Although the angels were the public display of Light’s power, her control over her followers came from these fallen angels. Few of them had been released across Emerilia and many were making their way back to Light, working to undermine the other members of the Pantheon and inspire panic within different locations.
Daeundra, seeing Light’s look, bowed her head and moved away from the hall.
Light wanted to win the people of Markolm over to her side. They would act as a constant and empowering force for her and her divine well.
To do this, she needed them to believe and follow her. She had removed the people who would have been in her way, destabilizing the government of the elves. It had been bad when Khanundra was seen killing the first leader of the elves, and she had killed off others who weren’t too popular with the people.
Daeundra and her people had removed those who were well liked and gave the governments stability through blackmail or killing. They would do anything to succeed in their tasks.
Now this siege provided Light with the perfect opportunity. The elves were shattered; besieged on all sides and looking for aid from anyone able to save them s. The Terra Alliance was helping out but in limited areas. They didn’t have the forces to be everywhere at once.
Then here came the angels of the Light, pushing back the enemies of Markolm, snatching them from the jaws of destruction. It was enough to sway the hearts of these people who had already given up on life itself.
Now their plans were starting to come to fruition.
Daeundra and her fallen angels were placed in every city that had an ono, drop pad, or teleport pad. Their job was to disrupt these different teleportation devices, making the only way on or off Markolm via ships. With no outside aid coming in, the elves would start to panic.
I will play off their fears and prejudices. As they have sealed themselves here, not accepting many people coming to their island, it won’t be hard for them to start to think that the other people of Emerilia don’t care for them. That is when I will strike—offering them aid, reminding them of all I have done to assist them in this struggle. Then they will freely deliver themselves to me, becoming the soldiers of the Light. While the rest of Emerilia burns, we will gather strength and once again rise to the skies of Emerilia, to spread my domain to all of those who call Emerilia their land.
While the rest of the world seemed to not care about the elves, she would support them, groom them and manipulate them into becoming her faithful and devoted followers.
She grabbed a glass of golden-looking wine to the side of her throne; she sipped it, hiding her hungry smile.
Chapter 4: Entering a Dream
“What the hell is going on with the teleportation network in Markolm?” Lucy asked Dave, who was checking the runing on a console within the command room of what he was calling Citadel One.
“Someone is disrupting the location where the different teleports are, accelerating particles through the event horizons whenever they’re open—which takes up a hell of a lot of power to transmit all of that really fast matter. The teleportation networks are all being drained of power. The method is simple and it has to be done nearly all the time but it effectively reduces the time that the teleport pads and onos can work for.” Dave’s brow furrowed as he worked on the runic lines under the console.
“So, someone is sabotaging them?” Lucy tapped her chin in thought. “It has to be the Lady of Light, but why the hell is she trying to keep people on her island? Wouldn’t she want to kick them off?”
“Well, how does the Lady of Light or any of the Pantheon get their power?” Dave asked.
“From devotions, given by the masses... Shit, she’s using them as a devotion farm, an entire nation under her command. It explains the angels who swept away the Jera Root and then started to push back the other forces. I thought that they were kind of milking it. With their power, it should be easy for them to fight back the enemy forces on Markolm. However, the more time that they fight beside the POE and the elves of Markolm, the more ingrained their actions will be. Already there are stories coming out of Markolm of miracles. These might be events that the Lady of Light has come up with in order to get more people interested in supporting her. The churches of Light have also become louder in their preaching, not only in Markolm but in other places. They’re using Markolm as propaganda: look, the Lady of Light will save us! The Terra Alliance can’t even help us!” Lucy said, growing more and more alarmed.
“It’s crazy, and impossible, but it could work. If it could work...” Lucy’s voice trailed away, her eyes unfocused as images and possibilities played out behind her eyes.
Dave continued to work on the runes, making sure that they and the ones throughout the citadel’s structure were good. It was a lot of checking but there was a ton of runes; if just one of them was out of place, then everything would come apart.
“When will the citadel be ready?” Lucy asked.
“That’s the eight-million-dollar question,” Dave said. “We just need power, at this point. We’ve got Shard, Jeeves, and Steve all combing through the magical coding as well as a number of servers in Deq’ual Sato has allowed us access to. They should be done soon, but to power this thing up and have something in reserves—that will take awhile.”
“You’ve given us a basic idea of what it will be able to do, but I looked at the plans and there’s a lot more that you’ve done to this place than we expected,” Lucy said.
“And there’s more to come,” Dave said as an alarm went off on his interface. “Okay, looks like it’s time to go and see how Earth is doing.” Dave stood.
“Nervous?” Lucy asked as Dave moved to the commander’s chair in the command room.
“A little bit.” Dave laughed awkwardly as he sat and opened up his interface. “See you in a bit.” He pressed the logout button. The room around him slowly faded. The lighting strips of the room and the consoles disappeared.
Dave found himself lying down, he quickly sat up in his bed and looked around. Well, this isn’t my house, Dave, now in the body of Austin, thought to himself as he looked around.
