Rogue Evolution

by James Hunter

  The taunts drew the berserker’s attention, just as Roark had hoped. Viago spun around to face him, jerking the other Herald and Kaz to a halt, their forms silhouetted against the silvery moon.

  “Hand over the World Stone, rebel trash, and you can have your... whatever this thing is back,” Viago shouted.

  “Come and take it,” Roark snarled, brandishing his dual weapons in invitation.

  The russet-winged berserker grinned. “My pleasure.”

  Viago dove at Roark like a falcon, leaving Kaz in the hands of the other Herald. Unable to support the weight of the enormous Knight Thursr by himself, the man dropped the flailing Troll immediately. Kaz plummeted like a stone, great arms pinwheeling, Legendary Meat Tenderizer lashing out ineffectively.

  “Roark, help Kaz!” he screamed, eyes wide in terror.

  Viago was coming for Roark with hate burning in his face like a torch, but Roark didn’t hesitate—if he had to choose between saving himself and his friend, it would be his friend. In a heartbeat, Roark traded his weapons for his Initiate’s Spell Book and scribbled out a level 7 spell he’d never tried before. A levitation spell of sorts.

  The target is weightless for 1 minute.

  With a flash, the spell took, slightly altered by the arbitrary rules that governed Hearthworld.

  [Congratulations! You have inscribed a level 7 Featherweight Spell. Target’s weight is reduced by 75% for 45 seconds.]

  Roark fired the spell at Kaz, grinding his teeth at the restrictions. All he could do was hope that hitting the ground at a quarter of his weight would be enough to save his friend from turning into a red smear on the bailey floor below. If not, he could apologize when Kaz respawned in two hours.

  The spell had cost Roark precious seconds, though.

  Viago slammed into him with a force like a rampaging Rotbeest. They tumbled through the sky, feathery and leathery wings catching the air at odd angles. The berserker’s fists pummeled Roark’s head and neck. They should have been too close for the blows to have any strength behind them, but the berserker was glowing with the same red aura that surrounded Grozka when she flew into a Bloodrage. Each blow landed with a flash of bloody light, cutting red from Roark’s filigreed Health vial left and right. Not only a Bloodrage, then—there was some sort of pugilistic enhancement on the Herald’s gauntlets.

  The world spun and lights danced before Roark’s eyes from the force of the punches. He managed to dig his Kaiken Dagger out and jab it in between Viago’s ribs, but the blade hardly touched the Herald’s health. Zyra’s poison made the red bar over Viago’s head flash briefly green, but the weakness hardly lasted more than a moment before the bar was red once more. Roark jammed the Kaiken Dagger in again and again, but the berserker only chuckled, still thrashing away at him.

  Roark’s mind churned as he fought to stay conscious. His Infernal spells would be useless against a Divine creature, so no help from that quarter. In theory Hex-Touch could work—but since Viago was a level 99, his Intelligence would easily be higher than Roark’s, even if the berserker had hardly invested in it. There was also Hex-Armor, but Roark couldn’t afford the loss of the 5 Constitution that spell required to cast. But he could use Hex-Aura. Maybe they had even fallen far enough by now for the spell to aid some of his allies on the ground.

  ╠═╦╬╧╪

  Hex-Aura

  Those who would dare lash out at the Hexorcist best be ready to taste the sting of Cursed! retribution. The caster emits a thirty-foot-radius aura, which moves with them for the duration of the spell and affects all allies in the area. Enemies take 2n Damage (where n equals character level of the Attacker) when they deal physical melee damage to those protected by Hex-Aura. Hex-Aura is a level 4 spell and can only be inscribed in level 4 spell slots; Duration, 4 minutes.

  ╠═╦╬╧╪

  With a thought, Roark cast the Curse! on himself, along with a pre-inscribed level 4 Rebound spell, which reflected not only magical but physical damage.

  [55% of all damage done to target rebounds to the opponent for the next 30 seconds.]

  Immediately, the red bar over the Herald’s head dropped by an eighth. Not as much as Roark had hoped, but far more than he’d managed to inflict with his dagger.

