Legends of Tarthirious: The Complete Collection

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  I gave him a sarcastically quizzical look, “You want me to trust you? After you just about ruined my life? Yeah, you’re off your bloody rocker.” I sniped as I went to stand up.

  “No!” Bishop shouted, stopping me in my tracks, “No, just… sit down.”

  I didn’t like being yelled at, but at the same time he actually seemed concerned, and I figured there wasn’t much he could do to me from where he was, so I sat back down.

  The scruffy fugitive breathed a sigh of relief, “Thank you. Now listen, I’ve told you everything I can for now, alright? From here we need to bide our time until the agents come for me. And I know you’re probably wondering how this concerns you, and I’d be happy to tell you why, provided you promise to trust me.”

  I’m no idiot, I assure you, but I was curious as to what he was on about, “Sure, I trust you.” I lied.

  “Good, now, what happens after they come in is they unchain me while saying something about how I’m being transferred or whatever, then they turn to you and offer to escort you out. Make sure you say yes, provided I haven’t made my… move…” he voice filled with dread as the door opened behind me.

  I turned to see two athletic looking men in suits coming through the door, both with the same right-handed parted black hair. It was like looking in a mirror that had minor access to photo editing software.

  “Hello Bishop,” the one on the right said as he approached, “time for a transfer.”

  “Oh really?” Bishop asked, the nervousness having completely vanished from his voice, “Somewhere nice?”

  “Sure,” the agent said with a scoff as he bent over and undid Bishop’s leftmost cuff and clipped a portable one to him, “sandy beaches and cocktails.”

  “Ha, funny.” Bishop said with a big laugh before yanking the cuffs out of the agent’s grip, catching the empty half of the set in his hand, and punching the agent right in the throat, the metal splitting the soft tissue and spraying Bishop with blood.

  I watched in terrified amazement as the agent collapsed on top of Bishop, allowing him to grab the gun from the agent’s holster and fire three quick shots, two of which hit the other agent in the chest and hand as he pulled out his gun, which he involuntarily threw across the room as he fell to his arse.

  The whole thing was over in less than three seconds, and I was left sitting in my chair, a few splats of blood on my cheeks, and absolutely deafened, something that passed by the time Bishop had gotten his cuffs and the dead agent off of him.

  “Grab that gun, would you?” he asked as one would normally ask for salt.

  I wasn’t exactly in a position to argue though, so I walked over to the other side of the room and nervously picked up the gun as if it were made of glass and would instantly kill me if I held it wrong, kind of like a small dog.

  “Now what?” I asked, turning to face Bishop who’d just nabbed a pair of keys off the wounded agent.

  “Now we get the Hell out of her-”

  “Get out of here?” the agent laughed, “You’ll be lucky to get to the lobby, and you definitely won’t get into my car. Biometric scanner.”

  Bishop, completely ignoring the agent, looked at me with a smile, “You wouldn’t happen to have a knife on you, would you?”

  “What!?” I screamed, “I’m in a police station! Why would I have a knife?”

  I was being erratic, hysterical even, but Bishop didn’t mind, “That’s fine, block your ears.”

  Without thinking I stuck one finger in my ear, and the gun in the other, only realising my horrifying mistake after Bishop had shot off the agent’s finger and stared at me in terror, at which point I quickly pulled it away and, in doing so, pulled the trigger and shot the agent in the chest.

  “Ooookay…” Bishop said as he slowly stepped toward and reached out for the gun, “If you wouldn’t mind handing that over before you shoot someone else?”

  For some reason it didn’t even occur to me to turn the gun on him, I just wanted it out of my possession as soon as possible, so I handed it to him and tried to settle my shaking, “I… I… I didn’t mean to.”

  Bishop nodded slowly, “I know, I know, it was an accident, happens a hundred times a day.” he said, tucking his new gun and thumb into his pocket.

  “S-s-so h-how do we get out of here?”

