Exile

by Riley Morrison

  “Great,” Lillus muttered.

  Ajax went over to her to speak into her ear. “I thought you said we had allies here.”

  She whispered back to him, “While he might not know it himself yet, Talon is an ally, trust me.”

  Sighing, Ajax turned back to the dragon rider. “So there is nothing we can do about this, then?”

  The elite shook his head. “As I said, the Imperator has made her decision.” He took out a stack of papers from his inventory. “Also, you will need these. They are written orders for the high command of our armies in the east to follow your direct orders.” Again he glanced around, then leaned in close. “At least, that’s what I’m told they are. I’d be careful if I were you.”

  Ajax took them and scanned the first page. “There’s nothing here; it’s just a blank piece of paper.” I knew this wouldn’t be so easy. Why would the Imperator want me to go east and stop her war?

  Lillus took them from him. “No, the words are protected by a magical illusion. These are no ordinary papers, but a special item called Slithers of Deception.”

  “That’s a rather ominous name.” Ajax took them back from her and flicked through them. “So there’s no way to read them?”

  “No.”

  What am I getting into?

  “We should leave soon,” Talon said. “It will take us nineteen hours to get to our destination with you two flying on Old Nel, and if we don’t beat nightfall, we’ll be flying blind or forced to land for the night. And trust me, where we’re going, you don’t want to be left grounded long. Other than the rampaging armies, there are savage beasts aplenty out there.”

  Lillus started toward Old Nel. “The Wild Lands.”

  “Yep, so don’t expect lush green hills full of fat NPC peasants. Instead plan for ghouls, ghasts, harpies, and everyone’s favorite, dirt lions.”

  Ajax inherently knew of dirt lions. They were an oddity in Visaria. They hid underground, and when anything walked over their lairs they would burst up from the ground and attack. If the victim managed to slay the dirt lion, they were in for one of the sick jokes the programmers had inserted into the code. The corpse of the monster would fountain into gallons of blood and guts, far more than the lion’s body should contain, and would cover a one-hundred-foot radius in gore. Sometimes more, depending on the size of the lion.

  Talon escorted Ajax after Lillus. “I believe everything I heard in the Dragon Roost the other day. I want you to know—I will do my best to protect you both while you are under my charge.”

  Ajax raised an eyebrow. “What can threaten us in the sky?”

  “Not much around here, but once we get close to the fighting, we need to be wary of the ADGs.”

  “What’s an ADG?” Ajax had never heard the term before.

  They got to Old Nel and Talon rubbed her side. “You know in the old war movies those guns that always tried to shoot down planes? Anti-aircraft guns, they were called, or AA guns, or AAGs for short. AD stands for anti-dragon, and you can bet the Republic has plenty ADGs around. They fire giant iron bolts with explosive tips, and can blow a hole right through a dragon’s belly.”

  Ajax swallowed. “Great.”

  Lillus growled, her hands on her hips. “I should go up there and teach that Imperator a lesson she’ll never forget.”

  Old Nel stirred from sleep, letting out a loud fart as she came to. “I knew those pickled olives I ate earlier were out of date.” The dragon’s stomach gurgled and she moaned. “When I get back, I think I am going to need some laxatives.” She farted again, the stench making Ajax gag. “Oh... that’s better.” She craned her neck around to look at Talon. “Where am I?”

  CHAPTER 21

  EAST

  After Ajax and Lillus had climbed into the basket saddle on Old Nel’s back and had strapped themselves in, the dragon spread her mottled wings... and grunted. “Ow. My old joints.” She flapped her left wing and Ajax heard a loud crack. “There we go. All better now.”

  “Oh, god.” Ajax gripped the Demon Mage’s waist tighter. She sat in front of him in the saddle.

  “Ease up, will ya?” She squirmed. “As much as I like being held in your manly arms, I need to breathe.”

  Suddenly, the dragon walked forward and over the edge of the perch. Wind rushed in Ajax’s face as Old Nel tilted at a ninety-degree angle and plummeted toward the ground. Ajax screamed as he watched the city below them get bigger and bigger. Then Lillus’s long hair filled his vision and he could see nothing else.

