Freedom – and power.
Mana surged back through him. He could feel it in his arms, his legs, his entire body.
The AI was dead. That had to be the reason– there was no other explanation for why he was growing powerful again. The strictures it had put in place had crumbled along with its death.
Which probably meant the death of his physical body, too, but he refused to entertain that thought at the moment.
Words floated up and squirmed across his skin like black worms.
The power was seductive, oh so seductive. He wanted to revel in it, drink deeply, and destroy everything in his path.
But he refused.
Not everything.
And he swore it would only be this one last time.
“Paloptek caltonum!” he shouted, over and over.
Black smoke poured out of him, and the massive arthropod demons formed throughout the battlefield –
But this time, they only went after the Hell Army and the orcs.
The monsters crushed the enemy by the dozens – by the hundreds, even. The skullheads and orcs that were able to get away, he possessed with screams of “Omnix kaleptek!” and turned against each another.
The elves, dwarves, droths, goblins, and Hurokians merely stepped away in stunned silence and watched as the Hell Army and the orcs obliterated each other.
What was not crushed by the giant arthropods was quickly cut down by ‘friendly fire.’ A hundred scythe-handed demons finished the job, decapitating skullheads and orcs alike.
The battle was over within five minutes. The possessed survivors took their own swords and rammed them through their bodies or heads, then collapsed to the ground.
And then Eric released them all. Spectral demons, physical demons… all of them disappeared as black smoke boiled up over the battlefield and dissipated into the air.
The elves, dwarves, and everyone else paused in disbelief – then gave a gigantic roar of victory as they realized they were the only ones left standing.
Eric turned and looked down at Cythera.
He knew she was just a video game construct… an NPC who’d existed for no other reason than to introduce him to the Demonomicon…
But from where he stood, she looked human to Eric.
He bent down, brushed the hair away from her forehead, and wiped the blood from her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, then walked away.
126
Daniel
Daniel looked around at the bodies on the ground. Whether corpse, skullhead, or orc, none of them moved.
They were dead – truly dead. And they weren’t coming back.
He turned and looked at Mira.
In the relief of the moment, all their petty fights fell away.
He swept her up in his arms and kissed her.
She dropped her bow and held tight to him as she kissed him back.
They stayed like that for a long moment, until they heard voices from across the battlefield:
“Hubba hubba!”
“Oh momma!”
“Get a room, you two!”
They broke off and grinned as a barbarian, a goblin, and a droth all jumped up and down and cheered.
Then they saw Eric standing alone a hundred feet away, a black-shrouded figure on top of a pile of corpses.
Daniel looked at Mira.
“Go talk to him,” she said, and gave him one last kiss.
Daniel left her, then picked his way through the bodies as he approached his former best friend.
127
Eric
Eric stared down at his hands. The black tattoos retreated from his skin back into his flesh, like dark things sinking from the surface of a pond to its depths.
He swore that would be the last time they ever reappeared.
He heard the clink of metal and looked around.
There was Daniel, about twenty feet away.
“I thought your powers were gone?” Daniel asked.
“They were.”
“What happened?”
In answer, Eric spun his wrist and chose ‘Log Out’ from the options that appeared.
A glowing text box appeared midair:
ERROR: NO SUCH PLAYER FOUND.
Shit.
As far as the game was concerned, his body was gone.
“I think they got the AI,” Eric said quietly.
Daniel’s eyes opened wide. “You mean… they…”
“Yeah,” Eric said, and grimaced. “Didn’t know you were talking to a dead man, did you?”
“But… you’re still here…”
“Yeah. Dr. Wolff was right – my consciousness must have survived.” He paused. “For how long’s a whole different story.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Eric mused. “I’m kind of just getting used to the idea that I’m never going to be in a physical body again.”
“We don’t know that.”
“No, but it’s a good guess.”
“So… what are you going to do?”
“You know that old movie Pulp Fiction?”
“Yeah?”
“Remember when the gangster says he’s going to be like Kane in Kung Fu and walk the earth?”
“Yeah?”
“I think that’s what I’m going to do. I spent so long skipping levels and learning to do evil, I never did anything else. Maybe I’ll see what it’s like to actually play the game as a normal person. Maybe I’ll go live in the forest… find a wife… settle down. Be a farmer, have some digital kids.” Eric smiled faintly. “Who knows?”
“What about all that power you have?”
Eric shook his head. “I’m never using it again. It never brought me or anybody else anything but misery, so… it’s going to die with me.”
“You should come back with me instead,” Daniel said.
“So I can pay for my crimes? I’m already dead in the real world. How much more can I pay?”
“They might be able to help you – ”
Eric shook his head. “I doubt it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Even if they could put me back in my body, what’s the point? If I go back, I go to jail. Maybe it’s better to just start over here. Maybe I can finally do some good instead of evil. Guess we’ll find out.”
“Am I going to see you again?” Daniel asked fearfully.
“I have a feeling our paths will cross each other. And you can always send me a message if you ever need me.” Eric smiled. “Thanks for not giving up on me.”
Instead of flickering, Eric’s body faded like a ghost until he was just a voice in the wind.
“Thanks for everything,” he said, and then he was gone.
128
Daniel
The funeral for Rebecca was held a few days later.
It was a small affair, with only a small number of people in attendance. Most of them were from Varidian. Jerome was there. Daniel’s father gave the eulogy, in which he said, “She was one of the greatest geniuses the world has ever seen – and humanity owes her a debt we can never repay.”