  “What?” Viago sputtered as his next punch extracted life from his own vial.

  “I’ve learned a few new tricks,” Roark rasped through the pain. “Observe.”

  Roark nullified his Rebound spell—this close, it would only backfire on him—then triggered the Curse Chain on his leathers. Storm of Fire and Ice exploded outward from his chest, blasting Viago with a gout of flame and sudden torrent of icy water at once. The force blew the Herald away from Roark and singed his feathers.

  Pulling free his Peerless Slender Rapier once more, Roark opened his wings and angled himself onto a nearby updraft to stop his fall.

  Viago’s face twisted into a grin. He’d found a red updraft as well and was currently drawing even with Roark once again.

  “Lowen said you were an arrogant one, but I didn’t think it’d be this easy to get you to give up your secret abilities,” he said, pulling a golden horn from one of his pouches.

  “Come closer, and I’ll give you another look at them,” Roark snarled, lunging forward, rapier carving right to left in a classic mandritto.

  Viago easily slipped out of blade range, a smug grin on his face. “I don’t think so, trash.” The berserker brought the horn to his lips and blew a two-note blast.

  Confused shouting sounded below, then the night was lit with sparkling trails of golden light. The trails shot off toward the horizon.

  “I’ll tell Lowen you send your regards,” Viago taunted, poised to beat a hasty retreat.

  He should’ve just run instead of taking the time to gloat.

  “They might,” Roark growled, “but you won’t.”

  With hardly a twitch, he fired off a level 9 Paralyzation spell and a pair of level 6 Fireballs, one right after the other, then darted into Viago’s guard behind them. The spells hit the berserker square in the face, barely scratching the surface of his red Health bar, but stopping the motion of his russet wings mid-flap.

  Roark slammed into him a moment behind the spells, skewering the berserker on his rapier, then slamming his dagger home and bearing them both at top speed toward the ground.

  They hit like a lightning bolt, throwing up rocks and dust and blowing the ground fog away. Roark slashed and hacked and stabbed without a care for proper form or protecting himself, trying to deal damage before the paralyzation spell wore off. He’d trained all his life in the art of the blade, practicing until the proper footwork forms were ingrained into muscle memory, slaving until his hands bled from thrusts and slashes and parries. But all that was forgotten in the face of his rage and his driving need to finish this quickly, and to hells with finesse. His blades rose and fell, outpacing the thumping of his racing heart, while bright splashes of gold sprayed his chest and face.

  Soon, familiarly smithed blades joined Roark’s own, hacking the Herald nearly to pieces before the last sliver drained out of his Health bar.

  With a heave, Roark struck the final blow, pinning Viago’s corpse to the ground with his rapier. He stumbled off the Herald’s disfigured corpse and stood, searching the sky for the rest of Lowen’s winged force while he fought for breath.

  “They’re gone,” a dusky voice said at his side. Zyra. “They retreated when they heard that trumpet call.”

  “They saw Roark’s might and flew away like the scared birds they are,” Kaz sneered. The Mighty Gourmet looked worse for the wear—limping, covered in blood and bruises, and with one of his antlers broken off completely—but he had blessedly survived the fall.

  Roark shook his head. “No. They were never meant to stay for a real fight, Kaz.”

  “An expeditionary force.” Griff was cleaning gore from his short sword, his single eye constantly searching the darkness for another attack. “Sent to scout out what sort of de
fenses we’ve got in place, how many troops we’ve got, any information that could help them in a full-scale battle. Now that they’ve got a look, they’ll be running back to tell their master.”

  Roark dragged his forearm across his face, wiping away Viago’s blood. He searched the bailey for any other Heralds taken down during the battle and found only Trolls and mobs from allied dungeons. Even with all their preparations and allies, they hadn’t killed a single other Herald.

  If this fight had taught him anything, it was that the Cruel Citadel wasn’t strong enough to withstand a real fight against level 99 enemies. Not by a long shot.

  He watched the golden spark trails disappear across the black sky.

  But, Roark thought, there might be a way to get around fighting them. At least for a little while.

