by Jamie Hawke
One look at her was all I needed to be reminded that linking my fate to hers was a worthwhile bet. As much of an enigma as she was, she’d proven herself trustworthy so far, and proven herself to be quite the badass.
The room we entered next was like a combination of a throne room and what I imagined the inside of an ant hill might look like. Along the walls were all manner of raised mini-walls, all leading to an inner room, some interspersed with what had to be runes formed out of rock. What I was looking at, I realized, was a map of the whole dungeon. And at times runes would light up, certain areas of the map glowing and showing red movement—what I assumed from playing enough games represented enemy movement.
At the center of the room was a table with various pieces set up, a board at the opposite side, and the bunny man. He wasn’t in his cute little rabbit guise now. Instead, what we were seeing was the much more scary appearance that Arturo had told us about. The rabbit fur took on a gray and tan mix as black smoke trailed out around it, the form underneath a shadow with manlike features and glowing, red eyes.
He looked up from his table and smiled. “Welcome home, lost soul.”
“Go to hell,” Varena spat, but in the same breath she hissed to me, “be ready.”
“You actually think you stand a chance against me?” He laughed. “At any moment I could’ve ended you, could’ve sent armies after you and your little friends here.”
He gestured to the board and lifted a hand so that small shadows appeared on it, then indicated one of the maps on the wall. The shadows vanished, only to appear behind us. If ever there was a dungeon master role I thought would be fun, this man certainly had it. Apparently, he could monitor his dungeon here while creating monsters and assigning them throughout.
But as I’d said before, my role in life had never been the DM. I was an adventurer, and here to kick his ass.
“And you…” The bunny man turned his glowing gaze upon me. “You’ve brought me the amulet, I see. Would you name a price, I wonder? But, no. You wouldn’t want me to. Because that price will be your head.”
“Fuck this guy,” Arturo muttered under his breath.
“Patience,” Varena hissed, and then stepped forward, so that she was at the edge of one of several openings into the room, with a slight drop down to the curved area that led in. I joined her, and could now see an area behind the bunny man where the ground rose to form what I thought at first looked like a massive, fiery vagina. On second look, I realized it was more like a mouth, sideways on, and was likely the portal to whatever world lay behind this dungeon of a fortress.
“I can’t be bought,” I said. “And my head… well, I plan on using that for a while longer.”
The shadows moved closer behind us as the bunny man stood. “We shall see.”
With those words, he gave a flick of his finger and the shadows surged toward us, Arturo and Brad turning to intercept them.
“With me,” Varena said, and she gripped my hand, her other held out.
I had no idea what I was doing, other than letting that inner part of me I didn’t understand flow freely. Whatever rune magic I had and could channel through her, I meant to use to its full potential.
Golems rose from the walls around us, and black and purple spiders crawled out of holes over our heads, but Varena gripped tight, shouting as energy surged through us. Nothing else mattered in that moment, only her and the glowing runes around the room, all of those patterns and walls lighting up at once, and the expression of shock on the bunny man’s face.
“You’re contained, you can’t be doing this. You don’t have the power!”
“Not I alone,” she cried, and then thrust me forward so that I stumbled out, thinking I’d drop over the ledge. Instead, I stopped in midair as the power of the various runes shot into me. As I felt the various colors of magic like the seasons, and saw worlds open before my eyes, it was like I was one with the etheric plain. All the while she was weaving about me, shouting out spells with her hands up, a force of blue energy holding the bunny man and his monsters at bay.
At one moment yellow was coursing through my veins like the sun, at another there was pink like flower petals blowing in the wind, gently caressing my cheek. Orange flared up and I felt alive, full of vitality, then red like fire burning out from my heart, taking hold of me and meeting the blue of water as they crashed. The entire universe and all that was in the beyond flashed before my eyes as I became aware of the magic, more colors swirling and exploding. Purple then went out from my mind, engulfing it all, capturing it, controlling it all until it was under my grasp, within my comprehension. Green followed, putting me at ease, and with a flash of white, I was back in that room in the fortress.
