by J D Astra
The black soot chimneys puffed with the smoke of hard work, and the by-product billowed down the sharp, angular white wall, blocking out the early morning sun. My gut turned with anxiety as I imagined pickpockets and murderers weaving between the smoky shadows.
The alley let out to a small clearing where waste from the ironworks was piled up around the edges. Though it was difficult to see, there were two more buildings of some kind to the rear with gray clouds puffing away into the morning, creating a cross intersection of alleys.
Tabor whispered something I couldn’t hear over the ambient noise as he and Otto came to a stop. Otto didn’t reply, he just waited, his hand itching to reach back for his sword. He looked over his shoulder at me, then motioned for us to take a step back, and then another, until we were back at the corner of the two iron mills.
Renzik dropped down just a hair as we came to a stop, his fingers twitching. “Something is not right,” he leaned in and whispered to me.
“Auralia,” Otto boomed, his hands balling to fists.
Nothing.
The ironworks smoldered away, smoke wisping over the rooftops and the alleyway. It smelled of slightly sulfurous coal and burnt processors. I’d smelled my fair share of those at Osmark Tech, and they were not pleasant, or ever a good sign. My anxiety took the shape of a steel ball bearing in my stomach, bouncing from side to side. That plus the smell and I was about one gross thought away from losing my goat cheese grub.
“Auralia!” Otto widened his stance and placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. I checked the in-game time: 7:01.
Between billows of smoke, a cloaked figure appeared at the other end of the alley. They stepped forward, keeping their hood up and their hands hidden.
“Otto!” I turned to see Renzik had his bow drawn, an arrow nocked in the string. He aimed to right of Otto, where there was apparently nothing at all, and loosed.
There was a high-pitched yelp, and a figure decked out in black leathers emerged from stealth, Renzik’s arrow lodged between their ribs. In one fluid motion, Otto pulled his sword from its sheath and sliced down across the woman’s face and chest. Blood sprayed from the deep gash, and the Rogue fell limp against the ground.
I moved to cast Rain of Fire, as it would expose any stealthed figure in the radius, and gasped as I noticed the casting time bar: 9 seconds. I opened my palms for Inferno Blast and a two-second timer appeared, reading “time to spell cast” below. Better than nine seconds.
The boom of Raging Inferno Blast blew the clouds of smoke from the clearing and revealed another two stealthed figures, one of which was inches from backstabbing Tabor. I aimed my open hands right at him, knowing the spell would harmlessly breeze past my party member as I’d seen it do with Jack.
The Rogue’s blade slipped through a gap in Tabor’s chainmail, sliding in up to the hilt as my fire ripped the darkened hood from the assailant’s body. The Rogue’s oiled leathers went up in flames, Burning Affliction stacking three times with a critical hit.
Tabor groaned, his Health dropping by 40% from the single strike and rapidly leaking away from what I could only assume was Rogue’s poison. I cut off the Inferno Blast and agonized at the two-second timer before I could purge Tabor of his poison with the would-be instant cast, Sorceric Blessing. He didn’t stop to pull the dagger out or take a potion, but pulled his one-handed battle-axe from the frog at his belt, swinging madly at the other Rogue. With him cleansed, I resumed my Inferno assault on the Rogue who’d stabbed Tabor.
My Spirit was getting lower by the second as I pinned the first figure to the ground with a gout of flames. He wailed and rolled to escape or douse the fire, but I advanced on him. An arrow whizzed past my face and through my spell, catching fire as it did. The projectile’s target was a slender Dawn Elf chanting in the alley as white strings cocooned the burning man.
The arrow pierced the chanter’s chest and ignited her robes, disrupting her spell. My target’s Health dropped to zero and I cut off the spell, lamenting my half-empty Spirit bar. I ripped my spare robe down the center and wiggled out of it. The Overburdened Movements debuff dropped and I grinned.
Otto was dueling with two more assassins, his Health near 75%, while Tabor was around 25%, dancing with the first cloaked figure. But I didn’t see our Dokkalfar friend anywhere in the clearing. He’d just shot an arrow, but did he run?