  “Well, I’m afraid that part might be a bit frightening, I’m going to have to take you hostage. Now before you say anything, I promise that it’s all for show, I’m just making sure you get out of here nice and safe. After that you’ll be taken care of and no one’ll think you had anything to do with this.”

  I agreed with a nod, the idea of stuttering anymore was kind of exhausting, and let him take me prisoner.

  I tell you what though, as fucked up and terrifying as it all was, it had been a bloody interesting day.

  Kylia: Chapter 12

  We got out of the interrogation room easy enough, and getting to the garage only ended up consisting of three “Back the fuck up or I’m gonna blow her fucking head off!”s, which was good. From there it was just a matter of finding the agent’s car which, in the sea of police vehicles, was not hard.

  It was a gorgeous, 4-door black supercar, the kind of thing eight-year-olds sketch in their math books, “Go, go, go!” Bishop yelled, his gun still to my back to keep up appearances until we were twenty feet from it and he broke away, unlocking the car and sliding in.

  I only barely managed to get in when Bishop started reversing, taking my door off on a concrete pillar, which really incentivised me to put on my seatbelt.

  The car was just as nice on the inside as it was on the outside. Minus the fact that we were down a door it felt like the inside of one if those big luxury cars, and the AC worked rather well.

  When I was quite done admiring the car, I turned my attention to Bishop’s driving, and boy could he drive. It was like something out of a movie the way he ripped through the garage, slaloming between the pillars as cars pulled out in front of us. I really wanted to ask where he’d learned to drive, but figured it’d be best to not distract him.

  We reached the gate’s which, as expected, were closed, and Bishop turned his attention to a camera beside him before pulling out his gun and pointing it at my head, something that I’d sadly become accustomed to, “Open the fucking gate or I swear to fucking God I’ll kill her!”

  There was no response, the gates simply opened and we went speeding out, “Well… That was easy, wannit?” Bishop asked with a weak smile which earned a look of complete disbelief and incredible annoyance from me.

  “What the actual fuck is wrong with you!? Pointing a fucking gun at my head! Shooting those people! Driving like a fucking maniac! Are you trying to get me fucking killed?”

  He chuckled a little under his breath as we made a sharp corner, “I’m sorry, it’s not funny, I just… You sure like the word ‘fuck’, don’t you?”

  A little smile crept itself onto my face, but I promptly shook it off and returned to my glaring, “Bloody mental patient you are. And look at what you’ve done!” I snapped, gesturing to the speeding street through my empty doorframe, “Not exactly inconspicuous now, are we?”

  “Inconspicuous? Have you seen what we’re driving? Not like there are a lot of cars these days, anyway, time to talk.”

  “Oh, I think you’ve done plenty of talking, it’s my-”

  “Shush, alright? Just shush. I’ve got a lot of things to say and bugger all time to say it.” He fell silent for a few seconds after that and then sighed, “You get one question, that’s it.”

  I started trying to pick just one thing, but it was bloody hard when we were hammering through the London streets, “Alright… The MPs, how much do they know?”

  He gave me a confused look for a second before returning his attention to the road, “That’s your question?”

  I thought on it a second longer then nodded, “Yes.”

  “Okay, if you say so. The answer is… not much. The Commander probably knows the m
ost, but even he has no idea that the higher ups use them to arrest people and keep them quiet if they get too close to citizenship.”

  I don’t know why, but that was sort of relieving. The fact that not everyone in a position of power knew and that even the MPs were being used comforted me.

  “Now that that’s out of the way, I’m going to finish telling you what you need to know, it’s actually pretty simple really. No one’s getting their citizenship.” he said flatly, “That’s pretty much all I know. I’ve been digging for a long time now, but that’s what I know for sure. At first I thought it was just so that people remained subservient, figured that’s why myself and the other players got people arrested when they got too close. You know, if the goal is too attainable no one’s going to try.”

  “That’s all you know? Why would you think that?”

