The five’s army moved the ‘Doomcallar’ just south of the goblin kingdom and a large lake. Using the jets it took us only a few hours. It sat just north of Ariamas Fortress. I remembered Ariamas Fortress from the game. It was another dungeon. Originally it was a dungeon from Protoss studios first game ‘Moon Fire’ recreated in this world. Ellie and I had raided it so many times just the two of us. It was a fierce dungeon. I could still remember the entrance to it looked like a fortress. A castle that sat behind a futuristic gate. If things went south the fives’s army would retreat there and hide behind those walls.
Jace and I sat with Ariane, Bendi, what was left of Ethan, Croon and several of the five’s top officers. I stood there as we looked down at a map of the Valley of Decay with Bendi’s rifle slung around my side and Ithil Naur wrapped around my back along with a backpack. I was still wearing the armor they gave me though I modified it a little to better fit me. I wore a black jacket similar to Jace’s wrapped with fur around the color over all of it. There was a cold blowing in from the west. We could smell fire and ash in the air. The entire camp was tense as everyone did their part to execute the plan I had come up with. Before playing RPG games strategy had always been one of my favorites. I felt an incredible burden.
“You are a piece of work, you know that,” Jace said reaching out and squeezing my shoulder. He was smiling, “we’ve been fighting our whole lives, if we die out there its not because you failed us, dying to try and make peace, its honorable,” he finished. It must have been written all over my face. Even with that knowledge rattling around in my head I still had my doubts.
“Last thing we need to figure out is who exactly is going to be sneaking into the troll kingdom while our distraction is underway,” said Ariane.
“Bendi will go,” said the short creature.
“Bendi, you aren’t much of a fighter, it will be dangerous,” I said.
“Bendi will go, will protect unchained, this is quest,” it said.
“I guess that means you are volunteering me,” I almost laughed. I hadn’t decided whether I was going to go or not. It seemed that it would be the only way to complete the quest but than again if the others succeeded without me surely I would get some kind of notification or something. No. I couldn’t let them do all the work. I had to play my part… and this was my plan.
“Bendi, myself,” I said.
“Count the two of us in,” said Ariane answering for herself and Ethan. Not that he had a choice. She was keeping him alive by feeding him Mana.
“Adam,” said Jace. This was the first time any of them had really addressed me by name, “if its ok with you I would like to join your party.”
I smiled and nodded my head. Of course. Jace had already proven himself again and again not to mention he was the strongest level character among us.
Jace has joined your party.
Raid party. Members: 5
Name: Jace
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Level: 52
Class: Paladin / Engineering
HP: 300
Mana: 100
Stamina: 350
Agility: 10
Endurance: 10
Intelligence: 7
Charisma: 9
Luck: 8
I couldn’t see the rest but I was glad to have him on my team. I knew he had several dozen fighting skills and one of his abilities was being a pilot. He could operate pretty much any kind of machinery. He was a prodigy.
“Croon?” I asked staring at the bard.
“No, I will lead the distraction by taking control of the ‘Doomcollar’,” he answered. I nodded again. I was disappointed but truth was that was the best place for him.
“How are we getting to the troll kingdom?” Ariane asked.
“Jets and a dropship,” Jace answered graciously.
“None of us know how to fly,” I said.
“You figured it out once,” Jace smirked.
“I crashed,” I said embarrassed. The truth was even worst. So far I hadn’t told anyone that I had fallen asleep. I could fly a ship. It wasn’t hard. I had even developed ‘Pilot’ as a new ability. Parts of flying came natural like another sense opened up inside me. Maybe it was the game or some natural talent I never knew I had. I had always hated heights in real life but here on this world heights didn’t bother me quite as much. I felt less fear about everything. Maybe it was the rush. I could feel this world bleeding into me the longer I stayed, the more I fought. I was being conditioned. I even looked at the others like they were real people now and I felt for every single one of them. Back in the dungeon I could see that this world had its own eco-system. Every monster we fought had some kind of intelligence whether it was protecting its territory or fighting us for food. The entire dungeon, no, this entire planet was a living world.
“You’ll do fine, I’ll be able to control the jets remotely from inside the dropship anyway so you won’t be flying solo,” Jace smiled.
“Why the dropship?” Ariane asked.
“A few of my men have already volunteered to safeguard us,” he answered then giving me a list of names. Immediately I saw that my party had risen to 15 members. We were practically starting our own fighting guild.
“When do we head out?” I asked knowing the operation was already underway and that the time would be very soon.
“Tomorrow morning, they are going to start baiting tonight, that should give us plenty of time to reach the troll kingdom,” said Jace.
We adjourned our meeting.
I was never a big fan of sitting around a table anyway.
Jace grabbed me before we left.
I felt his hand on my shoulder again.
