Crystal Shards Online Omnibus 1

by Rick Scott

  It’s almost enough to make me wish I hadn’t come here. To wish that I’d have been selfish and just stayed in the Shards, saved my mom, and gone back to a simple life of mining with Gilly. I know it’s impossible, but given the circumstances, the bliss of ignorance sounds pretty good right about now.

  Val Helena was right. Once I made that decision to leave the Shards, everything did change, and not all of it for the better. If Mom were here, I’d tell her everything. The whole truth, right from the beginning, and ask her what I should do. She was always so good at breaking things down, making the right answer clear.

  A gut-wrenching sob comes from nowhere as I think about her more and more. My mom . . . alone in the hab, probably wondering if I’m alive or dead. It all feels like too much. I almost want to just give up and go back home. I wipe my eyes and choke back another sob as the tears begin to flow. I shouldn’t be crying like this. But, just like with Braxus, I can’t seem to help it. It’s how I’m built. Maybe Aiko was right. Maybe I am just a stupid little kid. Maybe I shouldn’t be here at all.

  A bird chirps and lands on my shoulder.

  It startles me at first, but then I recognize it as one of Wilbur’s pigeons. Great . . . one more responsibility I’ve picked up out here. I sniff back my tears and cradle the cooing bird in my hand before I remove the small leather capsule strapped to its leg. I pop it open to find the scroll within and read the latest updates on Brookrun. It lifts my spirits a little, but not much. The mine shaft access is complete, as is the forge, and the new installments Gilly added have begun production. I think back to Gilly again and wonder if she’s okay. She’s probably worried sick about me, too.

  I look at the pigeon in my palm and get an idea. Pulling up my HUD for town administration, I check on the homing pigeon and search through the options for sending it back. The default is set to Wilbur, but I enter Gilly’s name as town administrator, and it accepts!

  All right!

  I can send her a message now. I can let her know I’m okay!

  I turn the paper over and begin my message. It’s a bit like sending a PM, only the words appear on the paper as if by nano-printer.

  Gilly!

  I’m okay! Both Aiko and I made it out of Stormwall. Aiko says she has something to do before we can meet up with you again. I’m not sure what, but I’m hoping it won’t take too long. Please keep heading west and get as far away from Stormwall as you can. We’ll meet at the entrance to the wilds as planned. We can keep in touch by sending the pigeon back and forth between us. Use your HUD to send it back to me and not Wilbur. How is everyone else?

  I really miss you. I hope we meet up soon.

  Love,

  Reece

  “Don’t tell me you’re over there writing some sort of love letter,” Aiko says, suddenly awake and staring right at me. “I heard you crying your eyes out. What happened? Did your little girlfriend dump you?”

  Embarrassment flushes my face red-hot as Aiko lets out one of her condescending laughs. I bite my lip, wanting to curse her to the ground, but then I see her countenance change, becoming perplexed, concerned almost. “Whoa, take the murder out of your eyes, kid. It was just a joke.” Her words soften. “Are you okay?”

  The last thing I need from Aiko is her pity.

  “I’m fine,” I say sharply and jump down from the tree, more to hide my embarrassment than anything else. I release the pigeon. “Let’s just get going so I can get back to the others.”

  I walk away from her and head to the top of the knoll, then stare out at the mountains in the distance, watching as the small bird takes flight. In the early morning light, I can just make out the edges Stormwall. The gates are open, and there are masses of people wandering about outside, both north and south. At least, I think they’re people. I’m too far away, and the light’s too weak to make out any more detail than that. What is Braxus up to?

  I stop myself. I can’t keep obsessing about Braxus. Can’t keep going back and thinking about my decision to not kill him and its consequences. I’ll never be able to focus on my true mission if my mind keeps going back there. I need to do things one step at a time. Get to the Vale, save Citadel, save Mom. That’s what’s important to me. Braxus and Diana will have to wait.

  My stomach sours even as I think it. But it’s what I have to do right now. To get past the guilt. To move on. And maybe to stall on doing what I know I still can’t do yet.

