His eyes snapped open when the last clank of the ball had passed and silence filled his ears. The Archon was beaming, exposing rows of razor-sharp teeth. Skree lowered his head and looked at the outcome. There, sitting in the green space marked with two infinity symbols was the glowing ball. As if in response to his gaze, the symbols blurred into two zeros.
“Winner! Winner!” Sharktooth said with a carnival workers enthusiasm.
“And what do I win exactly?” Skree asked, still unable to believe it.He had tossed the chips on double zero out of spite, yet he had won.
“The right to call yourself chosen of the Archons.”
“Okay fine, but what does that mean?” Skree asked, agitated.
“I will give you a portion of my powers, to help you save Raiya, and the rest of the infinite universes.” He tossed Skree the glowing ball, and a brilliant prompt appeared, gilded in silver and radiating golden light.
Congratulations, you have claimed the power of the Archon of Chance and Luck, Hakora.
Ability unlocked: Never tell me the odds.
You can activate this power to gain an inherent understanding of the probability of an action or outcome, and will succeed no matter the odds. The more improbable the action, the more you will need to tip the scales of luck in your favor. But beware, the more you tip the scales in your favor, the harder the universe will fight back to restore the balance of luck and probability.
Skree closed the prompt and stared at the Archon. “What does the universe will fight back to restore balance mean?”
“I am glad you asked that.” Sharktooth said, pointing at the five chips resting on double zero. The odds of you hitting that number out of all the numbers was essentiallyinfinity to one. You took all the luck in the universe and used it, but the universe must be in balance. There is always a price to pay, even in succeeding.” The Archon snapped his fingers and the chips on the table began to multiply, becoming a pile of hundreds, then thousands until they were duplicating so fast the infinite table began to fill with the cheap plastic disc's.
Skree stepped back from the table as the chips reached the rim and began to overflow, a cacophony of noise as they poured over the edge like a waterfall. Mere seconds had passed and already the chips were ankle deep across the casino and the flow showed no signs of stopping.
“Better ask those questions before the universe crushes us to death with poker chips.” Sharktooth said, pulling his legs free of the rapidly deepening chips.
“Why me?” Skree asked. “Out of all the people in all the worlds, why me?”
Sharktooth shrugged. “I didn’t so much as choose you as I turned the improbability up to eleven and spun the wheel. I didn’t skew the outcome this time, and you are what popped out.”
Skree furrowed his brows. “You didn’t even choose me yourself? All of this was pure chance?”
“Yep. You were the luckiest man in the universe, or the unluckiest, at the moment the wheel of fate decided. I honestly had nothing to do with it, other than setting the initial parameters.”
He didn’t know what to think. All this time he thought the Archon chose him for a reason, had assumed Sharktooth had seen his potential or some great destiny, but that wasn’t true. He was just a random guy from a random world in all of time.
“That’s… Depressing.” Skree said, pulling himself free of the ever deepening pile of chips. “I’m not special? Not a hero of legend, or champion of destiny?”
“Nope, You’re just a regular guy. Completely normal. Utterly random. Nothing special about you at all.”
“Ouch,” Skree said, feeling a little offended. “You don’t have to say it like that.”
Sharktooth sucked in a hissing breath, grimacing in regret. “Sorry, didn’t mean it like that.” The Archon put his hands together and dived into the chips, disappearing for a moment before his fin appeared, moving easily through them like a real shark through water. Skree struggled to pull himself atop the chips again, slipping and sliding with each step, chips cascading away like rocks in a landslide.
“How do I stop Abrenacht?” Skree asked, eyes following the fin as it cut through the chips. Sharktooth burst into the air, chips spraying like a geyser of water.
“Your quest, should you accept it, is to gather the remaining relics of destiny and find those worthy of being champions. Grow in strength until you can cross the great rift into the realm of chaos, defeat Abrenacht and use the relics to seal him away once more.”
