Eric looked at her, stunned. “You did?”
“General Oktarr, come forth!” she yelled.
An orc strode out of one of the massive tents. He was seven feet tall, green, and bald with a topknot of hair that swung town to his shoulders. He was massive, too – at least 300 pounds, all of it muscle. He wore a loincloth, massive spiked boots, and crisscrossed bandoliers from which hung half a dozen skulls – enemies, mostly likely. Some of them wore golden crowns embedded into the bone.
A retinue of other, slightly smaller orcs followed him. They looked just as savage, if not as imposing. Although, as they approached, they all regarded the Dark One with caution – maybe even a little fear.
“Sorcerer King,” the orc leader rumbled, and bowed his head the tiniest bit in deference.
“General Oktarr has brought 7000 soldiers from the lands of Kroth to stand at your side in battle,” Cythera said proudly. “And we have had thousands of unaffiliated soldiers show up daily, pledging their swords to your cause.”
Eric frowned.
Maybe players who heard about the destruction and mayhem and wanted to join in…
For some reason, that thought didn’t make him happy. It would have a week ago.
“Do we travel to fight soon?” Oktarr asked, his tone more than a little insolent. “My men grow weary with nothing to do.”
“Soon, General,” Cythera said curtly. “Very soon.”
“FIRST I HAVE BUSINESS WITH THE SORCERER KING,” the Dark Figure rumbled. “IF YOU WOULD ACCOMPANY ME, I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU.”
“Do I have a choice?” Eric snapped.
“YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE.”
Eric stood there glaring at his…
Assaulter?
Attacker?
The predator who had taken his own mind away from him?
Eric felt rage, yes – but he also felt fear.
Any sense of powerlessness he’d had in the penthouse before the fire, well… that was nothing compared to what he felt now.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
Eric ignored Cythera, the orcs, and everyone else as he followed the Dark Figure over to the largest and grandest of the tent pavilions.
Inside were plush accommodations, apparently ‘liberated’ from Alshurat. There were silk pillows strewn about the ground and a four-poster bed in the corner, with exotic, dark tapestries full of arcane symbols hanging from the tent frame.
There was also a bound and gagged person lying face-down on the floor.
“What the hell…?” Eric murmured.
“TURN HIM OVER.”
Eric used his foot to roll the guy over.
As soon as he did, Eric stepped back like he had almost stepped on a rattlesnake.
Trent Lockner.
The bully was lying on the floor, clearly enraged, his hands tied behind his back.
As soon as he saw Eric, his face grew contemptuous. “Oo uk’n ss-ole!” he raged through the gag.
“What the hell is he doing here?!” Eric asked, his voice unsteady.
“I BROUGHT HIM HERE.”
Eric frowned. “He plays Shattered Lands?”
“NOT NORMALLY. I ARRANGED FOR A FREE CONSOLE TO BE GIVEN TO HIM, AND THEN I GATHERED HIM HERE AS SOON AS HE ENTERED THE GAME.”
“Why?”
“HE IS A GIFT FOR YOU. TO TORTURE AND KILL AS YOU PLEASE.”
As soon as he heard that, Trent’s eyes bugged open wide and his face grew pale. “Wtt?”
Eric’s heart raced. “I thought there were safeguards in the game against torture.”
“THERE WERE, JUST AS THERE WERE SAFEGUARDS IN THE GAME AGAINST SEXUAL RELATIONS UNDER THE AGE OF 21. BUT I REMOVED THOSE, JUST AS I REMOVED THESE.”
Eric felt nauseated and slightly lightheaded. He knelt down and looked directly into the face of the biggest bully in school.
This asshole had made his life hell.
A week ago, Eric would have exulted at the chance for revenge.
But that was a week ago.
Images flashed into his mind:
The ragged red scar on his shaved head.
The port implanted in the back of his skull.
The Japanese doctors surrounding him in the operating room.
The panic he’d felt as the anesthesia overwhelmed him…
…and the greater panic he’d felt when he realized he had something in his brain – something in his mind – he could never remove.
