Last Bastion

by Rachel Aaron

  It was painful to watch. James knew his sister and Haruto had fought because he'd voted against her for the Forlorn Hope, but he would have thought they'd have made up by now. Tina was quick to get mad, but she didn't normally stay that way for long, especially not at SB. Of the few falling-outs they'd had over their years of being inseparable, James could only remember one that had lasted more than an hour. He was about to go over and ask SB what the problem was a giant hand grabbed his shoulder.

  He jumped a foot in the air, hissing under his breath before whirling around to find his sister staring at him.

  "Dude," she said, "you startle like cat."

  "I do a lot of things like a cat these days," James said huffily. "What's up?"

  Tina jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the wall. "Richard and the others are done with the ward."

  James blinked. "Really? That was fast."

  "Apparently, it's a lot easier to do something if you've already done it once," Tina said with a shrug. "At least that's what Richard said. I'm just happy it's up, 'cause the Bastion is looking sad."

  The golden dome was indeed starting to flicker, its golden glow going in and out like a bulb about to burn out. "Then we'd better get moving."

  His sister nodded and turned to her raid. "Killbox!" she yelled. "Frank! Get your Knights and Berserkers and follow me up to the walls. We've got some barrels to throw!"

  Several huge armored figures heaved to their feet and started jogging up the steps to the battlements. Tina followed, barking orders for everyone to stand in front of one of the barrels James and Ar'Bati had carefully arranged at strategic points around the castle. Not wanting to miss this, James ran after her and stuck to his sister's side as she picked up her barrel--the cracked one set on the battlement above the front gate--and hefted it onto her shoulder.

  "Richard!" she yelled to the tall, thin human Sorcerer who was still poking at fire magic just down the wall. "We clear?"

  The Sorcerer lifted his hands over his head with a thumbs-up. A second later, the whole castle was bathed in warm magic as the fire ward activated.

  "On my mark!" Tina yelled, her stonekin's giant voice booming across the battlements. All around the castle, eleven other Berserkers and Knights picked up their barrels. Killbox lifted his one-handed, hefting the thing like a baseball as he took aim at one of the particularly huge raid bosses moving in the distance.

  "Aim!" Tina ordered, hauling her barrel back over her shoulder. "And throw!"

  On her command, twelve barrels launched off the battlements. Even knowing how much strength the raiders were packing, it was still astonishing to see it in action. The barrels rocketed off the castle like missiles before falling in an arc onto the undead army below, and wherever they landed, hell followed.

  The first blast almost blew James off the battlements. The fire ward protected them from the heat, but nothing could stop the shockwave caused by the vacuum of so much oxygen being consumed at once. All over the city, the barrels went off like nuclear weapons, sparking raging fires that grew into all-consuming storms of flame before his eyes, burning everything they touched.

  "Wooo!" Tina screamed as the zombies were consumed. "Burn, fuckers, burn!"

  The undead obeyed. Their shambling bodies burned like kindling, creating spinning updrafts of flame that rose into the sky to form tornadoes. Even Xthr took notice. With a scream of victory, the giant Bird kicked his last remaining opponent into the flames, casting the undead Bird into the fires that burned everything else, before diving into the safety of the Lightless Realm.

  And just in time--now that the initial blasts were over, the fires were starting to feed on themselves. The entire Royal Mile was a river of fire. The flames rose to the sky, so high they blocked the sun. Whirlpools of smoke formed as the fires sucked down fresh oxygen with infinite hunger, but what surprised James the most was that it was beautiful.

  Being a Naturalist, he couldn't use or see the tendrils of fire magic. He could see all the others, though, and that was more than enough. The power of the fire pulled all the other magic with it, spinning the tendrils of power into huge threads bigger than anything he'd ever seen before. It was incredible to behold and enormous. Within moments, the spiraling magic--and the tornado of flames that fed it--had grown to encompass the entire city, turning the world red-orange with its light as sky and ground vanished into flame.