“Adam, I have a favor to ask you,” he paused. I looked into his eyes and I felt the weight that he held on his shoulders. Everyone that lived in this world had been through hell one way or another.
Despite what I knew about dungeons and the Valley of Decay not all dungeons were death-traps. Some were nice places. That is until something goes wrong. They are a few though. This one that Jace led us to in secret was called Estes. I knew the name, saw it on the map. There was a fabricator hidden inside that we needed. Turns out the ‘Doomcollar’ had taken more damage than we thought and we would have to find a way to get it powered back up. The fabricator was alien tech, something strange found on this world. It could create almost anything. Basically it was a glorified 3-D printer.
I had been here before. Save for the hushed whispers of my old life that felt like fragmented memories. Not in the alpha. This was another dungeon stolen from ‘Moon Fire’. Why had Protoss Studios copied so many layouts from their other game? It seemed strange. Could they not come up with something new or were these still placeholders. My legs buckled as we crossed the threshold. I led the way with Jace covering my rear. The dungeon was a mix of futuristic ruins and walls covered in bloody runes. There were no creatures inside unless you counted the living piles of goo that moved slowly towards us once in awhile. The goo were barely level 1.
A series of coordinated dings sounded in the room, breaking my attention away from Jace. In the next few moments I found myself staring. There was a wall full of names. I walked towards it. Death’s putrid scent infected the air around us. Bodies of fallen lay broken along the ground and against the wall. I looked around trying to remember where I was. I knew I had been here. Estes use to be a part of a ship. A large one. A seed ship in ‘Moon Fire’ that was home base for players to gather. The wall I stared at now was filled with player names.
“Why are we here again,” I murmured.
“The fabricator,” Jace whispered.
“What is this place?”
“It’s a tomb,” Jace answered.
“They are unchained,” I said.
“No, they are lost, this dungeon use to be something else, humanity weren’t the first settlers to come from the stars, this shi
p has been buried for thousands of years,” he said.
“Seventeen years ago a team entered inside the Valley of Decay, few made it out while others took shelter here, they made a new life for themselves,” Jace said as I traced the names on the wall.
I walked up to the wall and placed my hand upon it. I found my name and Ellie’s just below it. My real name. Her real name. It took me a minute to remember everything. ‘Moon Fire’ had been a survival horror set on a alien world. Settlers crashed and started dying, hunted by daemonic beasts and alien creatures until they banded together to form a small colony. From there the game had several dozen quests and bosses that the player had to battle for survival and to save their world. Perhaps Protoss studios had been using so many assets from their previous game because Darkness Beyond wasn’t a new IP, it was a sequel. Of course that didn’t explain all the magic and fantasy elements.
“Where does magic in this world come from?” I asked Jace.
He stared at me as I ran my finger along the names on the walls. I recognized several more, other players I had raided with. A few I even knew from real life.
“Its said that this world was once uninhabited and than several gates appeared thousands of years ago after the first crash. From there came the elves, trolls, orcs, goblins, and others, each one going to war and learning to co-exist in their separate territories. At the same time the gates appeared magic became real in this world, supernatural elements that couldn’t be explained by science. Theories I’ve heard say its because this world exists on a rift, a breach between different universes. So magic leaks in,” he stopped, “come I still have much to show you.”
Jace kicked down a door. The strange lights above were working still. We began to navigate towards another door.
“How do you know of this place?” I asked.
“When I was a scavenger I came here once,” he said.
We passed another broken fallen cup heard and I could see a clear path ahead of us. Shrill cries of the wind bellowed up from the tunnel. It didn’t stop us. I felt a cringe in the air. Jace was frightened of this place. From the corner of my eye I saw a small bundle of cloth on the ground. Unsure about what it was at first. It clicked. I crouched next to it and pulled it away. There were action figures carved from wood. Red-eyed, wet faced. I could see it in Jace now. The further down we went.
“When I first came here to the Valley I found this place with Molto, we came here to trade but we were treated as outsiders. They cast us out. There were families living inside, they called it Settlement-01,” He growled for a moment. I could see the red flare in his eyes.
“Molto told me that the goblins got them,” Jace said.
Jace had led me inside a ghost town.
“I didn’t realize it till a few days ago, my memories were wiped, I tried to stop him then, I failed and he used his curse on me,” Jace said.
“It wasn’t your fault,”
“It was, this is what we are up against! Molto shut them inside here with a dragon and it burned them all, not one survivor,” Jace said pulling up his sword.
“We’re not here for a fabricator are we?” I said readying my rifle.
“Its not far, its guarded, I want you to grab the fabricator, I have unfinished business,” he said.
Huge wings grew from the darkness before us. The wings were triangular and the inner sides were full of minor holes and sharp, spiky scales cover the top of each visible bone. It had a fairly short tail that ended in a hammer-like growth and covered in the same scales as its body. It had a wide neck that ran down from its head into a slim body. The top had curved scales and fan-like growths down its spine. Each limb had 3 digits, each of which ended in barbed nails made of onyx. It had dog like airs and a row of tendrils ran down across its jaw line.