It was dark in the room. Without his dwarven abilities and his night vision, he was back to the same blinding darkness that humans on Earth experienced. He slowly got up, finding a desk next to him. He nearly knocked the lamp on the nightstand right off. He caught it, his heart racing as if he were on some thieving mission and had nearly been caught.
He turned the lamp on, light filling the unfamiliar room. Spotting the door, he walked towards it.
There was a murmur from the side from someone else in his bed.
Deia is going to kill me! Dave thought, his eyes going wide and icy fear running through him as if he knew Deia could see him this very moment.
“Babe, is there something wrong?” Suzy, wearing pajamas, looked to Dave through sleepy eyes.
“Uh.” Why the hell is Suzy in my bed? “Yeah, I’m fine. Just going to get some water. Had a bad dream.”
“Okay,” Suzy said sleepily. Then her body froze for a split second before a confused look appeared in her eyes. She looked to the side, to Dave.
“D—Austin,” Suzy, the real Suzy who had logged off Emerilia and was taking over Suzy’s body, said. Dave was now in Austin’s avatar.
“Hey, Suzy, I was wondering if you had that information on those accounts?” Dave asked. He knew that the Earth simulation AIs were extremely powerful and they could watch any part of the simulation. If Dave or Suzy were to do something too far outside of their normative parameters, then they might look back on this conversation and start looking to see whether something odd happened. Like, if Suzy called Austin Dave.
“Yes, I can do that.” Suzy frowned slightly as she raised her hand, a piece of silver metal on her hand with a black band inside.
Dave felt his own ring finger, finding an identical wedding band here.
Their eyes locked onto each other with odd expressions.
We’re married! The two of
them thought in alarm.
“If you can find out about those accounts, I’m going to get a glass of water,” Dave said.
“Okay,” Suzy said, still a little stunned.
Dave moved out of the bedroom down a long hallway that opened up into an open-plan living area with a balcony above the hallway. He passed the living room and entered the kitchen, as he went, he saw pictures of him and Suzy—their different achievements, their wedding photos as well as them on vacation thrown in with abstract art that some interior designer had filled the large modern mansion with.
So we’re married, okay. They were good friends but living together and marrying? That was a little extreme! Seems that the AI that took over our avatars as we became bleeders was a little liberal with their actions.
As Dave started to get over the shock, it started to make a certain sense: if Suzy and Dave had romantic feelings for each other, then they would make a powerful couple who could stabilize each other and the entity known as the Rock Breakers Corporation.
Dave tapped on the kitchen countertop. The black marble changed to a screen. He quickly looked up the news about him and Suzy.
Seemed that they had got close on their Tokyo transfer and now the entire company was based in countries outside of the US. After their departure, a number of other businesses were also looking to move overseas even as the US government threatened them with penalties.
Dave shook his head and grabbed a glass and filled it up with water as he read on about Suzy and Austin having a surprise kiss when they once again started dropping materials from orbital holding stations into the Pacific.
From there, they had dated, traveled and within a few short months, they had a very quiet wedding ceremony.
They were called the power couple of the business world.
“Austin!” Suzy’s voice carried through the house from the office.
“Coming!” Dave moved from the kitchen to the office. He found two large desks facing a large single-pane window that looked out over a carefully manicured garden lit with subtle lights.
Suzy sat at one desk, a holographic display lit up at the other computer. “Okay, so the accounts are here.” Suzy grabbed a screen and held it up so Dave could see it. Dave scratched Austin’s face, only finding a light stubble instead of his usual beard. Weird.
“What did you want to do with it?” Suzy looked to Austin.
Now time to act our damn asses off for the cameras.
“Well, you know how there’s that event going on in Emerilia. It seems like the gamers are getting just run over. I was thinking of maybe sponsoring a few of them so that they can keep playing and get more items.” Austin shrugged.
“You woke me up to look at these accounts for that? You really are a gaming nerd.” Suzy sighed.
She should get a damn Grammy—or is that music? A Golden Globe? Whatever that one is for acting. Oscar! That’s it!
“Okay, well, what do you want to do?” Suzy sighed.
“Well, I was thinking a sponsorship for the Stone Raiders and the Alliance, with the stipulation that they have to use the money to build stuff or get materials. They can’t use it for just straight gold unless that gold is to get resources. That would be cooler than just using the money for more money,” Austin said. “Also, building all these things on Emerilia, I need some coin to keep up with it all. Can you get me a whole bunch of vault soul gems? That’s possible, right?”
“Yes, you can buy soul gems from Jukal Enterprises. Though they only come in the grand size and smaller.”
“Okay, that’ll work, get as many as you can with those after all of the sponsorships and that,” Austin said.
“Aiming on being a general or something, coordinate their fighting by their resources?” Suzy joked.
“No, just, well, got a ton of money and I want to see the people of Emerilia win. Anyway, what is a few million to us when spread over like twenty different guilds?” Austin snorted.
“I don’t know why you want to use these hidden accounts for that,” Suzy asked.