“How will I find the relics?” Skree asked, struggling desperately to escape the quicksand of poker chips. It was becoming harder and harder to stay above the crushing weight of the infinite disc's.
“No idea. Tamarand corrupted them and now no Archon other than he can sense them. His power keeps them hidden from us.”
“But how did I arrive in Raiya on the exact island where one was?”
“Pure chance. Do you remember when you first agreed to become the first player and chose from three random starting locations? You chose the island with the relic, not I.”
The enormity of Sharktooth’s gamble was becoming clear. The Archon had truly let fate decide and had it gone differently, the Archons might have already lost this fight with Abrenacht. If that giant lizard had eaten him by that giant lizard, or he did not befriend Sawbones, he probably never would have found the relic of destiny. The thought of his friend Sawbones triggered his memory.
“My friends, they are fighting Abrenachts forces as we speak. How did they find us in the middle of an ocean?” Skree asked, shoveling handfuls of chips away from his waist to buy him a few more precious seconds.
Sharktooth glided across the surface of the chips, like a surfer riding a monster wave. “You used the relic of destiny, and to the Archons, it’s like a beacon of light in an ocean of darkness. It draws Abrenacht to that light, his desperate need to extinguish it, to snuff it out. You arrived in Raiya mere moments before they finally extinguished my relic. You have given us a chance, small though it may be. But you are the last chance we have to restore the balance.”
The chips were at his chest now, and it was becoming harder to breathe. “If I find the stones and the champions, and we defeat Abrenacht, do I get to return home?”
Sharktooth skidded to a halt, immediately sinking knee deep into the chips. “You can never go home. You must give up your old life to become the chosen of the archons. You will become the conduit for the Archons power’s. You must remain in Raiya forever.”
Skree shuddered at the implications. “What if I want to go home? I want to see my family again!”
“It is your choice.” Sharktooth said, towering over him. The Archon reached down and effortlessly plucked him from the chips. Two portals opened before them, each a silvery mirror showing two different places in time. On the left was an aerial view of the naval battle, his friends locked in a deadly struggle against the black ships. The other as his family, sitting down to a meal, smiling happily as they chatted about their day.
“One portal leads you to Raiya, to a life of battle and hardship. The other will take you home, and you will wake up as if this had all been a dream.” Sharktooth threw a muscular arm around his shoulders. “This is it Skree, the moment you choose the fate of the universe. You can go home to your family, spend the rest of your life on Earth, with your family until you die or Abrenacht destroys the universe. It could be a year, it could be a thousand before he wins, but he will win if you return to earth.”
Skree looked at the portal with his family. He missed them so much. His sister who had always been his best friend, his parents who made him the man he was today. They were right there. Half a dozen steps and he would be home, in a comfortable bed, with a boring but normal life.
“Or you can march bravely toward a destiny bigger than just you. I promise they won’t miss you, it will be as if you never existed. Raiya needs you, but only you can choose.”
Congratulations, you have been offered a mandatory quest - A Chosen Must Choose
The Archon Hakora has offered you the choice to become the Chosen or return home to your family. If you choose Raiya, you must do so knowing you will sacrifice your old life. If you choose earth, you know that it will cause the end of all things, eventually.
Skree watched the battle, saw the people fighting against the end. He saw priestess firing bolts of fire at a hovering form that zipped through the air with ease. Great gouts of smoke billowed forth with each explosive burst from the cannons below deck, heavy lead balls zipping across the surface of the sea. He knew he wouldn’t be able to return home. He wouldn’t abandon his friends in Raiya. Priestess needed him. Zuka needed him.
“What happens after I walk through the portal? Will I be back on the ship?”
“No, you must meet my brother.”
“You mean Abrenacht?” Skree asked, swallowing hard.
“He is an Archon, and you must face his trial the same as the others. I must warn you, Abrenacht will try to corrupt you, to break your spirit. Do not let him shatter your resolve.”