  “Pull up,” Lillus screamed. “Pull up!”

  Ajax’s stomach lurched as the dragon changed course. The hair fell from his face as blood rushed to his head. “Oh, god... We’re upside down!” He wanted to vomit.

  Finally, the dragon righted herself less than a hundred feet above the buildings at the base of the tower. It flew out over the wall and headed toward Firesoul. It took Ajax close to a minute to be able to breathe again. Why the hell did I ever want to do this?

  Lillus shook in his arms. “That... was not very pleasant.” She nestled back against him, grinning over her shoulder. “But you screamed louder than I did.”

  As Firesoul neared, Talon waved at them and shouted over the wind. “Thank the One God you’re both alright. It’s been over a year since Old Nel has taken a fall like that.”

  “Thanks for not telling us earlier,” Ajax shouted back. He glanced back at the Dragon Keep as it slowly receded behind him. He had gone there believing the Imperator to be a divine figure, a great ruler with intelligence and wisdom far beyond mortal understanding. Now when he left, he almost felt Ithilda a fraud. A petty woman with an ordinary past life, completely unworthy of her position in the Imperium. Why had the computers controlling Visaria chosen her, out of everyone, to rule the Imperium? Then again, why had they picked him to be the Chosen One? The savior of all.

  Maybe they just like seeing people like me flail about like idiots.

  Ajax didn’t know much about the past rulers of the Imperium, before it had become the exiled home of humanity, but he did know they were NPCs and that their names and deeds had been struck from history. A travesty, as the empire’s greatest achievements had happened under those rulers. Now that he was being brutally honest about things, what had Ithilda done that made her so great?

  Perhaps nothing. Her greatness extended as far as the programming that compelled the subjects of the Imperium to look up to her. Without the lines of code telling people to venerate her above all but the One God, she would be nothing. Lillus and I shared our quests with her about the threat of the void. She knows it has to be real. Yet look how she has treated us.

  He thought of the Slithers of Deception. Did they really contain orders for the army to stand down? He wasn’t so sure. What reason did he have to trust the Imperator?

  And yet, Lillus had said he must do this, as the Oracle who claimed to be the representation of the machines in charge of Visaria claimed he had to. I always hated linear games, and being forced down a preset path. Give me choices, and let me mess things up and pay the consequences. But Visaria Online was no longer a game. This world, and his two last remaining lives, were as important to him as the old world now frozen under ice. Visaria was home.

  Old Nel followed the younger dragon higher into the sky. Ajax peered over the side as they flew above some snow-covered hills. He shook his head in wonder. It was like looking out the window of a plane, but without the glass in between. Lillus peered over the side too, her eyes wide with wonder, her black eyeliner contrasting vividly with her pale skin. Towns and villages dotted the countryside, and in between them were checkered fields, most beginning to be seeded for the new year’s crops. In the distance, Ajax caught a glimpse of Yalinga, a huge city walled by a massive stone wall.

  The journey went on, and Ajax soon grew bored of the unending countryside below him. Old Nel flew without incident, and he almost forgot about her age and all her ailments.

  Gradually, his thoughts turned to Lillus. He enjoyed
holding her, her hair blowing in his face, the feel of her in his arms. Having her in his arms made him feel strong and protective. He would defend her like a man should. I just wish I knew more about her. Ajax licked his lips, then spoke into Lillus’s ear. “Now that we know each other better, are you willing to tell me more about yourself? Who were you before Visaria?”

  She didn’t answer him right away, and he worried he had upset her. “Sorry, I just... well.” His words drifted off.

  “I know you like me, Ajax.” She swooned. “Hell, you probably fantasize about me every night. Holding me in your arms and doing what you want with me.”

  He pulled away from her. “No, I don’t.”

  Lillus frowned at him over her shoulder. “So you hate me, then? Is that it?”

  She sounded angry.

  “What? No. Of course not. I didn’t—” He growled, suddenly furious at her. “Why do you make it so hard? I just wanted to know more about you.”

  Staring forward again, she lowered her head. “I don’t want to talk about my past.”