“Renzik,” I called as I shot a fireball at one of Otto’s opponents.
The Dark Elf leapt from the cover of smoke and shadows on my left, thwapping one of the assassins on the back of the head with his bow as he did. There was a loud crack, and the man crumpled to the ground in a heap. Renzik landed with catlike grace, dropped to a knee, and nocked another arrow.
Tabor was on the ground in front of the cloaked man, his skin pulsing a violent red as he parried, rolled, and did everything in his power to evade the enemy’s strikes. Renzik pulled back the bowstring. His aim was our would-be contact, our only source of information now.
“Wait! Renzik, don’t kill him!” I rushed to his side, slapping Otto’s second opponent with two more fireballs as I went.
“I will disable him.” Renzik oozed confidence as he pulled his hand all the way back across his chest. The nocked arrow flashed a brilliant orange, the tip alight with swirls of power. He loosed but I didn’t see it travel, only the aftermath. An orange net of pure light wrapped itself tightly around the last enemy and pinned him to the wall.
Their hood fell back as they struggled, gnashing their teeth and cursing. Otto ran to Tabor’s side, a red potion firm in his grasp. I approached the struggling man, Renzik at my side with another arrow poised for action. I didn’t know how long Renzik’s net would last, so I took a moment to cast Flame of Holding. All the while, our captive shouted.
“¡Hijueputa! ¡Malparida carevegra! Carrera va decapitar tu cabeza y mostrar tu cobardía—”
I jammed a fiery gag in his mouth with frustration.
The universal translator built into the game had a nifty bug to it where if the speaker didn’t want their words localized... they wouldn’t be. It was annoying to know this a-hole was keeping his words untranslated just to spite me. I regretted not taking more Spanish in high school, but between the words I didn’t understand, I did hear the name I’d been dreading. Carrera.
I shot a glance over my shoulder. The ironworks were loud, but were they loud enough to obscure the battle from the other workers? I waited another second, then turned back to our prisoner. He was mumbling something between choking gulps, his eyes wide with fear as he stared down at his own mouth.
“So, you’re with Carrera.” I spit after speaking the name, letting this dick know I wasn’t afraid of him, or his boss. “Who told you we were here?”
His gaze returned to me and his eyes narrowed. He was saying something, and it was obviously not the answer I wanted. I could tell by how angry his face was. He needed an incentive.
“I won’t kill you if you don’t answer truthfully. I will bring you back to the underground, where they will force the truth from you, then maybe kill you. So what’s it going to be?” I snapped my fingers and the gag disappeared.
“Preferiría mamar mi propia verga cortada que decirte algo.” He wiggled, a smile spreading over his face. “Nos vemos en el infierno, puta.”
He wriggled again and a glint caught my eye. There was something on his belt, something shiny, and pulsing. The tiny round coin was jittering, its movements becoming erratic. Time slowed as I looked back up into the man’s dark, victorious eyes. He’d won.
“Back!” I pushed Renzik and threw myself onto the detained man.
Heat swallowed me as the explosion blasted through my guts, shredding my abdomen. I tried to open my eyes, but white was all I saw. Then black.
A ring pierced through my ears, deafening me, and I couldn’t move my hands. The top half of my body was falling back at an unnatural angle in the blackness, and I feared I would never see Otto again, or Jack, or anyone. I was alone, stra
nded, in a moor of fire and agony.
My body tumbled down through dark.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Death Dream Damnation
“IF YOU WANT TO MAKE something of yourself, you have to put the work in.” My dad pitched forward and pulled back as he sanded the new tabletop he was working on. He’d been commissioned a few days ago, and was so passionate about the project he couldn’t leave it alone.
I envied him. He had something to strive for, something that got him up in the morning and exhausted him by bedtime. Something that inspired him to work the hardest he could work.
We were in the garage of my old house in Vancouver. My dad had a workshop there where he built his gaming tables and other commissions. It was a nice workshop complete with surround sound, on which he would only blast Ska from the 1990s, overhead heating lamps for working in the winter, and a PA system where he could call Osmark to let him know his progress.
Wait, no, that’s not right.