  Trial and Error

  EYES CLOSED, RANDY shook out his hands to relax them and exhaled. Become invisible, but not incorporeal. Do it. Just do it.

  He looked down at himself and saw a pocket protector tucked into a button-down shirt with a coffee stain on the sleeve and a pair of khakis with identical splatters on the ankles.

  Another failure.

  That didn’t mean he was crazy, though. No, it just meant that he was doing something wrong this time around. Randy was positive that he hadn’t imagined the incident—he’d gone invisible, just like his Hearthworld main, and the fact that Helen Rose had been there only cemented that fact in his head. It had occurred to him that, perhaps, Helen Rose was somehow playing a prank on him—maybe in cahoots with Danny?—but to what end? And how would she even have known Randy was going to get a coffee in the elevator lobby? Even Randy hadn’t known he was going to be there, and that didn’t account for what he’d witnessed with his own eyes.

  A prank didn’t fit the data set. There were too many variables and the equations just didn’t square.

  Besides, Helen Rose wouldn’t do that. She was better than that.

  Randy considered the possibility that he was dreaming, facedown on his desk with drool soaking his workstation, but quickly dismissed the notion. For one, he could remember his morning with perfect clarity, and it had followed the mundane laws of logic for IRL. For another, when he cracked the pages of the various books lining his desk, he had no problem reading them—a known impossibility when in a dream state. Still, just to make sure, Randy pinched himself, flinching from the pain.

  Definitely awake.

  Which all added up to one undeniable truth: He hadn’t imagined the incident. He had turned invisible. And if it had happened, then there had to be a way to reproduce the effect. He’d been trying for the last three hours and, so far, been wildly unsuccessful. But that just meant there was a variable he was missing.

  His gaze landed on his shelf of beloved manuals. Razor straight. Steadfast. He straightened his spine and squared his shoulders.

  I’m a scientist, he reminded himself. A programmer.

  Everything had rules and laws—even magic, if what Roark said was true.

  So far as Randy understood, Roark’s magic functioned much like a string of code did: write out the correct inputs and sequences in the proper order and achieve a given result. Simple. Straightforward. Reasonably rational. The only new input his life had received recently was throwing in his lot with Roark, and so Randy had to assume this new ability was in some way linked to Hearthworld. Therefore, it would make sense for a game-related power to require specific inputs to function properly.

  He cast his mind back to the incident in the elevator lobby, searching for anything he may have overlooked. He tried to remember what he’d said. The way he’d felt. What exactly he’d been thinking during the bewildering encounter.

  A single word floated to the top of his mind: fear.

  He’d been petrified in the lobby. Or, at the very least, wildly uncomfortable. Here in his office, shut away from the world, he felt safe and secure. A newb wading through a beginner zone, cutting down Brewery Rats or Changelings with ease. Perhaps IRL survival instinct was somehow an essential component to the ability.

  Unfortunately, there was only one way to test his hypothesis.

  Licking dry lips and swiping his suddenly sweaty palms along his pants, Randy stood, his chair squeaking. He slipped out of his office, stilling the tremble in his hands, and padded down the hall toward the break room. Toward people and awkward small talk. Arranging to run into Helen Rose again was impractical—maybe even impossible considering she worked on the third floor with the filming and entertainment crew—but casually mingling with his second-floor coworkers was nearly as bad.

  The sound of talking and laughing drifted along the corridors, sending goosebumps sprinting along his arms. There was a small nook in the left wall, occupied by a leafy fern nearly as tall as he was. Working quickly, he slipped into the nook, grunting as he shoved his way behind the bulky ceramic pot, batting leafy fronds from his face. The pot rocked out of the groove it had pressed into the carpet, but that would hardly be noticeable from the hallway.

  He could do this. He needed to do this. If he could actually use Arboreal Herald abilities like Invisibility here in the real world, that would change everything. With powers like those, he could help Roark save his world—not to mention all the real-world applications. Like avoiding inconvenient human contact and dodging Danny in the hallways.

  Licking his lips again, Randy pressed his eyes shut, blocking out the world. Disappear, he told himself as he slowed his breathing, concentrating on the steady rise and fall of his chest. Like in the elevator lobby. Just disappear.

