The Once King

by Rachel Aaron

  “Hold up,” Tina said, eyes going wide. “If Cinco died, that means I won!” She pumped a fist in the air. “Oh yeah!”

  The jubilant move sent a shock of pain down her side, and Tina winced, slumping back onto her shield for support. Anders’s heal had restored her HP and patched up the bloody gash on her head, but Tina was still wrecked from the trauma of the duel and being buried alive. To add insult to injury, her stomach chose that moment to growl loudly, reminding her that her last meal had been an IV back on Earth.

  “If we’re done here, can we go back to camp?” Tina asked. “Not to be a wuss, but I feel like I haven’t eaten in two days.”

  “Absolutely,” James said, his face suddenly dour. “We need to finish taking care of you. Magical healing can only do so much, and your body’s still fresh out of the hospital. This hasn’t exactly been the easiest first day.”

  That was the understatement of the century. Fortunately for Tina’s pride, everyone seemed desperate to get back to camp. Her raid looked as exhausted as she felt, their glowing armor dusty and bedraggled from frantically digging in the Deadlands’ ashy dirt. The thin gray daylight of the zone was fading anyway, a sure sign that the pitch-black darkness of the undead valley’s night would be upon them shortly, along with the subzero temperatures. Getting back to the warmth and pseudo-safety of their tents was the right move to make, so Tina gave the order to retreat. It’d give the Once King more time to recover his mana, but she didn’t think they could beat him right now even if the king had both hands tied behind his back. The assault on the Dead Mountain Fortress could wait until tomorrow. Tonight, they were done.

  Her command was met with tired cheers as everyone began the terrifying process of climbing up the crooked stairway some Naturalist had hastily carved into the side of the gorge. Tina let them go ahead. She wasn’t confident enough in her balance to attempt those stairs yet, and there was something very important she still had to do.

  Zen had finished her lecture and moved on to the examination part of things by the time Tina came over. She was checking SilentBlayde’s eyes for broken blood vessels when Tina cleared her throat, but she didn’t roll her eyes or make a comment or do anything Tina expected. Instead, the tall Ranger gave her a knowing smile and moved away, squeezing Tina’s shoulder briefly as she flowed gracefully past.

  When she was gone, Tina turned to SilentBlayde, who was still panting on the ground with his face wrap dangling open, his lips faintly blue as his body fought to recover its oxygen. Now that she knew what they felt like, seeing those lips made her blush scarlet, and Tina snapped her eyes to the ground before she made an idiot of herself.

  “Thanks, Haruto,” she said, keeping her voice steady through sheer force of will. “I owe you one.”

  There was a crunch as the elf sat up, and Tina held her breath. Waiting for what, she had no idea, but it never happened. Before she or Blayde could say another word, James showed up to pull her away, babbling about all sorts of practical, responsible things like getting her food and washing the blood out of her hair. Unable to fight anymore, Tina let her brother drag her over to the line of players going up the stairs, painfully aware of SB’s eyes on her back as she began the long, slow climb out of the gorge.

  Chapter 10

  James

  James’s first hour back at camp was entirely consumed with fretting over his little sister. He got her soup and other soft, nutritious foods suitable for a stomach that hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. Garrond had already given up on his command tent, so she had a bed and blankets, and Zen showed up later with a bucket of hot water to help get the blood out of her hair and armor. There was quite a lot of blood, actually, which was much harder to deal with than James had anticipated. Seeing blood on Tina was a lot more traumatic than seeing it on Roxxy had been. But thanks to excessive magical healing, there was no lasting damage, and James was soon left with nothing to do.

  Worried and anxious, James paced the perimeter of the Roughnecks’ camp. Ostensibly, he was keeping an eye on the Red Sands in case they decided to get revenge, but even he had to admit it hardly seemed necessary. The PvP guild’s camp was dark and depressed. Everyone stuck to their tents, especially Cinco, who was sulking so hard James was surprised he hadn’t created a sinkhole. Climbing one of the dead trees to gain an observation point in case something happened, James was settling in for a long night when he heard someone calling his name.