“Well, as much as I love gaming, people would lose their minds if they found out I was spending anything like this kind of money on nothing but a video game. I really hope that Jukal Enterprises comes out with a new game.” Austin sighed.
Yeah, a game called Alien Blasters, where I can kick their froggy asses back to the primordial goop they came out of. Not like I have a grudge against them or anything.
“Okay, I’ll get it done, but you owe me.” Suzy tapped away on the keyboard in front of her. Even with all of the touch and holographic interfaces, Suzy liked a good old-fashioned keyboard.
“You in for a late night Emerilia sesh?” Austin asked.
Suzy rolled her eyes as she worked on the multiple holographic screens around her.
“Fine. You’re addicted to playing Emerilia now that this event is going on.”
“Got to have some fun!” Austin smiled. He headed out of the office. He had seen a room filled with gaming equipment as he’d walked from the kitchen. He went back to the room, pulling out one of the immersion helmets, and put it on his head as the large server tower in the corner booted up.
Time to leave this nightmare.
He left Earth behind and stepped into his lobby. With a smile, he used his interface to open Emerilia before a screen popped up.
System Message
Would you like to begin your game?
Y/N
Dave logged back in. He reappeared in his command center and quickly opened up his in-game interface and connected to his bank.
He watched his bank’s inventory as more and more charged soul gems started to appear, as well as rare materials. Their price wasn’t low in the Earth simulation, but he had millions of dollars to play with—the resources he gained could be immense!
A party chat invite from Suzy came a few minutes later.
“Happy yet?” Suzy asked.
“Yep, wife in an alternate universe.” Dave laughed.
“Gross.” Suzy huffed. “Anyway, all of your resources are now accessible from any of the banking terminals or locations on Emerilia. So you’re going to need to go to a bank in order to get them all, or you can send them to the corporation and I can get the resources loaded up onto carts and shifted to Terra for distribution.”
“I’ll transfer them. If we can get them on the automated carts, then we can start juicing this citadel up and make good progress on our projects in Nal as well as modify the rest of the citadels around Goblin Mountain,” Dave said.
“Okay, I’ll look after things on my end,” Suzy promised.
“And I’ll get back to work on this damn citadel,” Dave said.
Dave turned to Lucy, relief evident in his tone. “We just got a whole lot of resources and the Stone Raiders are now sponsored by Austin Zane—well, unofficially.”
“Good. I’ll check things on my end to see that everything goes smoothly,” Lucy said.
***
Bob took a deep breath as he looked inside the capsule in front of him. He was in the moonbase. Usually there would be myriad screens around him to work off of and keep updated on all the projects that were going on at the various bases.
Now all of them had been moved away as he looked at a single capsule.
All around the capsule and linked into it, there were coded machines with tubes and runic lines carved through the soul gem construct in the ground and along the walls. There were containers of all manner of liquids and materials around.
Bob took a deep breath as he pressed a button on the console in front of him. Power surged through the runic lines as machines started to come to life.
The interior of the capsule was lined with runic lines and holes at certain points. Now these runic lines started to glow brighter and brighter. They glowed with all the colors of the affinities, red, blue, white, black, gold, and green. These lights spread outward, combining and melding into a gray miasma that shone like a light in the middle of the night, illuminating the
capsule and the room that Bob was in.
Bob turned his attention from the capsule to the console, checking the readings and the different information that was being pumped out. His hands moved across dials. His breath was short and fast, his heart feeling as if it would come out of his chest at any moment as sweat covered his body. Even with his nerves at their end, his hands moved with careful grace, not making the slightest mistake as his eyes followed the information on the screens.
Different liquids flowed from their holding tanks and into the capsule, whatever was happening in there hidden away.
More and more power was consumed as from the gray miasma that covered the inside of the capsule motes of light started to flit about.
For several nerve-racking hours, Bob didn’t dare to look away, watching everything that happened like a hawk.
Then, without preamble, the machines stopped pumping materials into the capsule. Still, other runic lines were lighting up, doing different things as Bob continued to watch.
“And that was just the first part.” Bob laughed dryly to himself.
Hours slipped by as the tension within Bob’s mind and body only seemed to increase. Finally, the runes along the capsule stopped surging with energy and slowly started to stabilize. They started to glow softly, pulsing rhythmically, much like a person’s heart would beat.
Bob braced himself, letting his hands fall away from the console. His body, mind, and spirit were all drained. He had a hopeful but solemn look on his face.
He took slow steps forward, moving around the console and to the capsule. His feet came to a stop as he was just a foot away from it.
With a deep breath, he pressed a button on the side of the capsule. The gray smoke pulled back deeper into the capsule revealing a completely hairless human male, naked as the day he was born was resting within.
Bob watched the man’s chest slowly rise and fall. It would have been hard to know whether the man within was truly alive or dead unless someone was looking for it.
“Well, happy birthday.” Bob smiled as he looked down on the human body. It had taken nearly three days but he’d done it!
Emerilia Series Box Set 4 Page 45