“Welcome,” she said slightly, “to your first binding of the world magic. You are awake for the first time, as the runes are alive within you. While others will be able to open themselves to the world bindings, you will have access to these powers few can dream of.”
I looked down to see my hands glowing, only… were they my hands? They were dark blue now, almost purple. And my side had an orange glow to it, with lines and patterns, shapes that I imagined were repeated elsewhere on my body, too, spelling out some magic that would likely morph as I became more powerful.
“This is supposed to scare me?” the bunny man was walking toward us, a massive hammer of shadow from which streamed silver light forming in his hand. “You have no idea of the level of power I’ve gained since you left, lost soul. Varena,” he spat out the name like acid burning his tongue, “when I’ve destroyed your little boy-toy here, I’ll have you back in that amulet. You’ll serve me as you were meant to, and—”
A thwack to his jaw sent him stumbling, and I looked over to see that Varena was standing with hands glowing, covered in frost, a shard of ice appearing before her.
“Let’s kill this son of a bitch,” she said to me, then struck again. The ice shot forward, gleaming with its magic, and then she was charging, too. I spared a look to see that the other two were locked in combat with the golems and spiders, and had to trust they could hold their own.
Varena was pulling on spells left and right, but nothing hurt the bastard. She’d throw fire one minute, then cause the earth to rumble and reach up for him, but he had a counter for each move that she made. A look in her eyes, though, told me this was her intention, to egg him on to get him to come at us on the offensive, and then strike.
The bunny man held his hands together, chanting and clearly calling upon his shadow magic to hide himself. He vanished momentarily, darkness moving about the room in spots in what appeared to be an attempt on his part to keep out of sight, although the glowing runes were doing their job in finding him.
“Don’t forget,” Varena called out to him, “this lair was mine! The runes you so blatantly failed to eliminate? Set up by me!”
“Then we’ll have to resort to other means,” he said, a shadow flying at me but which I blocked as I pulled on my blue magic. The resulting shield took the rest of my mana, but luckily this rune magic wasn’t related to the amount of mana I held.
If that was all he meant, he’d have to try again. The sound like air being pulled from the room told me it wasn’t, and I almost lost my focus when the vagina-like portal opened and seemed to be sucking all the light from the room.
“Don’t let the light fade,” Varena called out to me, and she fell to her knees, her strange hair lighting up bright with blue, green, and purple. My powers surged as I realized how serious this was, seeing her like that, and I felt my body draining of energy, fast.
Arturo was being sucked relentlessly toward the portal, only managing to pull himself to safety at the last moment with the help of his staff, which he used to break through one of the walls to form a hold.
Brad fell back, at the precipice of the darkness as portals opened all over the room, pulling at us, arms of red and black reaching out. I could hear a terrible screaming from the other side, and there was no question in my mind of what sort of w
orld lay beyond.
If we were going to end this, it had to be now. I wasn’t about to lose Brad, too. Energy suddenly rolled over me as more runes lit up at my side, a fact that seemed to give Varena inspiration.
Maybe this was a form of leveling up in the Rune Waker sense, or was connected to the world linking and soul binding? I wasn’t sure, but knew I felt stronger, a similar feeling to getting an HP refill after leveling up. I leaned into that feeling, reaching deeper to pull on everything I had and connect with Varena, causing the circle of energy to be amplified.
Brad was using death grips to claw his way across the floor and away from the nearest portal. Arturo now had spiders crawling all over him, biting, as a golem made its way toward him.
“Now!” Varena shouted, and I pulled on every rune there, knowing that it wasn’t really me doing it, but Varena through me. Someday, this power would be mine. Right now, I was more of a conduit. I was the water, she was the electricity, and our enemy was surrounded by my energy. Runes burst to life, me calling on each in turn as I concentrated on the various sensations I’d felt earlier. The fire, the sun, the calming pink flower petals, even. It all came crashing in on the deadly bunny-man like a wave of magic, so that the darkness that was him was stretched and pulled open.