  James looked down to see Fangs in Grass glaring at him from the ground. “Stop looking for problems and get down here!” his brother yelled. “I got us dinner, but I’m not carrying it up a tree.”

  James didn’t particularly want dinner, but he was certain his brother would uproot the tree if he made him wait, so he hopped back down, landing on all fours as always. When he stood up again, though, he saw that someone else was standing with the head warrior. It was one of the Roughnecks’ Sorcerers, a tall man wearing the limited-edition movie event headpiece that looked like a crown of flames. He must have been pressed into service by James’s brother, because he was currently attempting to juggle three steaming bowls of jerky stew. James took one quickly before it ended up on the ground, blowing on the steaming liquid as the poor Sorcerer shook his overheated hands.

  “Thanks,” James said, taking a seat by one of the fires that were scattered all over the camp. “So, umm…” He frowned at the Sorcerer, who’d taken a seat across the fire from him. “I’m sorry, I feel like I should know you, but I don’t. I’m James.”

  The lean Sorcerer nodded. “I know,” he said in a flat, almost monotone voice. “I’m Richard.”

  James nearly dropped his stew. “Wait, Richard? As in the Richard, god of the Sorcerer forums?” When the tall man nodded, James’s face broke into a grin. “Oh, dude, I gotta thank you so much for the ichthyian legendary rep grind guide you wrote for casters! I would have never gotten the Any Fin Is Possible achievement without you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Richard said perfunctorily, then his thin brows pulled together. “To be honest, though, that guide had an unacceptable number of inaccuracies after the last patch. I was working on an updated version, but then this happened.”

  He waved idly at the dark mountains rising all around them, and James scooted closer. “So is that the Prometheus’s Fire promo crown?” he asked, gazing enviously at the ring of fire floating above the human Sorcerer’s dark hair. “I heard they only gave them out to a thousand people! I’m so jealous.”

  “Don’t be,” Richard replied with a hint of annoyance, the only emotion he’d shown so far. “I cannot remove it and thus live in constant fear of its mild ambient heat causing an unexpected ignition.”

  “Oh,” James said. He hadn’t considered the practical difficulties of having a crown of flames dancing around on your head all the time. Kind of made him glad he hadn’t gotten a piece of rare collectors’ loot for once. “So what brings you here?” he asked, switching to something less awkward. “Did you need something from Tina?”

  That was the only reason James could think of for a Roughneck to seek him out, but Richard shook his head. “Actually, I was looking for you,” he said, setting his untouched bowl of stew aside. “Your name on the forums was Heal-a-Hoop, was it not?”

  When James nodded, the Sorcerer’s dour face broke into something almost like a smile. “Excellent. I’ve been a fan of your discovery posts about rare locations in the game since FFO’s beta. You are also a caster who, I have been informed, possesses a greater-than-average understanding of postgame magic. These combined areas of knowledge make you the perfect candidate for the conversation I wish to have about today’s extraordinary events.”

  As Richard spoke, James forgot all about the dangerous drama that had gone down between guilds. He’d gotten so caught up in his sister’s crisis that he’d almost forgotten about the event that had thrown them into disarray in the first place.

  “Tina’s real body is here,” he said, setting his own bowl down as well. “That’s
what you want to talk about, isn’t it?”

  “What else is there?” Richard asked, looking genuinely baffled. “The Once King cast a spell that transferred a real physical body from our world to this one! Why is everyone not talking about this?!”

  “Maybe because it’s not that big a surprise?” Ar’Bati said around a mouthful of stew. “We already know the Once King’s the one who brought you players here. That’s the whole reason for this campaign.”

  “But those were just our souls,” Richard argued. “At least, that’s the going hypothesis. This is different. The Once King’s magic transported a physical body from our world to this one, without killing it! That’s a huge jump up from what we previously believed he could do!”