  I look back to Aiko, where she lounges still in the tree. “You ready?”

  She releases a sigh as she slips from the branches and lands gracefully in the tall grass. “Fine, pretty boy, let’s go. But I need some breakfast first.”

  * * *

  After materializing some dried fruit and nuts from our inventory, we set off on our trek through the forest. The air is still cool, and our breath frosts in the growing morning light as we make our way through ever thickening oaks and willows. We’re following a trail of some sort, I think. But Aiko seems to know where she’s going and presses on, dauntless, so I don’t question her sense of direction. It feels like we’re headed south a bit, and the forest grows denser by the hour.

  “So, where are we going?” I ask her when she’s still said nothing by midmorning. The sun’s strong now, shimmering through the treetop canopy to create intricate patterns on the forest floor. “And how long is whatever it is we’re doing going to take?”

  Aiko doesn’t answer right away due to the fistful of trail mix she shoved into her mouth. I wait for her to finish chewing. Once she swallows, she finally says, “We’re headed to the Silken Hollow to kill a Witch Spider.”

  I stop dead in my tracks. “A what?”

  She pauses and gives me an eye roll as she looks over her shoulder at me. “Did I stutter?”

  “What the heck is a Witch Spider?” It sounds dangerous. And creepy. And dangerous. “We’ve got other places to be, you know? Do we really have time for this?”

  She starts off again. “Trust me, for what we have to do, this will be well worth it.”

  I notice she said “we.” Does that mean she’s actually on board? “So, this means you did come to help us, then?”

  She sighs. “Yes, Reece. Why else would I have come?”

  That’s a relief, at least. “I dunno. Val thinks you might have come here to stop us. Like you did back in the Shards. Why did you do that, by the way?”

  “Stupid Val,” she mutters as she steps through a leafy mass of underbrush. “God, she irks me.”

  It wasn’t really an answer, but I respect that I must have triggered something, so I don’t push it. I wait a bit before I ask my next question. “What’s up between you two, anyway? I got Val’s version of the story, but I’d love to hear yours.”

  “Oh, did you?” She looks over her shoulder at me again, but this time, her pretty violet eyes twinkle with interest. “And what was her version?”

  Your Barter increases by 0.1!

  Whoa. I didn’t think I was haggling, but I guess even fishing for information counts as a form of Barter. I give Aiko a recount of what Val Helena told me. About how she, Becky, and Aiko had grown up in an orphanage and then defeated the world boss together. About how they’d lived for ten years on the surface before their fateful journey to the Vale of Sorrows, where they lost Becky and which had eventually led Val Helena’s return to the Shards.

  “So, is that accurate?” I ask when I finally get finished.

  Aiko just snorts. “Typical she’d leave out any part that would make her look bad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Aiko whips out her kunai and cuts through some overhanging branches, clearing a new path through some of the thicker underbrush. “Like how she basically forced us all to come here, and how she made us stay for so long.”

  “I don’t get that one. How did she force you?”

  “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? Ask yourself that question.”

  I recall the decision we all had to make to journey to the surface. “She
didn’t force me. I chose.”

  “You think you chose. But did you really? Or did she lay on her sob story so thick that you really had no choice?”

  I pause at that one. It was kind of true, and my stomach sours a bit as I contemplate it.

  “She calls me evil, but she’s the master manipulator. And my idiot of a sister worships the ground she walks on.” Aiko cuts her eyes at me. “Like most of you idiots.”

  I tread carefully through both the forest and the conversation. I love Val like a sister, but I don’t know if trying to defend her right now will cause the best of reactions in Aiko. I try to play it neutral. “Wow, you’ve really got some history there, don’t you?”

  Your Barter increases by 0.1!

  “She’s a bossy control freak who always gets her way.” Aiko slashes at more branches, perhaps more violently than she needs to. “I got sick of it.”

  I’ve never thought of Val in that light before. But in a way, I guess she does kind of get what she wants. Even from me. “So, that’s why you resent her so much?”