No one outside the church knew of her role in creating the AI – and likewise, no one knew she had given her life to contain it, either.
That was the way it would remain, too: a secret to the world at large.
Daniel and Mira sat side by side throughout the service, his arm wrapped around her shoulders.
The CEO Shinzo Akiyama was there. He flew all the way from Japan to make it, though he didn’t speak. There were rumors that Rebecca had expressly forbidden it in her last will and testament. Apparently she hated the guy even from beyond the grave.
The most surprising attendees had been flown out at Varidian’s expense. A tall, skinny white kid; a swarthy twenty-something with a gut; and a short black teenager with glasses.
Daniel stared at them when they walked into the church.
“Vlisil?” he asked tentatively.
�
�That’d be me,” the skinny white kid said.
“Prescott!” the short guy with the gut said. His Romanian accent was immediately recognizable.
“Drogar?!”
“Actually, Stefan,” he admitted, then grinned. “But you can call me Drogar anytime.”
They all turned to the black kid. “Lotan?”
“Nate,” he said in a slightly nasally voice, then grinned. “Know where there’s any bodies of water?”
They all laughed, and commiserated, and talked about old times. After the funeral they wound up at a pizza parlor near the church, eating slices and chugging down sodas, talking about battles like soldiers reminiscing about war.
“What actually happened to Eric?” Prescott asked.
“Well, his body died,” Daniel said. “His parents are having his funeral tomorrow. I’d invite you, but… it’s not really my place.”
Stefan shifted uncomfortably. “Yah… maybe we shouldn’t.”
Nate said, “But he didn’t die in the game… did he?”
“Not as far as I know,” Daniel admitted. “We think that when the AI ported his consciousness over, it accidentally made it so Eric could survive in the Shattered Lands with or without a physical body in the real world. And now that his physical body is gone… he might have actually acquired the powers of the AI in the game. Or some of them, anyway.”
“Do you think he’s going to go on a rampage again?” Prescott asked.
“No, I think that part of his life is over.”
“But… we don’t know that for sure,” Nate said.
“No… I guess not.”
“Holy crahp, are they just going to let him go?” Stefan asked. “I mean, he teamed up with the AI and nearly destroyed the whole damn game.”
“Well…”
“There’s some talk at Varidian about going after him,” Mira interjected. “Maybe tracking him down.”
The three amigos looked at Daniel in surprise.
“Really?” Prescott asked.
“My dad says there’s talk,” Daniel admitted. “But nothing’s been decided yet.”
“What if Varidian decides ‘no’?”
Daniel was silent for a second.
“Then I’d probably go looking for him,” he finally admitted. “Not as a bounty hunter or anything… just… to know how he’s doing.”
“What about the other AIs?” Nate asked. “The self-aware NPCs like Korvos. What’s Varidian going to do about them?”
“They’re identifying them and talking to them,” Mira said. “There are a couple of dwarves at Morrill they’re interviewing inside the game, trying to figure out what makes them sentient.”
“What about Korvos?”
Daniel shook his head. “They don’t know what happened to him. Jerome and my dad catalogued every dead body in the fields, and couldn’t find him. He must have escaped.”
The entire group was quiet for a moment as they considered the implications.
Living, thinking entities on the loose inside the Shattered Lands?
“Well, at least Dr. Wolff got the worst one,” Prescott said.
“Hear hear,” Nate said, and raised his Coke in a toast. “To Dr. Wolff.”
“To Dr. Wolff,” they all agreed, and clinked their glasses and drank.
“What are you guys going to do while you’re in town?” Mira asked.
Prescott shrugged. “I don’t know… is there anything cool to see here?”
“Besides big chain stores and restaurants?” Daniel scoffed. “Not much.”
“I got to fly back to Romania tomorrow,” Stefan said. “Got to get back to work.”
“I’ve got to be back for school on Monday,” Prescott added.
“Me, too,” Nate agreed.
Mira looked over at Daniel. “Do you think they’d let us into Varidian? I mean, after all, they owe us big time.”
Daniel grinned. “I think my dad could probably get us in.”
“That’d be cool,” Prescott enthused. “I’d love to do a tour of Varidian.”
“I wasn’t exactly thinking of that,” Mira said.
Nate cocked an eyebrow. “What were you thinking of, then?”
“Anybody up for a game?” Daniel asked.
“Hell yes,” the others responded, and laughed as they hurriedly got up from the table.
129
Epilogue
A lone figure trudged across the icy wastes, a blizzard howling at his back.
His horse had succumbed five miles ago – but onward he soldiered, trudging through the snow and ice.
In the near distance, he saw a group of shadows outlined in the gloom.
One was tall – a giant wrapped in animal skins. Another looked like an elf bundled in layer upon layer of cloth. The last was a goblin, bound up so heavily it was unrecognizable except for its height and a glimpse of green skin peering out from its headdress.
Korvos stopped in front of them, icicles hanging from his horned helmet.
There was a long silence, with no greetings exchanged.
Finally the general of Hell’s Armies spoke.
“It is time to assemble the others. The Unnamed One is dead.”
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SHATTERED LANDS 3: Demon Wars
Copyright 2017 Darren Pillsbury
Original cover artwork by Christof Grobelski
Cover layout/fonts by Damonza.com
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, used, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Darren Pillsbury.
Edition: November 2017
Shattered Lands 3 Demon Wars Page 35
