulled the chariot through the sky, I stood beside Jason at the reins.
He said, “Layna sure looks happy to see you.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to talk about it. “Hey, how did you figure out where Emily is? I mean, you know for sure, right?”
“Definitely. Remember that raven-cam video I showed you?”
“Yeah?”
“The kid who shot it contacted me today. He told me exactly where that raven was when it filmed Emily. I know the location down to the inch.”
“Oh, man. That’s great. I was worried this might be another dead end.”
“Not at all. I already had spies fly recon over that dead tree graveyard. We’re going to the right place.”
“And you know Emily’s still in one of the dead trees?”
Jason’s smile sagged into a scowl. “She was when the raven shot that video.”
My hope eroded faster than Jason’s smile.
“She’ll be there,” he said with grim determination, wanting it to be true as bad as I did.
I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t dwell on it. We had to try. If she wasn’t there, we’d worry about it later. “So, uh, what took the kid so long to respond about the video?”
Jason smirked, “Funny story. Turns out he’s like 15 and he used his Dad’s ID and credit card to make an RO account under hi
s Dad’s name. When the kid’s mom saw the bill, she thought the dad was having an affair in Reternity.”
“Let me guess, people actually do that?”
Jason smirked, “Pretty much exactly like cheating in the real world.”
“I bet,” I said. “So then what?”
“They figured out it was the kid and they grounded him. Told him he couldn’t play RO anymore.”
“So how’d he find out you contacted him?”
“His dad contacted me after going through the kid’s RO emails and watching the video.”
“What was his dad doing logging on to RO?”
Jason shrugged, “Probably wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”
I smirked, “Uh huh. Guy probably took a look around and decided to bone the nearest ape he found in-game.”
“Nearest what?” Layna said as she climbed up the ladder from the lower level. She walked up to me and stood right in my space.
Jason just grinned.
“Nothing,” I mumbled. Feeling uncomfortable, I backed up a step. “You should ask Jason to show you how to steer the dragons.” It was an excuse to get away from her.
I didn’t like the way her presence made me feel.
It made me feel good.
Too good.
Fake good.
I went down to the lower deck to hang out with Craig and the other soldiers. Anything to get away from Layna.
—: o o o :—
When we crossed over into the Dark Kingdom several hours later, we were flying high above the clouds. They were a dark dense puffy carpet blocking out the land below in every direction as far as the eye could see. Stormy thunderheads climbed upward in tall cottony columns.
Bright lightning flickered briefly.
“It’s probably raining hard down there,” I said.
“Yeah,” Jason said.
“What altitude are we at? There are literally no clouds higher than we are, and when I look up, I see the darkness of space. We gotta be at least 65,000 feet up. I think we’re officially in near space.”
“This thing doesn’t have an altimeter, but you’re probably right.”
“You know, if it wasn’t for the shielding around your chariot, we’d die almost instantly up here without pressure suits. The atmosphere’s too thin. Uh, the shielding won’t run out, will it?”
“Not unless someone down below starts attacking us.”
I winced.
“Don’t worry,” he smiled, “that’s why we’re up so high. I don’t think any of the Dark Forces or Agents of Chaos or the Profane Army usually operate up here.”
“We’re up here.”
“Yeah, but nothing else is, so they don’t patrol it.”
“Ahhh. But do the Dark Forces or whoever have high altitude anti-aircraft missiles?”
“No,” he chuckled. “And they don’t have radar.”
“You know what I mean. Like, I don’t know, maybe they have Divination mages scanning the heavens? And magic missiles or some shit to shoot us down?”
“You saw that mana accelerator Keslak was building. There’s always a chance somebody somewhere down there has a weapon we don’t want them shooting at us. The trick is avoiding detection.”
“I hope this thing has stealth capabilities,” I half-joked.
“Actually, I’m burning a thousand mana per minute worth of invisibility spells on the chariot and the dragons.”
“Thousands? How do you sustain it?”
“The chariot is a mana amplifier. Whenever I’m on it, I get 10x my normal mana.”
“10x? For you, that’s something like 2.6 million mana, right?”
Jason smiled smugly.
“Talk about badass. Where the hell you get this thing, Jay?”
“It’s a gift from the Overlords.”
“Who are they?”
“Think of them as the gods of Law. They’re not technically gods, but they’re close enough. They make me look like a Level 1.”
“Have you ever met them?”
“Not directly. It’s complicated. But they’re out there somewhere.” He scanned the heavens, but there was nothing to see. “Anyway, I was saying about the chariot, aside from the invisibility and sound suppression and scent suppression, it’s covered with anti-detection wards that don’t burn any mana. The only people in RO I know of who could see us right now are the Gods, the Underlords, the Overlords, or the DiscordLords.”
“You are such a nerd, Jason.” I squeezed his shoulder and grinned as I shook him gently.