  “She turned my own sister against me,” Aiko says bitterly. “And I hate them both for it.”

  I stop and watch her walk away, brooding. I’m not sure if Aiko has a vulnerable side, but if there ever was one, this was probably it. “Can I ask you something, Aiko?”

  She stops. “What?”

  “Why didn’t you want to come back? Don’t you want to save your sister?”

  Her eyes flare with venom. “Don’t you dare ask me something like that!”

  My heart leaps as my stomach does a flip-flop. Totally screwed that one up! “Sorry . . .” I say quickly. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I won’t mention it aga—”

  “The truth is, I don’t know, okay?” she says, cutting me off. And then her eyes become unsteady, glossy and her voice cracks a bit. “I just don’t know if I can do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Fight the Shadow King again.” She then scoffs out a bitter laugh. “You know the way you just didn’t have it in you to deal with Braxus? Well, same kind of thing.”

  That doesn’t make sense, though. “Yeah, but that’s a monster. Braxus was . . .”

  “I don’t mean like that. I mean, it’s like a mental block for me. I just don’t know if I can do it.”

  I step toward her cautiously. “Was it that bad?”

  “I’ll put it this way. You fought Ullithilli, right?”

  Man, it seems like ages ago now, but I do remember that squid-like sea monster and how bad it kicked my butt. “Yeah. It’s like that?”

  “Think Ullithilli, but spamming AOE attacks that fast.”

  Holy crap! “How did you tank that?”

  “I didn’t half the time,” she says. “I died. Twice.”

  What!? Died? “How? If you die here, you die for real, don’t you?”

  “You can still be raised, as long as your head doesn’t get crushed or something. My sister was able to raise me both times. But trust me. Dying here is not like dying in the Shards. It’s . . . it’s like dying for real.”

  I swallow nervously as I watch her stare off into space, reliving the trauma perhaps. “Val said you nearly died. She didn’t say you actually died.”

  “Well, I guess, from her perspective, it would have seemed that way. You get the same one-hour timer you do back in the Shards when you release and leave a tombstone. I guess, since it never went to zero, it didn’t seem like true death to her. But that’s just like her, anyhow. Always seeing things from only her perspective.” Her words fill with vitriol. “I told that stupid cow that I didn’t want to do it anymore. She could see how messed up I was from it. I told her, too. I told her how horrific it had been for me to go through that. To feel your life slipping from you, and then complete nothingness. But again she started with the begging and the whining and manipulating my sister. And before I knew it, the two of them were gone into that damn maze together.”

  I make no hesitation to reach out to her, then, placing my hand on the small of her back as she fights what are obviously tears. “I’m sorry, Aiko. I had no idea,” I say, rubbing gently. For the first time, I actually feel sorry for her. She has to be suffering from some kind of PTSD or something. “So that’s why you came back to the Shards?”

  She nods, then sniffles back a tear as she says, “I had to. I couldn’t fight a single thing without having flashbacks to my own death. Even once I got back to the Shards, I had to almost fool myself into doing it. Tell myself it was just a game again. That I couldn’t die. At least, not for real.”

  “Is that why you started streaming, too?” I ask. “Val said it was like you became a different person.”

  She shrugs. “Maybe. I dunno. Look, I’m not trying to psychoanalyze myself here, okay?”

  Whoa . . . time to back off with the questions.

  I look up at her and smile. “Well, you must have gotten over it, because you tore into those guards pretty good.”

  That gets a short cackle-laugh out of her. “They’re nothing. Humans I can deal with. Unlike you, I suppose.” She gives me a smile in return. “Guess we’re opposites in that respect.”

  “Guess so,” I say, thinking of my own limitations. “What did make you come back in the end? Are you over it now?”

  She looks at me, but doesn’t speak. “I’m not sure. Anyway, let’s just focus on getting through with this first, okay?”

  She starts off again, and I follow behind her.

  “Why, exactly, do we need to kill this spider thing? You haven’t really explained that yet.”