We could actually see a man in there, a sort of decrepit, wrinkled soul, vile, full of evil and hatred.
The demon collapsed, darkness exploding around it as the bunny fell to the side, demon and animal no longer connected. Another attack from Varena left the dark form of the demon as a shadow, and then I stepped in, using the shield as before and slamming my flaming sword down into the shadow. Flames surged, then turned purple as the shadow faded with a puff of smoke.
We all took a moment to regain our footing as the portals closed, while glancing around in amazement. We’d actually done it. A nod from Arturo. A grin from Brad as he made his way over to the bunny, kneeling at its side.
He scooped it up, checking it over. “We defeated the demon… but the bunny is alive. I’m bringing it with.”
“I’m not sure that’s safe,” Varena said. “There might be traces of—”
“I’m bringing it with.” Brad held the bunny close, and it was quite the image. The death character all in black snuggling up with a little white and almost lifeless bunny.
Varena gave him another look, pursed her lips, then nodded toward the way we’d entered. “It’s time to cast this tracking spell.”
I couldn’t agree more.
20
We emerged onto the top of what looked like a grass-covered pyramid. Almost a mountain, with several trees nearby on the slope beneath us. It was dark with a dim glow in the sky, in a way that made me wonder if this was the brightest it ever got on the Rift Plains. From our position, we could no longer see the battle below, nor hear it. That, or it was already over. The wind seemed almost melodic, and for a moment I actually believed music was coming from somewhere. In preparation of what was to come, I dismissed my sword and pocketed the resulting toothbrush.
“You hear it because of our connection,” Varena said. “The others don’t.”
“What is it?”
“Blue magic. That of the sky, and, come…” she knelt, hand to the ground.
When I did the same, vibrations moved through my fingers, rhythmic, as if the ground was talking to me.
“Green magic?” I asked.
“See, you’re not as slow as Brad makes you out to be.” At my frown, she laughed. “Joking, joking. He only ever insulted your looks, not your intelligence.” With a wink, she stood, then stretched out her arms and pirouetted with the wind, blowing in a circle and allowing her legs to become like smoke again, her arms moving as if in a dance.
“Is that part of the tracking spell?” I asked.
She kept dancing, chanting as she spun. With a pause, she smiled and nodded, holding her hands out for me as blues and greens moved about her. “Join me, Ryan. Let’s find this lost love of yours.”
I took her hands, well aware of the irony that I was moving up on this mostly-nude seductress, this beautiful demon of a woman, in order to cast a spell to find Katie. But at the moment I wanted both—to dance with her, and to cast the spell—equally.
We moved, the wind carrying us, tossing our hair. We laughed like children. Somewhere nearby Brad and Arturo would be watching, likely either confused or amused, but nothing else mattered. Only us and our dance.
A flash of green sparked in the blue of her eyes, then we were surrounded in swirling green and blue streams of light and flowing mist. We weren’t even on the ground anymore, and I was struck by how this was unlike any spell I’d ever cast in a game before. Obviously, it wasn’t a game at all, so I guess was the first real spell I’d been a part of.
We spun faster, our fingers interlocked, our eyes focused on each other. I saw myself reflected in her eyes then, as the colors faded and left only a version of her that seemed human, vulnerable. Somehow, I knew she was in my eyes too—I could sense her presence there. A blissful emotion rose in me that verged on exploding, threatened to make me wonder what was really happening here and if I was doing something wrong.
As I thought it couldn’t get any more intense, that I was about to have an orgasm or simply explode, she released me. All of it was over, and we stood facing each other as if none of it had happened.
I cocked my head. She smiled.