Even though he hated Trent with a passion, Eric had experienced enough to grow sick of the pain he’d inflicted on others.
He didn’t care to inflict any more, virtual or otherwise.
Trent was sweating now, beads of cold perspiration sliding down his forehead.
“I don’t want to torture him,” Eric said simply, and stood up to walk away.
“THEN KILL HIM INSTEAD.”
Eric tried to bat away the offering with an objection. “What good will that do? He’ll just get logged off, then beat me up when I show back up at…”
He trailed off as soon as he realized the truth: he would never meet Trent again, because he would never be able to return to school again. He could never go back to his old life.
The Dark One did not understand the subtext of Eric’s silence, though. Instead, it interpreted his objection as fearfulness.
“NO. IF YOU KILL HIM NOW, HE WILL DIE IN THE REAL WORLD.”
Both Eric and Trent looked over at the wraith in shock.
“That’s impossible,” Eric said.
“NO. I HAD HIS PARTICULAR UNIT MODIFIED BEFORE ITS DELIVERY. IF YOU KILL HIM HERE IN THE SHATTERED LANDS, THERE WILL BE A SURGE OF MAGNETIC ENERGY DELIVERED THROUGH THE VIRTUAL REALITY MASK. IT WILL OVERLOAD HIS NEURONS, INCAPACITATE HIS BRAIN, AND CAUSE CARDIAC ARREST.”
Eric stared in horror. “You can’t be serious.”
Trent was screaming on the ground through his gag. “Nnnn! Nnnnn!”
“I AM ENTIRELY SERIOUS.”
“I’m not going to murder him!”
“WHY NOT? HE TERRORIZED YOU. HE HUMILIATED YOU IN FRONT OF YOUR ENTIRE SCHOOL… IN FRONT OF FEMALES YOU WANTED.”
Eric stared at the dark creature’s featureless face. “The only way you can know that is if…”
“I SAW YOUR MEMORIES. I EXPERIENCED YOUR RAGE.”
Eric suddenly felt naked.
Violated.
Disgusted.
And a horrendous wave of wrenching, anguished pain.
He wanted to shout, HE terrorized me?! HE humiliated me?! What about YOU?!
But more than that, he wanted to kill the AI. Wanted it dead, no matter the cost.
“Leave me alone,” Eric said in a shaky voice as he walked away.
“YOU DO NOT WISH TO KILL HIM?”
“No.”
“THEN I WILL.”
Trent began to scream behind his gag.
Before Eric could say anything, the bully’s face began to wither and grow grey… his eyes sank back into their sockets… his bones collapsed, and his skin collapsed inwards like a wax mannequin melting from the inside.
“What did you DO?!” Eric screamed as he watched Trent’s body shrink down to a withered pile of remains.
“HE COULD NOT BE PERMITTED TO LIVE. NOW WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT I AM.”
“So you killed him?!”
The featureless face just stared at him impassively.
Eric suddenly realized that the main reason for the AI killing Trent wasn’t to stop him from telling anyone.
It was to send an unspoken message to Eric.
I CAN DO THIS TO YOU. JUST SO YOU KNOW.
AND YOU CAN NEVER, EVER ESCAPE ME.
Eric began to tremble. “Leave me alone. Just – leave me alone.”
He bolted out of the tent and ran across the dusty mountaintop, trying to escape the thing that had invaded his mind… and knowing he never could.
73
Daniel
After school, Daniel logged back into the game and found himself o
n his griffin, circling high above the stronghold of Morrill. He hadn’t logged in since last night when he and Mira had parted angrily in Everhof. Seeing as six hours in the real world was a full day in the Shattered Lands, God knows how many hours he’d been up here in the air.
Mira had been cold to him at school. She’d acknowledged his presence when she saw him, but little more than that. When he’d tried to broach the subject of what had happened, she’d said, “I don’t want to talk about it right now,” and walked away.
Women.
He landed the griffin and approached the gates of the city with Siffis on his shoulder. His mind wasn’t on the dwarves, though; his thoughts were hundreds of miles in whatever elven city Mira was in right now, trying to convince more elves to join the fight against Eric.
