“Get off!” I screamed, trying to pull my leg out of the mess.
“I must thank each and every one of you,” Rayne’s voice called out. “Unchained, or those who escaped from Sheol before the Sinking. It is you who make my crusade possible.”
I tilted my head back, looking up at Rayne, who towered above me triumphantly, a monstrous curved sword in her hand.
That sword! I thought, as an invisible needle injected a full dose of fear straight into my chest. It’s not possible!
I’d seen it before, but the last time it had been dripping with flames. Now, the blade was quiet and black, but there was no doubt in my mind who it had once belonged to.
Norman.
That was The Ripper’s sword.
“And now, let the cleansing begin!”
“Rayne, wait!” I screamed, stretching out my hand as though I could somehow stop her. But it was too late. I watched in horror as Rayne, the Fallen God, wielding Norman’s sword, sliced across Hectar’s stomach with one swift blow, decimating his entire health pool.
The Sunken fury and confusion fell from Hectar’s eyes as his legs gave out from under him. He landed on his knees, his body limp, toppled forward and vanished.
71
Fallen God
I felt as though something had been torn from my soul as I watched Hectar disappear. Although we’d never met, I felt as though I’d lost someone close to me. He had been Anwi’s love, but I had seen so much of myself in her as she and I both fought our way through the Dark World in search of an old companion, and now she had lost hers and there was no bringing him back.
How will I ever be able to tell her? I thought as I gazed at the empty spot on the ground where Hectar’s body should have been. Part of me now wished I’d never see Anwi again, just so I wouldn’t have to go through the pain of explaining how I’d failed her.
The crowd of Rayne’s guild cried out in victory behind me and I felt the pressure on my leg subside and managed to pull myself free of the pile of bodies, but didn’t have the will to stand. I knelt there on my hands and knees as I stared up at Rayne.
She was wearing an ornate set of gold plate mail without a helm, and had long blonde hair twisted into a braid that draped over her left shoulder. Her eyes were fierce and strong, a born leader who obviously believed greatly in what she was doing. As she gazed across the crowd of her followers, our eyes met, but only for a brief moment.
“I’m sorry, D.” It was Vayde’s voice from behind me. “At least it wasn’t one of us.”
“Yeah…” I muttered, feeling absolutely miserable as the fever of the crowd began to subside. Out of my current group, only Curafin would understand why this “cleansing” upset me so much. If only we’d been a few minutes earlier! We’d wasted time in the Targanic, chatting with Vayde at the Underground City, taking our time back in Cara. All those precious minutes ticking away that would have led us here sooner—in time to save Hectar.
Now he was gone.
I pushed the thought from my mind. I had to if I was going to push forward. It took great effort to get to my feet. I felt as though a piece of my determination had been taken from me, and I didn’t fully understand why.
I thought about Jack and wondered where he was, whether he was okay or not. Was he stuck in Sheol with the others, or had he spawned as one of the Unchained? Was he stuck in the body of some hideous monster like Baltos and Curafin? Or was he wandering around Sunken, like Gehman and Chaucey, his mind slowly wasting away?
“Rayne,” Vayde called out from somewhere beside me. My eyes stayed unfocused on the ground in front of me as he walked over to her. For the first time since I’d arrived in the Dark World, I realized just how mentally exhausted I was. It seemed like I just couldn’t catch a break, and I was someone who was used to always being ahead of the game. But now, in the Dark World, I was just another player trying to find her way. In fact, I was actually behind everyone else who had been here much longer than me.
I could hear them talking. Vayde was probably explaining who I was to her and doing his best to let her know what I’d said about restoring the Sunken, but without having seen me do it, there was no way he was going to convince her. Not someone as commanding and confident as Rayne. She was practically a religious leader and what I’d just witnessed was more akin to a ceremony than a pragmatic method of making the world safer for everyone.