Laughter carried on the wind, and then I saw where from. What looked like a large group of butterflies were coming our way. Pink and purple and blue, some green. Then they were upon us, flying around as the colors of light had, until they came to a stop next to Varena, merging together. The mass of butterflies slowly morphed into something else, until all that was left was a blue-skinned fairy no taller than my chest, with broad, translucent wings that shimmered blue and purple. She wore golden armor, although it failed to conceal much and surely wouldn’t be of any help in an actual fight. Her eyes were large and dark blue, hair a lighter shade of blue and flowing up above her head.
“You called, dears?” The fairy gave us a bow worthy of kings, and when she looked up, her eyes locked with mine. Within those eyes I could see an excitement for adventure.
“Who is…?” I started.
“This is our tracker,” Varena said, then turned back to the fairy. “Your name?”
“If it please you, we are Teln.” The fairy bowed again, and I caught my eyes moving to her very exposed cleavage—not huge breasts, but at least a handful each, and nearly exposed. What was wrong with me? I pulled my eyes up to meet hers, but not before she caught me. She smiled. “Does it… please you?”
“Give her the toothbrush,” Varena said, ignoring our little interplay.
“Yes, of course.” I held out Katie’s toothbrush. “The owner of this one… we’re looking for her.”
Teln took Katie’s toothbrush and held it up to the sky, head cocked to the side as she analyzed it.
“Are we in luck, Teln?” Varena asked.
Teln pursed her lips together and let out a wind-like whistle, which resulted in the breeze around us spiraling around the toothbrush in glowing hues of blue and green as the current took it,. And then the toothbrush flew apart, scattering like dust in the wind before finally swirling around Teln’s fingertips, where she finally reformed it into a golden crown to fit on her fairy brow.
She bowed her head to the wind until the colors faded completely, then turned to Varena and said, “We’re ready.” Finally, her eyes moved to Brad and Arturo, both sitting where they had been resting, watching with humored expressions. “And them? Will they be coming with us?”
“Will they?” Varena asked the two.
Arturo stood, scratching his right ear. “The thing is, I kinda have a wife and kid.”
“No shit?” Brad asked, and laughed.
“Yeah, and I don’t know how this all works, but… if I’m in my rig and they haven’t been able to wake me, I’m worried they’ll call the hospital or
something. I don’t know, but either way I need to get back.”
Brad considered this, then looked at me. “You can handle it from here?”
“You can’t seriously want to go back, too,” I replied. “After seeing all this. It’s the greatest game there is.”
He considered this, then nodded. “But I can log back in, and…” He pulled up his screen, scrolled over to a party map and indicated my location. “There we go. Looks like there’s a way to find you, at least.”
“If we’re on other worlds, it might be tough, but yeah,” Varena said. “In theory, you could meet back up.”
“What’s out there for you?” I asked him.
“No family, I know.” He chuckled, as if that was a joke. He was referring to the fact that he’d been brought up in the system, moving from house to house and didn’t even have parents that he’d been able to connect with. “But, way I see it—we need to know what’s happening with this ‘game’ out there as well, right? I need to check in, find out what I can, then let you know.”
“Shit,” I said realizing what he meant. “If they find a way to shut it off, what happens to me? I’m in the afterlife. If it’s all there is, no portal back, am I dead?”
“Still no,” Varena answered. “Not exactly, anyway. And there have always been rifts of sorts. Where do you think the ghosts that do the haunting come from? How do you think mediums connect to the afterlife?”
“Honestly, I never believed in any of that.”
She stared at me, flabbergasted, and laughed. “Sure, sure. Quit fucking with me.”
“A lot of people don’t believe in ghosts,” Arturo said.
“See?” I nodded, triumphantly.
“Not saying I’m one of them,” he added. “I’ve always known they’re real.”
“Wife and child back home waiting for you,” Brad reminded him. “No reason to try and impress the demon lady.”
“So, to be clear, you’re both leaving?” I asked. When they nodded solemnly, I turned to Varena. “Should I… I don’t know, go through a portal, too? To check on what’s going on, or… I don’t know.”