  Everywhere he looked, he saw nothing but flame, yet James felt no uncomfortable heat. In the sea of flame, the castle was a protected island, whole and unscarred thanks to the fire ward shimmering along its walls. But then, just as James started to let himself believe that they'd actually pulled it off--that there was no way the Once King's army could survive the sea of flame--he felt the stomach-twisting lurch of a portal opening.

  He whirled around in the direction of the Room of Arrivals only to realize he couldn't see the blasted building through the wall of flame. A heartbeat later, though, that ceased to matter as the wall of red-orange flame was pierced by a new pillar of fire, a ghostly blue-white one.

  James stumbled backward as the ghostfire flared, cutting through the glare of the firestorm and creating a column of cold safety for the figure that rose inside it. Even from this distance, James could see it was a man--an elf, to be precise, rising through the ghostfire on ash-gray wings. He was still staring at it when someone behind him asked, "Who's that?"

  James dragged his eyes away from the winged figure to see King Gregory on the stairs behind him. The giant king was frozen, his eyes locked on the figure flying up through the ghostfire.

  "What is that?" he demanded, voice shaking. "I've never seen a winged elf except in books and paintings."

  James had. He knew who that was, but he couldn't speak. Fear had stolen his voice. Fortunately, his sister had no such problem.

  "It's him," she said, awed. "It's the Once King!"

  "It can't be the Once King," Richard said frantically. "He never leaves his mountain!"

  "You know any other giant winged elves?" Tina demanded, throwing out her arm. "Dude, your guild fought him just like mine did! That's the Once King in the flesh!"

  Richard's reply to that was to go even paler than usual.

  "What do we do?" squeaked Gregory.

  James had no idea. Tina was oddly silent as well. Then before anyone could answer, a voice filled the air--a very familiar voice.

  "Foolish, ignorant children," the Once King said, hovering on his wings as he pointed through the fire at the figures on the battlements. "You think you can stop death with mere fire?"

  Every word he spoke rang through the city like a bell, resonating with some ancient part of James's jubatus body, the deep buried corner that still remembered Creation's first true King. But while there was definitely something metaphysical about the Once King's voice, what really made James shake was the fact that he knew it already. It was the same voice he'd heard through his Eclipsed Steel Staff, the one that was always telling him to kill himself.

  James cursed himself for a fool. This whole time, he'd thought his weapon had some sort of vague malign intelligence. But the staff had come from the Dead Mountain, and it was made of Eclipsed Steel, a corrupted form of sun metal that only the Once King himself could create. When he thought back on their conversations, the idea that he'd been actually talking to the Once King this whole time was the only thing that made sense. No wonder it claimed to be so old. The Once King was the first born of creation, created by the Sun itself. It also explained why the staff had felt oddly empty when he'd used it to fight Tina. The Once King hadn't had time to taunt him like usual because he'd been preparing his invasion. Preparing to come here.

  Feeling like an absolute idiot, James reached up to rip the cursed weapon off his back. He was about to hurl the hateful thing off the wall into the flames when the Once King clutched a hand to his chest. James forgot all about the staff after that. He was too shocked to even feel afraid as he watched the winged elf pull a mass of sky blue from inside his
body. Pure mana--not the tendrils James worked with, but actual magic from inside his own life. James had never even heard of someone working with pure mana other than to spend it on other things, but the Once King wielded the power like an old, old hand, working the spire of magic that came from his body until it was as tall as a Dubai skyscraper.

  When the power pierced the sky itself, the Once King flicked his fingers, and the lovely blue mana coalesced into a blade. The elf king grabbed it with both hands and swung the mountain of mana like an executioner's blade. Down, down, down it fell through the burning city, cutting through stone and rock, through every strand of magic, through the fire itself. In one clean slice, the river of flame covering the city was ripped in half, and as it split, the fire died.

  Richard gasped beside them. James felt it too. All those giant cords of magic the fire had swirled together had just been severed. As they frayed and vanished, the flames--the magical combustion sparked by the wind-fire powder--died as quickly as it had risen. The wind went flat, the river stilled, and even the smoke scattered, leaving James staring in awe at the clear city, the clean air, and the elf who was flying above it all.