When I looked up, I saw she had her eyes on me, but I couldn’t quite understand her expression. It was like she either saw me as a threat or a curiosity, but definitely not yet a friend. She was suspicious, even though I’d been brought to Neydeesa by Vayde, and that made me respect her.
“Come here, girl,” she commanded me, as though I was one of her servants. “I would like to speak to you.”
Girl? I thought as my eyes narrowed. Who do you think you are, lady?
She looked like she was in her late 30s or early 40s, but of course there was no way to know for sure. I didn’t like her tone, and stood there a moment looking at her, deliberately making her wait before I walked slowly over to her. As I reached her, she looked me up and down then smiled. It wasn’t a real smile, though. It was one of those fake ones that people give you when they’re trying to pretend to be nice. So, I gave her one back.
“Vayde tells me you are old friends,” she said simply.
“We are,” I replied, just as simply.
“He also tells me you’ve been saying some pretty wild things.”
“Well, that depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On what you call wild.”
Rayne’s eyes narrowed slightly, a tiny crack appearing in her armored persona. I fought back a smile.
“I’d say it’s wild to make the claim that the Sunken can be restored to their original state,” she told me. “Why have you come here? To stir up trouble? To challenge me?”
“It’s not like that, Rayne—” Vayde started to say, but was instantly cut off.
“Because you will need quite a few more levels if you wish to do that.”
“I’m not here to fight you, lady,” I sneered. “I’m here to find my friends and bring them home.”
“There is no going home,” Rayne snapped. “We died in Carrethen and are here now. Did you not hear The Ripper’s words?”
“I killed The Ripper,” I replied firmly. “Or Norman, as I knew him. He was nothing more than a crazy stalker who was in love with me, and now he’s gone.”
“Lies,” Rayne scoffed, looking away from me.
“I was summoned here, to the Dark World, by Wintermute, an artificial intelligence who chose me to rescue you and everyone else who has been trapped here,” I told her. “This is a backup world, a corrupted version of Carrethen. But we can escape. All you have to do is listen to me.”
The rest of my group came up behind me as I stood before the Fallen God. I turned to face them. Each of them had been restored by me, released from a Sunken state or from their prison in the body of a monster.
“Tell her, Chaucey,” I said, taking him by the arm and pushing him towards her. “Tell her how I restored you.”
“She—she did,” he stammered. “I was one of the Sunken and she saved me.”
“A likely story,” Rayne replied.
I put a hand on Curafin. “And him? He was trapped in the body of the Bishop of Chilgrave Castle!” I said, raising my voice. “And Baltos here? He was trapped in the Befallen Grub in Jahannan. I restored him too!”
“It’s true.” Baltos nodded.
“And I could have showed you if you hadn’t killed Hectar like that,” I growled. “Do you even know who he was? Someone out there is going to be mourning him now!”
“Such a thing could not be possible,” Rayne said coldly.
“Oh, and what you do is?” I countered, eyeing Norman’s sword that she still clutched in her hand. “Do you even know who that sword belongs to?”
“It belongs to me!” Rayne snapped. A flicker of anger ran thr
ough her face, then quickly vanished. “It chose me! And that is how I know what I am doing is right.”
“Chose you,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “Sure it did. You have absolutely no idea what’s going on, lady.”
Rayne glared back at me, then moved her attention to Vayde. “You’ve brought a group of liars to our castle.”
“No, Rayne. These are my friends,” he said, his eyes flicking to Chaucey. “Most of them, anyway.”
“Well, tell your friends they have no place here,” she said, acting like we weren’t even there. “We have a job to do, and that doesn’t include indulging the fantasies of others.”
Rayne moved to turn away, and I took a step forward to follow, but was immediately blocked by one of the largest men I’d ever seen since logging into Carrethen the first time.
Gottfried—Level 177.
He was absolutely massive, so fat he must have maxed out the width of his character, and wrapped in a thick set of plate mail with a helm that hid his entire face. He carried an enormous battle axe with a striking gold handle and a blade that shimmered with a light blue tint.