Skree nodded, took a deep breath and marched into the portal to face his greatest enemy.
Chapter 60
A sudden blinding light scoured Skree’s sight for a moment, then as his vision slowly faded back in, he felt an oppressive heat wash across his body. Around him was nothing but hard stone scoured by desert sands, no prickly cactus, no stubby trees, just smooth sun bleached cobblestones leading toward a distant horizon.
With a sudden moment of shock, he saw that the horizon ended at a wall of nothing. From left to right, top to bottom was a sea of absolute black as if night had fallen on half the world alone. But It wasn’t just a lack of stars or galaxies that told him it wasn’t the night sky, it was the lack of any light at all, as if even light could not exist beyond the inky blackness.
He spun, and behind him was the strangest sight. In a vertical slice of the sky, the sun was blazing high above, chased by feather thin clouds of wispy white speckling the sharp blue sky. the other was night and there, the strangely colored moon of Raiya hung just above the horizon, waiting for its turn to claim the sky, bringing with it a myriad of stars all blazing through the empty darkness of space.
These opposites ebbed and flowed, sliding across the sky like ink upon the surface of water. There was no clear dividing line, and neither side having full claim to the sky. Where one state ebbed, the other flowed, so the desert was never in full daylight, but neither did it ever cool with the blessed relief of a long night. In that direction was an ever changing hue of twilight, or dusk, just before the sun and moon change places. Dark enough to be ominous, but light enough to feel hopeful.
There was a sense of promise this direction, like the promise of boundless freedoms to find his own way. As if he had choices. But he knew that direction was beyond his reach for the worn cobbles beneath his plodding boots extended in only one direction, the opposite direction. With determination, he strode along the path toward the impossible nothingness of the other horizon.
With each step, the end of everything grew closer, to a strange degree. Each step felt like a mile as the horizon quickly consumed more and more of the skyline. With each step, his dread increased. No man should ever walk willingly to the end of existence but here he was, putting one foot in front of the other utterly stupid foot. A distant shape, hazy and difficult to see loomed at the base of the emptiness, standing in stark defiance of the looming dark. A few more steps and the aberration resolved into a massive stone archway held aloft by two massive pillars, bleached and worn smooth by the sand. It was the same color as the timeworn paving stones that cracked and crumbled beneath his heels.
Through the archway was the same endless black, as if this arch alone held back the tide. It surprised him how many more steps it took to reach the base, but as he stood before the towering edifice, he understood why. Even at a distance it had seemed large. But now? It towered above him and each of the pillars met the uninterrupted wall of darkness, cut perfectly in half vertically.
Sweat raced down his back as he stared into it, the vile, empty, wrongness of it. There was nothing there. His brain was reaching to fill in something, anything as he stared, but it tore apart his thoughts before they fully formed. It was the antithesis of life, of energy. It was decay. It was entropy. It was the end of all things.
Embedded in the archway were four stones, each nearly 10 feet in diameter. They twinkled dimly, tiny fluttering lights danced inside, but they were hard to see, except one. The Blue Stone was a brilliant star compared to the dusky light bathing the archway. He reached into his pocket and felt the reassuring warmth of the Heart of the Island.
His eyes twitched, pulling him away from his absolute hypnosis. Had he just seen something move in there? His eyes scanned the dark, but nothing was there. A darting shadow, massive and impossibly fast, crossed just behind the arches, like a smooth black snake had slithered past. He stumbled backward, catching his balance at the last moment when the enormous creature broke through the darkness, sending great ripples swirling through the blackness like a whale breaking the surface of the ocean at midnight.
Each of the waves crashed against the pillars, flowing back into the liquid darkness without so much as a splash. It defied everything he knew. He took in the behemoth creature with a racing heart. The head reminded him of an eel without lips, endless rows of massive fangs protruding from hideously red gums. Far to the sides were its eyes, sparkling pools of shimmering silver that flared brightly when the sunlight shone upon them.