  “It drops an item we’re going to need. But to kill it, we’ll need to use this.” She materializes a strange purple crystal in her palm and shows it to me. “This is what I went back for last night.”

  “Besides your clothes, you mean?”

  “Yes,” she says, and then she scowls at me. “And don’t think I didn’t catch you staring at my butt, you little pervert.”

  Eesh! I blush a little, but she just laughs.

  “Man, you’re easy to wind up. Don’t worry. I won’t tell your girlfriend.” She winks at me. “Unless you want to see it again, of course.”

  What the heck? Did Aiko just come on to me? She must just be trolling me again. I decide to ignore her. “So, what is that thing?”

  She twirls it in her fingers, the sunlight shining through it like a prism. “It’s called a null shard. Cancels all magic for a short time. Single use. Very rare. I spotted it in the dungeon when Braxus locked me up down there.”

  I refrain from asking any details about her dungeon exploits. “And we need that thing for what we have to do?”

  “To kill the Witch Spider, yes. And you were right to be apprehensive about it. The name says it all. I wouldn’t normally go near the things. They can mess you up quick. But with this, they’re pretty much just a big spider. So long as we kill it before the effect of the shard wears off.”

  “How long does it last?”

  “I’m not sure. A couple minutes, maybe.”

  I shudder. “Still sounds gross. I’m not a big fan of spiders.”

  She laughs. “Who is? Better let that help you kill it faster, then.”

  “Don’t know how great I’ll be in that department either, right now,” I say and show her my single kunai. “I’ve only got one of these now.”

  She mulls it over. “Guess you’ll need to hit 85 before we reach the Shadow King. Maybe just use charge attacks for now.”

  Charge attacks? “What’s that?”

  She stops. “Are you serious? You don’t know what a charge attack is? What the hell has Val been teaching you?”

  I shrug, feeling like a total noob again. “Sorry. I’m still pretty new at this, you know? Up until last week, the extent of my game knowledge was limited to mining.”

  She shakes her head and laughs, but it sounds surprisingly goodnatured for once. “Come on, rookie. Guess I get to teach you something else today.”

  Chapter 29: The Silken H
ollow

  We travel for another hour until we reach the edge of the Silken Hollow. It’s plain to see how it got its name. The area looks more like a swamp than a forest, with dead, ashen trees covered in thick layers of cobwebs. I get the heebie-jeebies immediately.

  “How many of these Witch Spider things are there?” I ask, already shuddering.

  Aiko surveys the area, which spans at least a couple of football fields. “There’ll only be one. It’s sort of like a queen. Should be near the center. We’ll need to kill the smaller ones to lure it out, though.”

  “How big are the smaller ones?”

  She shrugs, and then says, quite unhelpfully, “Not too big. Come on. Let me teach you how to use a charge attack.” She points to a dead tree. “We’ll practice on that.”

  We approach the tree and I draw my kunai. “Okay, what do I do?”

  “Whip your arm back like you’re going to hit it. Reach as far back as you can as fast as you can. Then stop, and try swinging forward again.”

  Sounds kind of weird, but I tighten my grip on my blade and prepare to do what she said. I focus on the tree trunk and toss my arm back so fast my shoulder nearly pops. I jerk it to a stop, and when I try swinging forward again, it feels like my arm is being held back by an elastic band.

  What the heck?

  A horizontal gauge appears on my HUD and quickly fills to 100%.

  “Release it when you’re ready.”

  I let go and my arm flies forward like it was shot from a catapult. My kunai strikes the tree with loud crack, sending rotting wood splinters flying everywhere.

  You hit the tree for 412 damage.

  Whoa. What a hit!

  Something large, gray, and furry comes running out of a hole in the tree and scuttles down the trunk toward me. I release a high-pitched yell and perform a Retreat without even knowing it, my heart racing. I look back at the tree, and my flesh crawls when I see a spider the size of a dog clinging to its bark. It has to be a good three feet across, including its legs, two of which are now pointed in the air at me in warning.