“What are you, her bodyguard?” I scoffed.
“Are you still with us, Vayde?” Rayne asked. Vayde glanced over at us and then back to her and nodded.
“Of course I am.”
“Good,” she replied. “Then get ready. We’re moving out within the hour.”
Rayne turned away and headed back to towards her hut at the edge of the castle. I moved to follow, but Gottfried simply took a step to the side and blocked my path.
“Rayne, you need to listen to me!” I cried out, but she wasn’t. She’d made up her mind and the discussion was over. I glared at the big fat knight in front of me, wishing I had the levels to take him on. I whirled around to face Vayde. “What’s she talking about? Moving out?”
Vayde took a deep sigh and rubbed his eyes. “We’re heading to Sheol to take another run at the Lord of the Flame.”
“What!?” I gasped. “You know how to get to Sheol?”
“One of our members has a portal to a place nearby,” he replied. “We’re rallying all our forces to take him on. There’s no more time to waste if we want to try and save anyone who hasn’t gone fully Sunken yet.”
“But, the Lord of the Flame is max level, isn’t he?” I asked.
“He is,” Vayde nodded. “But Rayne thinks we have the numbers this time.”
“This time,” I repeated. “I heard you guys got your asses kicked before.”
Vayde scowled. “I wouldn’t say that. But we were all a lot lower level back then.”
“And let’s just say you are able to beat him,” I continued. “What then? What are you going to do with all those Sunken that are going to come flooding out of Sheol?”
“Cleanse them,” Vayde said quietly. “What else can we do?’
“I can save them!” I shouted. Why was no one listening to me? It was like I was screaming at the top of my lungs in a sound proofed room. “And I can get us all back to the real world too!”
Vayde shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, D. Once Rayne makes up her mind…”
“So, you’re just a little lapdog then, huh?” I retorted. “Just like back in Carrethen.”
Vayde looked up at me and I saw an anger in his eyes I wasn’t used to seeing. He’d changed since the last time I saw him. “Watch it, D. You and I may be old friends, but a lot’s happened since the last time we met. I’m not the same person I was and you need to remember that.”
“Yeah? Well, neither am I,” I told him. “And my name is Jane.”
I turned around and led the rest of my group away from Vayde and back through the crowd that was slowly dispersing.
“What are we gonna do?” Chaucey asked with concern. I watched as Fallen God’s troops began to funnel back down the stairwell and moved to the edge of the castle, and stared out at the Velsilian Isles that stretched out into the distance towards the ocean.
There was no convincing Rayne, not yet, and without an admin station nearby to contact Wintermute, we were on our own. Cara was a long way off, and even if it wasn’t, I didn’t see the point in going back.
Sure I’d be able to see Kodiak and the others, but where would that really get us? Without a specific goal, we’d all be lost, and right now there seemed to be only one way forward. Turning back, I looked at my group with a new determination.
“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to Sheol.”
72
The Dire Wastes
Many thoughts raced through my mind as I stood in the great room of the bottom floor of Neydeesa castle, waiting on the portal that would take us to Sheol.
What was everyone back in Cara doing? What had happened to Anwi? Where was Jack and Cavey and the others? What was going wrong with Wintermute and why wasn’t he—it, able to give me my full powers yet? How was I going to prove to Rayne that cleansing wasn’t the only way to restore order to this world, and what was going to happen when we came face to face with the Lord of the Flame? It was overwhelming to think about, and I tried to push all thoughts from my mind and focus on the moment.
Everyone had restocked on essentials at the NPC merchants in the back room of the castle. We’d been buffed up by several of Rayne’s mages, who cast level V spells on us, each of which gave us a 30-point increase to skills and attributes. Normally, I’d be feeling indestructible, but knowing where we were headed had me on edge.