The creature hissed, its fangs growing several feet rapidly as it lurched toward him. It slithered out into the sunlight, opening its jaws wide to swallow him whole. As soon as the dim sunlight touched its inky black scales, it recoiled in horror and agony. Moving faster than Skree would have thought possible, it disappeared back into the darkness for a few seconds before slowly re-emerging from the realm of non-existence. A deep booming voice rang from the mouth, hot breath sending a fresh wave of sweat spreading across his flesh.
“I know you.” It rumbled slowly, its voice shaking the very stones. “You have stolen what I have claimed.”
“I suppose I did.”
The creature's massive jaws quivered in a way that made it clear - it wanted nothing more than rip him to pieces, to devour this living thing that stands defiantly before the endless void.
“You should not be here, foul thing. You are not part of this struggle. I will consume your world, your existence like all others.”
“I will not allow you to succeed. I will restore the Archons and stop your endless destruction.”
Abrenacht’s liquid silver eyes flared red with angry, malevolent light. A deep rumbling laugh shook the air, reverberating deep in Skree’s chest. Despite his brave facade, he felt nothing but terror standing before this being of immense power. Each exhalation of breath that washed over him sent waves of unmaking through his flesh, and it felt as if his very atoms were trying to break apart and return to the nothing they were before he had existed. It was uncomfortable though not painful.
“Foolish child, I will devour all, consume all and nothing you can do will stop me.” Its serpent like body coiled, it’s head slowly raising into the air. “My siblings. They seek to contain me and my limitless power but even their power fades. It matters not, for even if you restore the seals, I will be here, waiting, until the seal weakens, until it breaks. This is the eternal fight, the struggle between my siblings and I. All things must end have an end, and all things must end. This is the way it has always been.”
“I understand.” He said, watching those horrible eyes glowing in the deep shadows of the arch. “But I do not wish an end. I will fight this fight until one of us prevails.”
Another booming laugh rolled across the endless desert. “Your predecessor said the same thing, ten thousand years ago when he activated the seal. But I doubt they have told you the truth, insignificant mortal.”
“The Truth? That I must sacrifice my life
to activate the seal?” He asked defiantly. “I will die, to save everything. It is an easy price to pay.”
Mocking peels of laughter echoed through the arches. “You think that is what they meant? That you will die and that is the end of it? Oh no child, you will not die. A mortal mind cannot handle immortality. It cannot bear the centuries, the millennia. They crave their own death. Life has no meaning without an ending, and if you activate the seal, you will become immortal. You will live thousands of years, until your fragile mind shatters. Madness is all that waits for you.”
Despite his desire for Abrenacht to be wrong, to be a liar, its words rang with a profound truth. Deep in his heart he understood the creature was incapable of lies. It would never even think to lie to an insect like him. It wanted him to squirm.
“Why would I become immortal? Once the seal works again, I can go home.”
The massive creature lowered its body to the sand, resting its head on the burning stones. Its eyes twinkled with mirth, in stark contrast to its hideous appearance. “The seal requires an anchor, something to channel the power of the Archons and maintain the seal. Since they cannot do so directly, they use a chosen one to bear the weight of eternity. A fragile mortal being must act as the conduit for their desires. Do you truly believe you can stand against me for eternity? Until every star in every universe burns away? Your mind cannot even comprehend the enormity of the sacrifice laid before you.”
Cold dread filled him and he shuddered at the horror and immensity of it. Eternal life, true immortality would mean he would never die, never see an end to his struggles. He would watch his great, great grandchildren grow old and die, on and on forever. Many times in his youth, Skree had joked about living forever and how amazing it would be to live to see the year three-thousand. He always envisioned a future of flying cars, hover boards and time-traveling Deloreans. But now, faced with the unassailable terror of infinity, he did not want to face that hard truth. Perhaps he couldn’t, it was just too immense for him to even comprehend.
Raiya- Early Game Page 41