  “I don’t know,” Fangs grumbled, licking his whiskers. “I think he was a fool. I’ve heard both ears full about this Million Damage Blast of his. Why didn’t he cast that instead? He did not know Roxxy possessed the One For All at the time. So far as he was aware, he could have killed us all right there and won, so why didn’t he?”

  James had wondered that as well. “I bet it was because of Garrond,” he said, scratching his whiskers thoughtfully. “As a top-tier four-skull, Garrond has over a hundred million HP. That means the Million Damage Blast wouldn’t have been enough to kill him, and—as we just saw in the gorge this afternoon—he has a mass area rez. The MDB is super powerful, but it takes a ton of mana. There’s no point in wasting all that energy if you’re unable to kill the one guy who can rez everyone else.”

  “But why cast this spell instead?” Ar’Bati pressed. “It took so much mana he couldn’t even fly after casting it, but what was the point of sending Roxxy back to her true body if he did not also eliminate her level and class skills? She’s just as dangerous to him now as she was before, so why bother?”

  “Actually, that purple spell is very dangerous to us,” Richard stated flatly. “You do not know our original forms, Ar’Bati of the Four Clans. Only the best players have made it to this time and place, but that means we are all people whose real lives enabled us to play far too much FFO.” He pointed at his youthful face. “People who spend the majority of their waking lives under VR helmets are not known for taking care of their physical bodies. We look hale and healthy in this place because that was how we designed our characters, but how many of us are physically disabled or impaired back in our world? How many suffer from chronic illness or even the simple impairments of advanced age? I bet there are many in this camp who would quickly die without their daily medications.”

  Given that his own life had been a constant struggle of figuring out how to play as much FFO as possible without losing so much sleep he went batty, James could only wince at how accurate Richard’s assessment was. He also had to wonder just who Richard was in real life. Given the sheer volume of knowledge and theorycraft the world-famous Sorcerer had contributed to the community, James got the feeling he played a lot. Like SB-levels of a lot, which didn’t leave much time for a job or a family or really anything else.

  “I see,” Ar’Bati said, nodding gravely. “If that’s the case, then Roxxy’s actions did indeed save the day. We are lucky she was not among the elderly or infirm.”

  “For real,” James said. “But you’re missing the important bit. It’s not just good luck that he wasted his spell changing Roxxy into Tina. We now have physical evidence that the Once King can send us home! We already knew he could touch Earth magically, but we didn’t have proof that it worked outside of the context of the Nightmare. But the Nightmare’s been over for almost two weeks now, and he was still able to bring Tina’s body over! That means the connection is still there.”

  “But that is to his advantage as well,” Richard said cautiously. “Now that we know for certain the Once King—and only the Once King—can send us home, the next logical move would be for him to use that knowledge against us.”

  James went quiet, thinking that over. “I see your point,” he whispered, scooting around the fire so that he was sitting right next to the Sorcerer. “Don’t spread this around, but I actually already asked the Once King if he would be willing to send us home.”

  Richard’s eyes went wide. “You’ve spoken to the Once King? How?”

  “It’s complicated,” James hedged, keeping his eyes carefully away from the black staff he’d left on the ground by his old seat. “And it wasn’t for very long, but I did get a chance to talk to him about this exact subject, and he claimed to have no interest. That was back when he thought he was winning, though. Now that we’re at his gates, he might see things differently, and that raises a difficult question: What do we do if the Once King offers to send us back, but only if we abandon the fight?”

  Ar’Bati bared his fangs. “There is no question! Half the players here have already made it clear they’d happily feed this world to the ghostfire if it meant they could go home.”

  “And I would be among those who would fight them to the death to save it,” Richard said, his face lighting up with a rare flash of emotion. “I’ve spent the better part of my life in this world. It is a land of beauty and magic that is far more my home than anywhere my physical body lies. I will not allow it to become a cold hell of undeath!”