Fallen God had already tried taking on the Lord of the Flame once and failed. Sure, they’d gained some levels since then, but I was still skeptical. For whatever reason, the Dark World had a guardian at the entrance to the zone where all the lost souls had been placed, and it didn’t seem to me like a group of players in the 100s would be able to take him, no matter how many of them there were.
More than likely he was an end-game raid boss that would take a bunch of max levels with perfect coordination to defeat him. There was no telling what his stats or abilities were. He wouldn’t be bound to the same restrictions as we were as players. There was no telling what to expect. But I was fresh out of any better ideas, so we were going too. Everyone but Chaucey.
“I feel bad just waiting here,” he grumbled from beside me.
“You’re not high enough, Chaucey,” I told him for the fourth or fifth time. “The Lord of the Flame is max level, 250. You’re 88. See a problem?”
“I know,” he replied sullenly. “But I could shoot arrows from a distance.”
“Yeah, and do zero damage,” Vayde scoffed as he passed us, making his way to the head of the group to take Rayne’s side.
“Dick,” Chaucey muttered.
“The time has come!” Rayne called out, raising her hands in the air. Her guild replied with a thunderous battle cry. “The Lord of the Flame has reigned long enough. If we have any hope of saving those still trapped in Sheol, we must act now!”
Another roar from her followers.
“I feel like I’m at a cult meeting,” Curafin whispered.
“Tell me about it.”
“Are you sure this is the right move?” Baltos asked. “I mean—going with these guys?”
“You have a better idea?” I asked him. “Because I’m open to one. But as far as I can tell, it’s either this or we turn around and walk back to Cara. And I don’t know what we’d do next.”
Baltos nodded. What else was he going to do? He’d seen even less of the Dark World than me, having been trapped in the body of the Befallen Grub since he arrived here. He’d only heard of Cara. He’d never been there. He couldn’t appreciate what we’d gone through to get here.
We were all still bound together at the Underground City, so even if we all died trying to get into Sheol, we’d spawn back there and I could just restore everyone—including myself? It was something I hadn’t really thought about, but would the restore function work on me the same way it did on everyone else? Or would I be somehow immune?
> No, that would mean Wintermute actually knew what it was doing, and as far as I could tell, that wasn’t the case. I was starting to really doubt the A.I. and whether or not it could actually do all the things it said it could. I’d thought I’d be entering this world with an easy way of bringing everyone back to real life, and instead I’d arrived helpless and vulnerable. I would have died immediately if Kodiak hadn’t been there to save me. I’d felt out of control every step of the way, and if there was even a remote chance that this assault on Sheol with Fallen God would get us somewhere, I had to take it.
“Members of Fallen God,” Rayne announced. “Summon your strength and prepare for the battle of your lives!”
Her men cheered again and a mage stepped up from behind her, a long black staff in his hands. He cast, and a portal sprang into existence at the head of the crowd. One by one, Fallen God’s army entered.
We moved forward, but I stepped aside and waited until all of them had gone and it was just me, Curafin, Baltos, Vayde and Gottfried standing in the empty hall of the castle.
“Yes?” Rayne asked me, almost with contempt.
“We’re coming with you,” I told her.
“Fine,” she replied. “What you do with your lives is up to you. But do not get in my way or the way of my men. Understand?”
“If this works—if you’re able to defeat the Lord of the Flame. Let me restore the Sunken before you…cleanse them.”
Rayne scoffed and rolled her eyes.
“This again?”
“It works, Rayne!” I cried out in frustration. “Just let me show you before you end up doing something we can’t undo.”
The Fallen God stared at me like she was trying to analyze a puzzle. I couldn’t tell if she was listening to me or just humoring me. I glanced at Gottfried, who looked ready to cleave me in half with one word from her.
“We shall see,” she said simply. I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, she stepped into the portal. Gottfried turned away and followed her, leaving me and my companions alone. I could feel Vayde’s eyes on me and looked over at him.
Lord of the Flame: A LitRPG novel (Call of Carrethen Book 2) Page 35