  For a silent moment, the Once King smiled at them. Then as if he hadn't just cleaved all the magic from heaven to earth, he furled his wings and dove through the broken dome of the Room of Arrivals, swooping back through the portal from whence he'd come.

  "Holy shit," was all James could say.

  "What the hell was that?" Tina shouted at the same time. "If he can just come out and do that shit, why does he need all this crap?" She waved a middle finger at the sea of undead they'd just burned, an alarming number of which were starting to get back up.

  "I think it's because of 'all this crap' that he had to come out," James said, looking down at the Eclipsed Steel staff he was still clutching in his hands. "The wiki... that is, legend says the Once King hasn't left the Dead Mountain Fortress since it was made. That would make this his first appearance in centuries. There's probably a good reason for that, because if he's powerful enough to do shit like this, he certainly wouldn't bother with an army, but I don't know why." He scowled, scratching his whiskers thoughtfully. "I need to talk to SB. He's the one who knows all the elven histories inside and out. I'm sure he'll have a theory."

  He was turning to go find the Assassin when Tina grabbed him by the shoulder. "Lore shit can wait," she growled. "We've got bigger problems. Look."

  She pointed at the sky above them--the lovely, clear, empty sky the Once King's attack had revealed. A blue sky without a hint of gold.

  "Holy Sun," Gregory whispered, shaking in his giant boots.

  "The Bastion's down," Tina confirmed. "It happened during the firestorm. I didn't say shit at the time 'cause hey, everything was burning. But now we've got no fire and no shield, which means we're fucked."

  "Can you get it back up?" James asked the king.

  Gregory shook his head. "I barely managed to raise it last time! But we've used it too much. There's simply nothing left."

  Down in the scorched streets, the undead were picking themselves back up. Many were little more than burned husks, but the ones who'd been buried underneath the top layers were still terrifyingly unscathed. Some were already starting to claw at the front door again, dragging their broken fingers across the deep gouges the undead boar boss had left in the wood.

  "I gotta get back to those gates," Tina said then lifted her voice. "Roughnecks! On the gates!"

  All along the walls, players stopped staring in horror at their failure and hopped down to obey. When she'd made sure everyone was moving, Tina turned to Gregory and James. "We'll hold things here as long as we can," she said. "You two put your heads together and figure out another way to survive this. Throw mana potions at the Bastion. I don't care. Just figure out something brilliant, because you're the last hope we've got."

  With that, Tina saluted and ran down the stairs, nearly knocking Richard over as she raced to take her position at the front gates, which were already rocking despite the enormous pile of wooden braces the guards had wedged behind them. The rest of her raid fell in behind her with practiced swiftness, their faces calm and determined despite the doom they'd just witnessed.

  "How does she do it?" King Gregory whispered, his face stricken as he watched Tina adjust Frank's position beside her. "She has only to speak, and people forget their fear as they rush to follow her lead. Even I felt we could do it, if only so I wouldn't disappoint her faith in me." His shoulders slumped. "She'd be a better king than I am."

  "Roxxy's more experienced than you are," James said gently. "Never forget, she's been leading armies for seven years. Her guild was world ranked before this happened. Those skills don't just go away. If anyone can hold that door, she can. Our job is to use the time she's going to buy us to figure a way out of this."

  "But we don't have one," Gregory said, sounding desperate. "The once-great army of Bastion is broken, and my strongest captain is raving mad and locked in a dungeon. The Bastion's drained dry, and the Dawnblade is just one sword. The wind-fire powder was supposed to be a last resort, and now it's failed too. What is left to try?"

  "There has to be something," James said stubbornly.

  "What?"

  James's ears went flat. He was still working on an answer when Ar'Bati bounded up the stairs.