  “I feel the same way,” James said, flashing the suddenly emotional Sorcerer a grin. “But my brother’s right. There are a lot of people here who don’t care and who will absolutely sell this world out for a way back to their own. I’m not saying the people who want to go home are wrong to feel that way, but if the Once King makes us an offer, we’re going to be caught in a lose-lose situation. Half of us will want to go, half of us will want to stay, and all the Once King will have to do to defeat us is stand back and let us fight it out among ourselves. We have to figure out how to avoid that scenario at all costs before tomorrow’s assault begins. Otherwise, we’ll be finding out where people stand in the worst way possible.”

  “The solution is obvious,” Richard said, calm once again. “We need a third option. If we could figure out how the purple spell works, we might be able to copy its effects or even reverse them! If we can master how to cross the barrier between this world and Earth on our own, the Once King will have no power over us, and this problem will be solved.”

  “Whoa,” James said, putting up his hands. “I’ve learned a little about magic, but what you’re talking about is way over my head, and probably yours. Not to cast doubt on your abilities, but the Once King is the oldest Celestial Elf and the first creation of the Sun. He has a mastery and understanding of the magic of the Unbounded Sky we couldn’t hope to match even if we had a thousand years to study, never mind one night.”

  Richard’s face fell into a stubborn scowl. But while he was clearly trying to think up an argument to counter James, he must not have found it, because he said nothing. James was silent, too, staring into the fire as he struggled to think of a way out, some end scenario in which they weren’t all at the Once King’s mercy, but he couldn’t find one. As always, every path he explored came right back to the Once King, and the more he thought about that, the more he realized that his very first plan might have actually been the right one after all.

  “I think we need to talk to the Once King again,” he said. “Before the battle.”

  “Are you mad?” Fangs snapped. “Why would you even consider talking to the enemy of all life? Especially considering he already turned you down!”

  “There’s a lot of reasons,” James argued. “Starting with the fact that the Once King is a rational being. He’s not some cackling evil overlord who wants to destroy everything just because. Whenever I’ve talked to him, he’s always seemed more resigned than angry.”

  “You say that,” Ar’Bati growled. “But I have felt the ghostfire. I know the hatred for all life which burns within it. So do you!”

  “I do know,” James agreed. “And that’s why this makes no sense! The more I learn about the Once King, the more I realize he’s not like the ghostfire or his undead. They devour
everything with irrational hatred, but every time I’ve talked to the king, he’s been calm and rational. I wouldn’t say he’s nice, but he’s definitely not some raging lunatic. Whatever he’s doing with the ghostfire, he’s doing it for a reason. If we could find a way to help him achieve that purpose without killing everyone else on the planet, imagine the possibilities. Imagine if he wasn’t our enemy!”

  “James,” Ar’Bati growled. “You cannot talk down a man who has been the enemy of all life for a thousand years! Words cannot sway such determination.”

  “But we still don’t know why he made the ghostfire or started this conflict in the first place,” James said. “It wasn’t in the game lore, and Gray Fang didn’t know either. I’m starting to think that no one knows why the Once King does what he does, but that doesn’t mean he does it for no reason. You call him the enemy of all life, but the ghostfire doesn’t make undead plants, and the only animals that turn are the ones that are useful as weapons, big boars and wolves and whatnot. Otherwise, the ghostfire passes right over them. I mean, have you ever seen an undead rabbit?”

  “No,” Ar’Bati admitted grudgingly. “But that doesn’t help us. We’re not animals.”

  “We’re not,” James admitted. “But it’s a start. Do you remember what the Lich of Red Canyon told us? He said that all Celestial Elves used to have wings, but they got burned off. Have either of you ever heard of that event? Because I’ve never read anything about it.”

  “It was definitely not in the wiki or any accessible in-game lore,” Richard agreed. “I’ve read it all, and this is the first I’ve heard of burned wings.”