  “Economics. Our currency is pretty much tied to the game’s, if everyone were to make it then they’d stop helping it grow stronger. Again, that’s what I thought, it’s not what I think anymore. Things have changed and I know for a fact that it’s not that simple.”

  I started trying to figure it out myself, and try as I might I still couldn’t quite understand what the endgame would be. I was having a hard enough time as it was just trying to believe that Bishop wasn’t a complete nutter.

  “Look out!” I shouted as Bishop barely made a drift around yet another tight corner.

  “Relax, would you?” Bishop said, obviously shaken by the pitch my voice had reached, “I’m not exactly incapable you know.”

  “Well I’m sorry that I’m not used to being driven around by a bloody maniac without a bloody door! Christ, acting like I’m the unreasonable one.” I mumbled as we turned another corner and I tried to get my bearings, “Where are we going?”

  “Give me your phone.” he said as if it was an answer.

  “What?”

  “That’s another one of those words that you really like, isn’t it? Don’t worry, just give me your phone, I don’t have one.”

  I looked at him in shock for a few seconds before scoffing and handing him my phone, “Whatever. You didn’t answer my question, where are we going?” I asked as he punched in a three digit number without losing a bit of his skill as a driver.

  “We’re not going anywhere.” he said, forcing my phone into my hand, “Do me a favour, alright? Hold onto that thing as tightly as you possibly can, and make sure not to drop it.”

  I was confused, “What are you talking about?”

  He gave me the same sigh that I’d give a child who’d asked a stupid question for the fifth time, “Look, the only way they’re not going to arrest you is if it doesn’t look like I let you go.”

  The point was still lost on me. I’d like to blame the shock of the past ten minutes, but the truth was that I just couldn’t comprehend what he was suggesting.

  “I’m sure you sound like you’re making sense in your head, but do you mind elaborating for the rest of the class?”

  He sighed again and slowed the car down to about 25 before pressing the release button on my belt, “Go limp.”

  And before I could so much as say ‘Pardon?’ he’d pushed me out of the car. Everything’s kind of a haze of pain and fast disappearing images, the entire world appearing to me in a vomitus display of building, sky, road, building, sky, road, building, sky, pavement, sky.

  I couldn’t move, paralysed with pain or just plain paralysed I didn’t know.

  A bird flew overhead, chirping it’s happy song, and I started to hear the faint sound of a soft voice emanating from my hand.

  “Hello? Hello? Prank calling is a crime, and if you don’t answer me right now I’m sending the MPs to your house. Hello?”

  “Please… hel-”

  Kylia: Chapter 13

  My eyes fluttered open, well, eye, my left refused to open, and the unmistakable view of a hospital met me. The pain was gone, with the exception of the blinding white light above my head, and sounds were sort of off.

  I could hear everything, no doubt about that, and I was sure that it was English, but it was just kind of… weird.

  “Miss Redmond?” the Irish voice repeated, this time making some kind of sense.

  With the coordination of a newborn baby, I rolled my head toward the origin of the voice and saw a doctor. He was in his mid-thirties, judging from his slightly receding hairline and sweater vest over his button up and immaculately tied tie, and smelled of industrial grade cleaning products.

  “Miss Redmond, can you hear me? Blink twice for yes.”

  I went to ask about what’d happened, but felt a sharp pain rip through my throat before I could open my mouth. After deciding it would be in my best interests to avoid any more movement, I blinked.

  “Good, good. Miss Redmond, my name is Lionel Wethmen, I’m a doctor and you’ve been in an accident. Do you remember what happened? Blink twice for yes, once for no.”

  I tried my hardest, but the more I tried to force it, the more my head hurt. With the groan that was my new equivalent of a sigh, I blinked once.

  The only thing that I could recall was something about a car, and that I’d been alone recently, but not when, how, or why. I also remembered that I was angry about something. Or anxious. Or both.

  I was so confused.