What fight? he thought sarcastically. We don’t even know what the hell he’s doing right now.
When the giant iron gates opened, he was surprised to see Jorok standing there waiting for him.
“There’s someone in your chambers to see you,” the dwarf said.
Daniel frowned. “Who?”
Jorok led him through the streets of Morrill as the gates closed behind them. “I think it’s best if you see for yourself.”
Daniel’s heart skipped in his chest. “Mira?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“As I said, I think it best if you see for yourself.”
Okay, THIS was intriguing.
“You came all the way out here to meet me, just to tell me that?” Daniel asked.
“I ordinarily wouldn’t have, but I’ve been concerned. I’ve had a lookout watching your griffin to let me know when you landed. It’s been two days you were circling up there. I wondered if you might have died.”
Crap.
So he HAD been up there a long time.
“Were you in your other world?” the dwarf asked.
Daniel started for a second, then relaxed. “I’d forgotten you know about that.”
“Actually, I know very little. I want to know more.”
Daniel felt a little uncomfortable.
He’d come here to find out more about Jorok – but how much should he reveal to a sentient program about the larger world outside? Anything? If he did, was he just setting the stage for another AI to try to jump from the game to the internet?
So instead he dodged the request. “That’s a big part of why I came back. I want to know more about you and what you know.”
“Then we can trade information, tit for tat,” the dwarf said with a cunning smile, emphasizing the word ‘trade.’ He knew Daniel was obfuscating. “By the by, where is your dark elven maiden?”
Daniel looked annoyed. “She had work to do.”
“Convincing more elves to join the cause?”
“Something like that.”
“May the gods smile on her ventures.”
The old dwarf walked up a passageway of stairs carved into the mountain.
“Are you going to tell me more about this world of yours?” Jorok asked as they climbed towards the palace residences.
“It’s another world,” Daniel said vaguely. “I visit this one for fun.”
“Stopping murderous sorcerers does not sound like my idea of fun.”
“Mine neither, actually,” Daniel admitted. “What about you? When did you figure out something was strange?”
“Two months ago, I suppose. I started noticing that some of our dwarves, and an occasional visitor to the realm, would act bright and engaged one day, then stupid and dull for hours at a time. You and the dark elf behaved exactly the same.”
Jorok halted in front of the bedroom door.
“Aren’t you going in with me?” Daniel asked.
“No,” the elder dwarf said, and turned and headed back down the stairs.
Daniel looked apprehensively at the door. “Do I need to be worried?”
“Only about your dark elf,” the dwarf said mischievously as he disappeared from sight.
Daniel held onto the handle of his sword as he pushed the door open.
Over on the balcony, a woman was looking out at the mountains. She was tall and lithe and clad in golden armor. Her helmet had wings on the sides of her head, and there was a thin, delicate sword in a scabbard across her back.
As soon as she heard the door open, she turned around to face him.
Daniel’s heart skipped a beat.
“Daniel,” she said, a warm smile on her face.
Jennifer Dale.
The girl he’d had a crush on for years.
74
“Jennifer? What are you doing here?” he asked, dumbfounded.
“Duh – playing the game, same as you. What the heck is that on your shoulder?!” she asked in delight as she walked over to him.
Daniel looked over at Siffis. He was so used to the elemental spirit that he often forgot it was there.
“Oh, this is a fire sprite. His name’s Siffis,” Daniel said, then added in a ‘I’m trying very hard to be nonchalant’ voice, “I picked him up in Hell.”
Jennifer stared at him. “There’s HELL in this game?!”
“Yeah. Sort of. More or less.”
“Is he evil?” she asked, suddenly wary of Siffis.
“No, no, he’s one of the good guys.”
“Doesn’t he burn you?”
“What?”
“He looks like he’s made out of fire.”
“No, he’s actually saved me from a couple of fires. Siffis, this is Jennifer. Jennifer, Siffis.”
The fire sprite just watched her silently.