“You played plenty of D&D growing up, so that makes you a nerd too,” he chuckled.
“Maybe it does. But I’m still proud of you, bro. You were the one who found that raven-cam video of Emily. You were the one who paid the kidnappers. If you think about it, I haven’t done shit to help.” That was essentially the truth, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself or anyone else.
“Yeah, but you’re the one in real Bangkok. This is just a game,” Jason said dismissively.
“But here we are, and this is all you, bro. I’m just along for the ride.”
He looked at me, his face squirming. “Thanks, Logan. It really means a lot coming from you.”
“Sure, bro.” I patted his back vigorously. “Sure.”
Jason’s eyes shimmered.
“Don’t turn into a pussy now, your Honor. We got a battle to win.”
“Yes we do.” He broke into a nervous laugh.
I laughed too, just as nervous.
—: o o o :—
“This place is giving me the willies,” Dad said after we landed in the gloomy graveyard of dead trees.
Jason’s chariot was parked on the edge of a big plateau in the black mud, the same one I’d seen in the raven-cam video. Everyone climbed off the chariot and milled around nearby. The white dragon was antsy as hell, but the black dragon was cool as a cat. Considering he was evil, it made sense. This was probably his hood.
Jason sent the dragons and the chariot flying into the sky without us.
I said to him, “You don’t have to be on that thing to fly it?”
“I can do it remotely.”
“Nice.”
“I’ll have the dragons circle at altitude and keep an eye on the sky, make sure we don’t got bombed by anything that flies.”
“Good plan. But are you sure we won’t need their help down here?”
He smirked, “Please. I’m here.”
“You’re getting that anime look again,” I chuckled.
“Unless they send the entire Dark Horde of Evil at us, which they won’t, nothing in Reternity can stop me.”
“Okay, Fist of the Northstar,” I jabbed.
Jason arched an innocent eyebrow.
“You know which scene I’m talking about, Jay. The one where that dude knocks over a concrete skyscraper with the back of his hand and lets the whole goddamn building fall on him. And he’s so badass, the building breaks when it hits his head because he’s more solid than 1,000,000 tons of concrete and steel.”
“Gosh, I don’t remember that scene,” Jason arched his eyebrow even higher, playing dumb.
“Dude, I know you remember. You made me watch that scene a thousand times when you were 12. Stupidest thing ever.”
“You only think it’s stupid because you can’t do it,” Jason chuckled.
“What, and you can?”
Jason smirked with absolute confidence.
“Nerd,” I laughed, shoving him. From what I’d seen, he probably could.
He laughed with me.
I turned to survey row after row of gnarled black trees fading into the foggy distance. “How many trees do you think are here?”
“There was a lot of fog when we circled in the chariot, but I’d say thousands at the very least.”
“Tens of thousands. Do you think there’s someone mind-locked in every tree?”
Jason’s eyes popped and he just stared at me.
I muttered, “If there is, does th
at mean we free everybody?”
“If we have time. And only if they’re all full.”
Dad said, “We start with Emily.”
“I agree,” Jason said. “Because something tells me the second we pull her out, we’ll have company.”
Layna whipped her head around, eyes intent on something in the distant fog. She said, “I think you’re wrong about the timing. Company just arrived.”
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Time for tea,” Dad chuckled grimly, squeezing his double-bladed axe with both leather-gloved fists. “Somebody ask ’em if they want one lump or two.”
The muddy black ground rumbled beneath our feet, but I couldn’t make out anything in the fog just yet. Whatever was out there was still distant. If the ground was rumbling already, it meant there was more of them than there were of us. Lots more.
I swallowed hard.
“Weapons at the ready,” Jason said loudly.
His 50 soldiers lined up to either side of us. All drew their swords. With their white and black plate armor, and matching shields and blades, they looked damn impressive.
Layna wore a fur lined leather coat (yet another outfit from her broom closet pocket) and had her bow out. Two arrows were knocked and ready, both glowing gold with a potent mana charge.
I drew my saber and started sending a steady flow of mana into it, not sure who or what would come out of the fog.
Layna muttered, “Logan, should you and I connect our friend chats? I mean, just in case something happens during battle.”
“Sure. Why not.” She’d backed me up this far. What could it hurt?
Layna:> Can you hear me?
KingFarthurT:> Yup.
Layna:> Good luck.
KingFarthurT:> You too.
I wanted to keep things between us platonic. After we rescued Emily, I’d probably never see Layna again.
Jason raised his vorpal sword high in the air. The white-black blade began to vibrate, flickering faster and faster until the edge was a blur. Spirals of white and black flowed out of the blade and circled around our group. The spirals coiled around my arms, legs, and torso before pulling tight and sinking through my leather armor. I felt a surge of power flood my veins. It felt glorious.