  Then he felt it. A weightlessness in his limbs, almost like he was levitating.

  He heard voices coming down the hall.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t see it,” Arjun said. “It was on all the news blogs this morning.”

  Katia snorted. “I never read those things. They’re so full of crap.”

  “Not this.”

  “Aliens, dude?” she sneered. “For real?”

  Randy balled his fists up, sweat streaming down his face and coating his shirt.

  “Or mutants,” Arjun insisted, the sound of their voices drawing progressively nearer. “The cops weren’t even going to investigate it because the body was found downtown.”

  “Then it was probably just another crackhead.”

  “No way, it wasn’t even human,” Arjun said. “And get this—there were multiple reports of angels being sighted nearby the same night. Can you believe that? Angels.”

  “I can’t believe it, actually,” Katia replied. “Because it’s total bullshit. Angels aren’t real. Neither are aliens or mutants or alternate dimensions. I think reading all that online tabloid garbage has finally rotted your brain. Next you’re going to be saying the whole thing has been covered up by the government or something.”

  Shaking with anxiety, Randy pressed his eyes shut tighter and wrestled the panic welling up inside him. Invisible. Stay invisible. He chanted the words silently like a mantra, too scared to open his eyes or change anything that might break the tenuous spell. Katia and Arjun were less than a few feet away now, their talking the sound of thunder in his ears.

  “Name one other major organization that has the manpower and resources to cover up something like that,” Arjun challenged.

  Katia’s answer dripped with exasperation: “Literally every major tech company within ten square miles of us, including FrontFlip.”

  “Holy cylons, you’re right! It was the tech companies. We’ve finally gone too...” Arjun trailed off, and Randy had a sneaking suspicion why. “Far,” he finished weakly.

  Reluctantly, Randy pried his eyes opened and risked a look down. A grimace flashed across his face when he saw his body in full and vivid color. Even worse, Arjun and Katia were standing directly in front of him, staring at him.

  Arjun let out a low whistle.

  “Wow,” Katia said, shaking her head in disbelief. “I can’t even with this.” Without asking for any sort of explanation, she thr
ew her hands into the air and headed down the hallway. “Why the fuck are the techs here all so weird!” she shouted to no one in particular.

  Arjun shot Randy a tight-lipped smile and an awkward half wave, then turned and hustled to catch up.

  “Give the guy a break,” Arjun whispered, though the sound carried easily to Randy’s ears. “Word on the street is he’s about to get shit-canned any day.”

  Randy stood there, mortified, wanting to physically sink through the floor and disappear into nothingness. A cold wave of nausea rolled through him like a storm cloud, embarrassment braying in the back of his head. This felt like another nail in the coffin lid. Maybe he had imagined going invisible. Maybe the strain of the last few days had pushed him over the edge and firmly into the territory of a psychotic break.

  With a defeated sigh, he pushed past the leafy stalks of the fern, then paused when he realized the fronds of swaying green seemed to be moving all on their own. Pushed by a hand that wasn’t there.

  His breath caught in his throat as he looked down and found his body gone.

  Flabbergasted, he lifted his hand and waved it in front of his face, searching for a blur—for some sign of his digits. Nothing. Gone. But when he reached up to adjust his glasses, he had no problem feeling the slick sweat dotting his fingertips. Just like the elevator lobby. Invisible but not incorporeal. He’d done it. He’d replicated the process...

  Admittedly, it would’ve been nice had the effects kicked in about thirty seconds ago before he irrevocably humiliated himself in front of his coworkers, but progress was progress. The fact that he wasn’t going completely insane was also nice. He’d never been good at sports or the life of the party, but his mind had always been a reliable constant in his life. It was a relief to know that hadn’t abandoned him.

  Despite his victory, however, Arjun’s words bounced around inside his skull: word on the street is he’s about to get shit-canned any day.

  If that kind of rumor was already circulating among the artists and interns, then there was no doubt his days at Frontflip were numbered. He’d be lucky to make it through the week. If he had any hope of figuring out what the studio had planned for Roark and the Cruel Citadel, he needed to act fast.