  “Right,” the doctor said disappointedly as he wrote something on a tablet in his hands, “well, yes. You were in an accident. You’ve been hurt rather badly, but I assure you you’re getting the best care possible. And now that I’ve made a note of it I’m sure we’ll be able to get those memories back for you soon.” he said with a confident but clearly unsure smile.

  He was hiding something, that much I knew, however I was sure that he’d fill me in on exactly what was wrong with me when I had the capacity to do more than simply blink.

  I let my eyes close after that and dozed off, dreams of cars and gunfights filling my mind, but none of them stayed long enough for my damaged brain to catalogue.

  A few hours passed by and I was awoken to the smiling and crying face of Gerald standing over me, “Hey sweetie,” he said in a broken voice, “the doctor told me you can’t quite talk yet, but he told me about the blinks. So do you feel any pain?”

  I blinked once, the medication I was being flooded with had made me feel like a big ‘ol marshmallow still in the bag and being cuddled by the other marshmallows.

  They’d given me a lot of medication.

  “That’s good. I’m okay too… Do you remember me?”

  I blinked once, delayed for just long enough to make his lip falter, then blinked again, mustering what little smile I could.

  It took Gerald a few seconds to realise I was messing with him, and when he did he let out a little laugh, “You dork.” he said before turning his head away toward the sound of a distorted voice outside the curtain, then back to me, “Hey, the doctor says I have to go, they’re going to do some tests. I’ll come back as soon as I can though, promise.”

  After taking me in for a few more seconds he gave me a kiss so light on my head that he may as well have not touched me, and then left, making me think there was no good point to being awake anymore and dozing off.

  That’s how the next three days went, occasionally I’d wake up to see Gerald or Wethmen standing at the foot of my bed, and sometimes I’d wake up to this weird sort of liquid, milky in colour but honey like in consistency.

  On the third day it got to the point where the doctor was able to explain that I’d suffered severe trauma to my brain, but with the rate that my body was recovering he was sure that it would get better quickly, though it wasn’t until my fifth day that he told me the swelling on my brain had all but vanished, and that my memories should start returning.

  At that point I wasn’t sure if I really wanted them back though, I kept having these vivid dreams that were filled with pain and mistrust, some directly related to my accident, but most random scenarios generated to try and cope.

  That’s what the
doctors said anyway.

  I wish I could say more on what happened over that first week, offer some kind of depth to the situation but the fact is I don’t remember most of it, not in a blackout sort of way either, more like I remember doing things, but none of the details.

  To tell the truth it sends me a bit batty trying to remember sometimes, like digging through a titanium wall with a wooden spoon for the opportunity of ultimate enlightenment on the other side.

  Suppose that’s just the way it goes though.

  Brain damage sucks.

  Grand Gerry the Good

  The battlemage looked around the cavernous room he and his party of three had found themselves in. Every now and then a movement would catch his eye and he’d have to stop himself from throwing a fireball that would immediately cause more trouble.

  “Keep your eyes open everyone,” Gerry said to the group as they crossed the room in a tight circle, “they could be anywhere.”

  Thylias Milth cast Sun Orb.

  “Are you sure they’re even in here?” Thylias asked in his high pitch gnomish voice, “Every time we’ve done this crawl they’ve ended up in the third or fourth room.”

  Gerry watched fearfully as Thylias’ orb rose to the ceiling, letting out a sigh of relief when it hit and revealed nothing but bare stone, “You know as well as I that it’s never that simple, but if you want to let down your guard and go barrelling ahead, that’s up to you.”

  Gerry enjoyed those moments, those brief periods where he got to speak as an equal with his boss from the real world.

  “Alright, we’ll do it your way. I’m just saying that this is going to take five times longer than just legging it.”

  “He’s right Gerry,” the gravelly voice of the orc Frista Longbeard said tiredly, “the longer it takes us to slog through here, the longer it’s going to take to get to Galthrig. Maybe we should just take our chances.”