Jace pulled out his sword and leapt forward.
“Never forget what we are up against in this world,” Jace yelled as he swung against the dragon’s chest.
It took three hits and the dragon fell. Jace seemed like he was over-powered. It turned out the dragon’s health had just never recharged. It had been dying in here for years.
Jace wasn’t lying about the fabricator. We found it and brought it back to base camp and put it on a jet to send to the others. It didn’t take us long before we passed out from exhaustion on the ground. Tomorrow would be a big day for us as we set out towards the troll kingdom. Jace knew he could kill the dragon. He brought me with him to show me what kind of human we were dealing with. I didn’t need the reminder. I knew how cruel Molto could be and his curse wasn’t something that would work on me. The whole experience felt like it had been forced upon me in a way. I hated feeling scripted.
“Shit…” I said aloud, “that was a companions quest”.
I leveled up as I moved away from Jace.
Name: Adam
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Level: 32
Class: Cryomancer
HP: 300
Mana: 200
Stamina: 200
Agility: 10
Endurance: 10
Intelligence: 8 (+1)
Charisma: 9 (+1)
Luck: 8 (+1)
New abilities unlocked.
5 Strength
30,000 scrip
After a deep breath I began to fall asleep.
—————
“Adam, wake up,” I heard a voice. There was no one around me. I was standing in the middle of a cold forest in a fog. I had both my limbs. I was dressed in winter clothing. I moved down a small dirt path to the edge of a cliff. I could see the horizon in front of me. The sun was setting in a beautiful shade of red, orange, and purple. I felt like I could see an aurora above me as I stared out. I felt like I had just woken back up within the game. I had no weapons, no armor, I felt like I had been stranded.
“I’m dreaming,” I said aloud. I was. I was having a lucid dream. I immediately knew the place I was standing. I was on an island near Earthwall just south of the country of Myra. I had seen concept art just like this. As I stood on the cliff I felt myself transported away and I was standing in the middle of a street. The city of Earthwall was built on a simple island and was truly an architectural trade center. Its appearance was matched by the backdrop of an abundance of hills and forests like the one I had stood only moments before which have helped shape the city to what it is today.The trade resources these hills brought were of great importance, but they were also influential when it came to architectural designs as the vast majority of buildings have been built in shapes and with elements of the hills around them. The skyline was littered with impressive skyscrapers and they seemed to be reaching higher and higher.
Culture was a big thing in Earthwall and it has attracted a lot of attention. I felt like I was walking downtown Tokyo. A few new cultures have left their mark not just on the city's cuisine, but also upon the city's identity. I found myself wandering inside a restaurant and sitting myself in front of what looked like a bowel of ramen. I ate it without hesitation not even caring that no one was around and that I was the only one here. What historically was a city of monotony has grown into a new culture of variety. Earthwall was suppose to be home to 12 million people. That was by far the largest hub inside the game. It was meant to support so many people as a trade area. A place in game for millions to gather and enjoy living their second life. It's this multicultural identity that truly left its mark. Hundreds of take-outs, sandwich bars and themed restaurants offered a plethora of culinary choices and those who felt hungry for something else could enjoy libraries, adventure sports, an amusement park or one of the many other recreational venues.
It was depressing seeing it this way knowing what it was meant for. This was the first time I had ever been here myself.
I finished my meal and sat there in the silence. I felt like I was being watched. I turned around and there around 400 feet away outside the restaurant
stood a humanoid alien creature with three arms. It stared at me and I stared back. I smirked. It was real. I knew it was real. I don’t know how or why or what that creature was but I knew it was here just like I was. There was a flash of darkness. It stood in front of me. It’s jaw opened and I could see a row of sharp teeth. I could hear its vocal chords create a low growl. I was afraid. It inhaled through what looked like gills in its neck and exhaled out through several valves across its chest. It was wearing some kind of power armor. I looked directly into its yellow eyes and froze.
I woke up in a cold shiver. I found Bendi sitting near an open fire. We were sleeping in tents just outside the barracks. A dozen other soldiers stood around in the dark night sky. Everyone had the shakes. Less than half of us would probably survive to the next day.
I sat next to Bendi who moved closer to me. I let Bendi lay its head down across my legs. Bendi was less human than any of us, part golem, part animal. I rubbed behind his ear. A part of me forgot Bendi was my companion, that it was a witch’s familiar. For a moment I felt like I was right at home with my cat Colin warming myself in front of a fireplace during the holidays. I closed my eyes and thought of Ellie. I felt as if she was watching over me now.
Glimmer, A Throne of Souls (Convergence Book 1) Page 14