He stopped his fluid movements, tossing the expended sandpaper in the trash. “So, what can I do you for, my little lady?” When he turned, I felt my stomach blast out the back of my spine. His face was white as a sheet, gaunt, and hollow. His feeding tube snaked into his mouth and green, putrid, chemo slime spilled out through his parted lips.
“Sweetheart?” His voice was a gurgling plea, drowning in the luminescent filth of body-devouring cancer. His skin sizzled where the liquid touched him, peeling the flesh back to reveal the sinewy muscle.
“Dad,” I cried, my voice twenty years younger. I reached out to help him, stop him from falling, but he stumbled into the hospital bed. The IVs and snaking tubes of food and oxygen wrapped around his arms, pulling him down onto the bed and sucking his life out. The IVs stabbed at me as I tried to free him, leaving bloody punctures on my arms and face.
“Get off him!” my tiny, insignificant child voice screamed as I ripped at the snaking death vines consuming his body. They were coming on so fast, stabbing and wrapping, pulling, covering. I couldn’t get him out!
“Stop it! Daddy! No!” The hospital bed dropped away as my father was carried on the metallic ropes of devastation out to a fluid reservoir of bad code. The tubes punctured my belly button, pushing through and slithering around my intestines.
I screamed, tears clouding my vision as my dad was carried farther and farther away. The IVs pushed through the back of my spine, suspending me in the ether of black as my father drifted into nowhere on cancerous seas. And then he was gone. Everything was gone. There was no workshop, no house, no Vancouver, no Earth.
“Daddy!”
I flew forward, my arms reaching for the disappearing vision of my father, and landed on cold, hard metal. I gasped and jerked back, falling off whatever I was on to something harder. I panted, my vision returning as I blinked away the dream. Every time I closed my eyes my head swam with vertigo. The pounding in my temples was relentless, and all I could think of was getting back to the Boar’s Head for another seven days of sleep.
Despite the pain, I opened my eyes. Otto was sitting on the edge of the bed I’d just departed, looking on me with gravitas. I touched my stomach, feeling for the deathly tube ripping me up and holding me back, but there was nothing.
“I died?” I said more than I asked. I knew I’d died. How else could I have gotten back into the underground after that explosion.
Otto nodded.
“Renzik?” My nerves jumped as I thought of the Dokkalfar man being so close to the blast, so at risk.
“He’s alright, recovered.” Otto nodded a few times, looking down at his lap.
“Oh no. Otto...” I crawled back to the bed and wrenched myself on top of it, my muscles rebelling against the movement.
“Tabor?” I asked, my heart full of dread.
Otto ground his jaw as he closed his eyes, then sucked in his upper lip and bit down.
Damn it.
I reached out for Otto’s hand. “I’m so sorry.”
He moved his hand away from mine. “If I’d told Arcona not to send him, he’d still be here.”
“Otto, you can’t blame yourself. This wasn’t your—”
“Stop.” He stood, pulling away from me. “Don’t finish that sentence. I know what I’ve done, I’ve done it before. Arcona Jukal made it very clear where the responsibility lay. I was leading this mission, and I failed.”
“Otto, no. It wasn’t just you! I’m the one who needed to go to the archive!”
“And I was supposed to protect him!” The volume and depth of his anguish shook me. My body ached from death, but my soul ached worse from his pain. His closed fists shook with a rage I’d never seen. He hated himself.
I scooted to the edge of the bed and pulled myself off it. Otto took a step back, the mist in his eyes growing deeper as I approached. He was twice my size and three times my weight, but I was going to hug him, damn it. I limped forward, my arms open to him.
“This isn’t the time!” Otto slapped my arm away and I fell back, my head throbbing as my butt hit the ground. I rubbed my temples in agony, taking steady breaths through my nose as I did. In the blackness of my closed eyes I saw the quest timer tick down to 5 days and 12 hours. I’d wasted so much time on dying and hadn’t even saved Tabor by sacrificing myself.
“Abby.” Otto’s voice was low, and broken. I looked up and pulled my hands away from my face. There was a single tear running down his cheek as he looked off into the corner of the room. Not the corner, I could tell, but much farther. “Will you come with me to the Sanctum Memoriam?”