“Can I hold him?” she asked.
“Uh… yeah, sure,” Daniel said. “Siffis, be nice.”
Jennifer stretched out her hands, and the fire sprite walked across Daniel’s arms and into her hands, then curled up like a cat against her chest.
Lucky little bastard –
“He’s so cute!” she squealed as she looked down at him adoringly.
“I guess,” Daniel said, though all he could think of was Siffis burning through two dozen guards in Blackstone.
She grinned, then leaned forward and gave Daniel a one-armed hug while cradling Siffis in the other. “It’s so good to see you!”
He returned the hug, still in shock but giddily happy. “Yeah, yeah – you too.”
When she pulled back, he drank her in. She was stunning – her brown hair curling out of her helmet, her perfect lips smiling at him, her golden breastplate perfectly molded to her –
No staring at the breastplate, no staring at the breastplate, he repeated in an inward panic.
“I – I didn’t know you were a gamer,” he said awkwardly, trying to keep his eyes fixed on hers.
“I’m not, but hey, when you win a fancy new video game in a sweepstakes you didn’t know you entered, you’ve got to try it out, right?”
He frowned.
A sweepstakes contest she didn’t know she entered?
THAT sounded weird…
“But I think I’m going to spend as much time as I can in here,” she said, and almost danced back to the balcony. “Oh my GOD, it’s amazing – it’s so REAL! I can’t tell the difference between what I’m seeing and real life!”
Daniel walked over beside her and looked out across the gorgeous mountain vistas. “I know… it’s pretty spectacular, isn’t it?”
“Speaking of spectacular, I hear somebody’s the big hero around here,” she said as she elbowed him lightly.
“What? No,” he said modestly.
“Uhh, yeah – you led the fight against an evil wizard, right?”
He studied her expression. She didn’t seem to realize she was talking about Eric. Maybe she didn’t know who he was in the game, seeing as he was mostly referred to as the Sorcerer King around here.
“Yeah. Yeah, he sort of won, but… yeah.”
“And you’re building up an army now, right?”
“Yes. Me and… Mira.”
As so
on as he said her name, he felt guilty that he hadn’t thought of her earlier.
Of course, now Mira was all he could picture in his mind.
“Mira Rosenbaum? From school?”
“Yeah.”
“Ooh, I’m jealous.”
He blushed the slightest bit. “Why?”
“I want to be a big hero and lead an army,” she grinned. “Are you guys going to let me fight with you?”
“I – uh – sure, why not?” Daniel said, though he silently asked, And do what? Look hot? You’re a Level One noob – you’d die in five seconds.
Of course, he didn’t say any of that.
Instead he asked, “How did you wind up here?”
“Why, is that weird?”
“Sort of. This isn’t exactly the most newbie-friendly environment.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, this is just where they put me when I logged in.”
Strange…
From what he had seen, Morrill wasn’t exactly brimming with opportunities for a new arrival to get immersed in the game. Morrill was more like a halfway point in a larger quest – not exactly the best place to get introduced to the world.
Then again, he’d started off watching a guy get stabbed in the throat, then was escorted to a city where minor crimes were punishable by death. So ‘newbie friendly’ was a relative term.
“So you showed up… where, exactly? Outside the gates?”
“No, in the throne room of that – uh, Jarvik guy?”
“Jorok.”
“Yeah, him.”
Daniel frowned. “Okay, that’s odd… what happened then?”
“He asked if I was one of your friends. I said I was, and he brought me up here and told me to wait.”
This was getting weirder and weirder by the second. Daniel supposed that it was possible – well, obviously it was possible, since it had happened.
But why had she materialized in the dwarf’s throne room?
Was the game trying to help him out some way?
He couldn’t help thinking, Hell YEAH the game’s trying to help me out!
But then he thought of Mira again and was ashamed.
He liked Mira. He was into Mira.
Jennifer was just a girl from school.
A hot girl from school, yeah.
A sweet, funny, smart, hot girl from school… who might even be into him…
Shattered Lands 3 Demon Wars Page 23