  "All is not lost, your majesty!" the cat warrior said, grabbing the king so fiercely that both Gregory and James startled. "Windy Lake still stands! The savanna to the south still has its armies, and we've already defeated the undead menace at Red Canyon. The four clans are still Bastion's allies! If we can find a way to break through this siege and escape, I know they will help you."

  The king gave James's brother a weak smile. "Thank you," he said. "But your people are days away by mount. Even if we could break through, the undead would swarm us over before we reached safety. I can't say how much it means to hear we have strong allies still, but they do us no good if we cannot reach them."

  "Actually, I think Fangs is on to something," James said excitedly. "The castle might be lost, but it's not the only safe place left in the world. The savanna is still ours. We just have to get to it."

  "Could we portal there?" Ar'Bati asked. "We portaled here."

  "That is impossible, I'm afraid," the king said, shaking his head. "I already asked my Portal Keepers about this days ago when we feared the players' ability to open portals. They assured me that without the Room of Arrivals to act as an anchor, creating a portal into or out of Bastion is impossible without a prohibitive amount of mana. Sadly, this is still the case. Even if we only went a short distance, opening a gateway for so many people would take more mana than all my Sorcerers put together possess. I don't know how the addition of players would change that, but I can't imagine it would be enough to open a doorway all the way to the Windy Lake. "

  "Just because we don't have a portal doesn't mean running still isn't a good plan," James said. "We just need to break out of this siege."

  "But we're surrounded on all sides," Ar'Bati reminded him. "I just went to the back of the palace to check, and the undead are there as well. There's no escape."

  "Ah," James said. "But there is one force left in this city that hasn't yet joined the fight. Maybe they can get us unstuck."

  "Who?" Gregory asked.

  James turned and pointed down the Royal Mile at the stone pillar that was barely visible above the buildings. "The bank."

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, the king's Arch-Sorcerer blinked James into the middle of the Bank of Bastion. The old ichthyian caster sagged with fatigue the moment they arrived, almost falling to the floor before James caught him.

  "You are fortunate that I know more about teleportation than players do," he wheezed as James helped him up. "I hope whatever you're after here is worth sacrificing half my mana for. I'll be empty when I get back and useless for the battle."

  "I promise not to waste your efforts," James said.

&
nbsp; The old fish-man straightened with a harrumph. "See that you don't," he said, then the Arch-Sorcerer vanished in a pop of purple magic exactly like the one Flameboyant left behind when he teleported. James was wondering what other variations on the standard spells the old NPCs knew when he suddenly became aware of his surroundings.

  As promised when the Arch-Sorcerer reluctantly agreed to teleport him in a line across the city, he was standing in the gold-and-crystal lobby of the bank. Like everything else in FFO, the Schtumple Bank of Bastion had gotten much bigger when the game became real. The already-cavernous main teller area was now the size of an amphitheater. The glowing crystals that shed light from the curved roof were now as numerous as stars, while the elaborately carved gold support columns that held the whole thing up were the size of old-growth oak trees. The walls were still covered in golden murals of schtumple history, but the gilded images were now much more ornate, depicting the ancient schtumples fighting alongside the Birds against hordes of winged elves so vividly, James could almost hear their battle cries.

  But though much was different, some things hadn't changed at all. Ahead of him, the polished stone floor was still divided into lanes for each teller window by red velvet ropes, not that any player had ever waited in line to actually speak to a teller. They'd just piled on top of each other to get close enough to click on the NPC and opened the bank interface. There were no tellers in the boxes now, though. James was wondering where everyone was when a voice behind him shrieked.

  "A player!"

  James whirled around to see a short, round schtumple in very impressive-looking black-and-gold armor shouting the alarm. He was raising his hands to explain himself when a giant metal hand grabbed him from behind. James yowled in surprise as what he'd assumed was a carving of a ten-foot-tall golem stepped out of its nook in the intricately carved golden support column to yank him off his feet. When he tried to wiggle his way free, the magical automaton simply grabbed him with its other hand, pinning him in place against its body as a line of armored schtumples poured through a door at the back of the lobby to surround him with a ring of short--but very sharp--yellow-glowing pikes.