I rolled to the side, trying to pick myself up. Everything hurt so bad. I didn’t want to die ever again, but I was glad death didn’t come with permanent effects. Shit. Other than the 43,900 XP I just lost. I opened my character sheet and was surprised to see that I’d leveled to 30 before dying. The few player and NPC deaths in the alley before Carrera’s dog blew me up must’ve done it.
My elbow caved as I put pressure on it, and I went face-first into the leveled dirt floor. I closed the character sheet with a grunt and rubbed my cheeks. Warm hands, as big as my father’s when I was a child, wrapped around my waist and pulled me upright. I held tight to his hand as I gained my feet, then looped my own arm through his like I had with Jack so many times on our college campus.
“Let’s go.” My voice was hoarse, much like the morning I woke up from my transition.
He led me to the door, each footstep a trauma I wished would stop, but there was nothing to do for it than eat, drink, and wait. I opened my character screen and looked on the 8 hours of the death debuff:
<<<>>>
Current Debuffs
Death’s Curse: You have died! You have lost 400 XP!
Effect 1: Skills improve 20% slower; duration, 8 hours.
Effect 2: All XP earned reduced by 15%; duration, 8 hours.
Effect 3: Attack Damage and Spell Strength reduced by 20%; duration, 8 hours.
Effect 4: Health, Stamina, and Spirit Regeneration reduced by 25%; duration, 8 hours.
Effect 5: Carry Capacity -50 lbs; duration, 8 hours.
Death’s Sting: Suffer extreme physical discomfort and waves of weakness; duration, 4 hours.
<<<>>>
I swallowed back a bit of sweet bile as I read the notification. I knew it was going to suck, but holy shit.
Few others walked through the halls as we turned this way and that, navigating toward the plaque with a sword in the mound. The Sanctum Memoriam.
“Did I talk?” I asked as we took baby steps forward through the underground.
Otto nodded.
“What did I say?” My feet shuffled as I lost strength in my knees.
Otto took a deep breath. “You mostly called out for your father. You said, ‘Don’t take him.’” He looked down at me as he helped me up. “Did someone take your father?”
I smiled, keeping my lips closed tight. “Not someone. Something. It was a disease. It took him before the
game...” I stopped, shaking my head and losing my balance. Otto wrapped his right arm around my waist and pulled me up closer to steady me.
I sighed and went on. “It took him before the portal to your world was ready. If it had been available sooner, he could have lived, because the disease he had doesn’t exist here.”
“I’m sorry, Abby,” Otto said, his voice laden with remorse.
“It’s my fault,” I blurted.
“How do you mean?” Otto asked as we trailed around the torchlit passage.
Angry tears built up in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I looked up and sniffed them away, then spoke. “He died because I didn’t work fast enough to create the portal. If I had worked faster, harder, it could’ve been ready sooner. He could’ve lived, and my mother too.”
Otto was quiet as sobs wracked my body, sending jolts of pain from my chest to my feet. I bit down hard to stop the tears and sniffed again as I put away the tears, returning to a sense of calm.
“You’ve lost all your family, like me.”
I looked up at my big forest green computer companion and remembered that the game code told him he had a mother, and a father, and whatever else. He was feeling the loss of Tabor, and being reminded of all the other family he was supposed to have, and didn’t.
“What happened?” I asked, my voice breaking as I limped on. We turned at the plaque labeled with the sword in the mound. The torches here were a somber blue compared to the red orange hues of the other halls. It gave the entire passage a different feel, a quieter ambiance.
Otto stepped forward into the hall of the dead. “I was leading a mission to capture one of the city centers of Glome Corrie, my home, and I failed. People died.”
I held tighter to his stable grip. “Auralia?” I asked.
He stiffened, his steps faltering. “Yes. Auralia was one of several who died. She was Patrick’s sister.” Otto lowered his voice. “Patrick advocated for my removal from the group, from The Order of the Soulbound, and for me to be excommunicated. I’m certain in private he advocated for much worse.”