  Instantly, his rage retreated. “I’m sorry. I lost people too.” His mother, his father, old friends... He could barely remember them now. How many years had he been stuck in Visaria? How much time had passed out in the real world?

  It felt like many years. Hundreds maybe. Thousands...

  And yet, in Visarian time, it had been no more than twenty years. NPCs might age, but players never did. He and Lillus both looked around twenty years old, and yet their frozen bodies out in the real world might be as ancient as the pyramids were back in his time.

  Ajax returned his thoughts to Lillus. “I will tell you about my life then. I want you to know me better.”

  She nodded, her face still lowered. So he shared details about his old life, his loves (pizza, video games, survival horror multiplayer games and action RPGs), he shared stories about his piece-of-crap car that always broke down at the most inconvenient times, told her about his dead-end minimum-wage job at Floormart and she laughed at his stories about his crazy ex-first-flatmate.

  Lillus even laughed at that guy’s antics.

  Her laugher made Ajax hug her tight. “Yea, he was a real character. I was so glad when I got out of there and moved somewhere else.”

  Firesoul careened sideways, almost slamming into Old Nel. Something shot past the other dragon, narrowly missing its wings. At first, Ajax thought it had shot up from the ground (an ADG perhaps), but when another missile shot past Old Nel, he realized they were coming from somewhere above them.

  Looking up, he cried in terror. Descending right at them were four dragons.

  “We’re under attack,” Firesoul roared, spinning around and flapping his wings, his long necked craned upward.

  Old Nel swerved to the side as the attacking dragons leveled with them, the riders armed with long, sharp lances. “What’s happening?” Ajax’s mind could not process what was going on. “Why are they attacking us? They’re on our side.”

  Lillus pulled free of his grip and raised her hand, like she meant to start casting her Infernal Fire Bolts. “Don’t you see? The Imperator has betrayed us.”

  As one, the attacking dragons moved in.

  “No...”

  Firesoul belched fire at them, but they swerved to avoid it, spewing their own fire. “They’re attacking Talon,” Ajax cried.

  Lillus fired a bolt at one of the dragons, hitting it in the face but seemingly doing no damage. “They know he and his mount are the greater threat. When he’s dead, they’ll descend on us.”

  Ajax shook his head to clear it, his brain finally caught up with the situation.

  Ithilda had ordered them dead. She cared nothing about the void and the threat it posed.

  One of the attacking dragons broke away from the other two and flew toward them. Ajax could only watch it come. They would die, and the Imperator would continue her war against the Republic, as they would against her. The two superpowers would fight, many would die, and all the while, the shadow of the Void loomed over them both.

  Ajax mightn’t have seen the void himself, but he had seen its wraiths.

  Ithilda has doomed us all.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE TERROR OF THE SKIES REDUX

  Dragon fire singed Ajax’s eyebrows. Damn, that was close.

  Two of the dragons had engaged Talon and Firesoul, but the third had decided to come after them. Ajax held onto Lillus so tight, he knew he must be making it hard for her to breathe. She fired her Infernal Fire Bolts at the dragon rider, as they did next to nothing to the flame-resistant dragon.

  “Did the Oracle foresee this?” Ajax shouted over the tumult of wind, magic and fire breath (and his heart pounding in his ears).

  Lillus had her teeth gritted as she fired bolt after bolt. “If it did, it didn’t tell me. Like I said, its predictions are only a guide, not the gospel.”

  Great.

  Old Nel took a jet of dragon fire to her tail and roared in agony. Intense heat washed over Lillus and Ajax, damaging them both.

  -29hp

  Companion suffered -26hp

  Lillus patted out a fire on the side of the basket saddle. “I’m almost out of mana, and I only have one potion left to replenish it.”

  Ajax healed them both with his Medium Heal spell. “I still have that one you gave me this morning.” He passed it to her. “Go nuts.”

  She couldn’t do damage to the enemy mount, at least not at her low level (in comparison to the dragon), but she could cause the rider some pain. Maybe not much, as the woman was a level 13 Steampunk (with a Musketman skill focus) but slowly the rider’s health could be whittled down.

  “Can you summon Yana?”

  “Yes, but I won’t. There’s little she would be able to do, and I don’t want to risk her dying again. It’s not pleasant for either of us.”

  The attacking blue dragon charged right at Old Nel, the dragon rider leveling her lance. “They’re going to impale our mount!” Ajax braced himself for the collision.

  Instead, the unthinkable happened.

  Old Nel turned sideways at the last moment, and the lance narrowly missed her. She caught the younger dragon’s tail in her jaws and bit down, ending the enemy’s charge. Both dragons were jolted about at the momentum of the sudden stop. Nel kept her jaws clamped around the tail, the younger blue dragon roaring in pain. It snapped its head around to try to take a chunk from her side. A potion appeared in Lillus’s hand and she hurled it at the face of the attacking beast.

  The glass shattered against its neck, releasing a noxious brown gas. The dragon tried to move away, but Nel refused to let go. Ajax drew his sword and grabbed his shield from his inventory when he saw the Steampunk raise her musket and try to take aim at Lillus. “Get down,” he roared, trying to cover the Demon Mage.

  A shot rang out and glanced off the side of his shield, bypassing its extra defense against non-magical ranged attacks. But it didn’t stop it from hitting Lillus.

  The musket ball took her in the shoulder, and she wailed as it went right through the flesh and out the other side. She slammed against the side of the basket saddle and slumped over.

  Companion suffered crushing critical hit -126hp (Sniper Shot)

  Afflicted with Acid Burn

  Afflicted with Tranquilizer

  Unconscious

  Companion suffered -9hp

  Companion suffered -9hp

  “Lillus!”

  Companion suffered -9hp

  Companion suffered -9hp

  Ajax quickly cast his Touch of Light on her, restoring her health instantly. But the Acid Burn DOT (Damage Over Time) began whittling down her HP, 9 at a time, and Ajax had no idea how long the affliction would last. He had not heard of the Tranquilizer ability before. It must be a Tier-2 Steampunk ability that puts their targets to sleep. But for how long? How could it be broken?

  The pink-haired Steampunk threw something at him, and it landed in his lap. He saw a lit fuse attached to a small metal
box and his heart skipped several beats.

  A bomb!

  Before it could go off, he picked it up and threw it over the side. Two seconds later, it exploded, blowing the dragons apart from one another. Old Nel roared, as did the younger blue beast. Ajax took damage from the shockwave.

  -17hp

  Nothing serious, but the explosion had been enough to break Old Nel’s grip on the other dragon. “Lillus.” Ajax shook her, and found her clasping her wounded shoulder as blood poured from between her fingers. “No!”

  Lillus’s health continued to decline as the acid attack and blood loss weakened her. Ajax healed her quickly, but her health bar continued to sink. They had to find a way to escape so they could bandage her up and stop the bleeding enough for them to reach a doctor.

  Her eyes opened, and she reached for her shoulder. “That hurts.”

  “Thank the One God, you’re awake.”

  The blue dragon came at them again, its jaws open, ready to sink into Old Nel’s neck. The elderly dragon roared in defiance and swung to face the incoming attack. Ajax had no idea the old mount could put up such a fight given her condition, but he was glad for it.

  With an intense jolt, the dragons slammed into one another, claws ripping, wings flapping, jaws snapping, muscles bulging. Amongst it all, the Steampunk tried to aim her musket at Lillus again. She fired, but the shot tore a hole into the side of the basket inches away from the Demon Mage’s head. Lillus screamed and ducked down as the Steampunk reloaded.

  God damn Steampunks. Ajax saw red. I won’t let you hurt her.

  Before he really knew what he was doing, he had unstrapped himself from the harness and stood ready to leap onto the back of the other dragon. He waited for the right moment as the two beasts thrashed about, tearing into one another; then he jumped over and caught the side of the Steampunk’s basket saddle. She went to shoot him in the face, but a sudden jolt made her shot go wide, and instead the musket ball grazed his shoulder. It did no damage, as his Sparkle Pony Chain Vest deflected the shot.