by Rick Scott
“Shard Wraiths?!”
With my level returned I re-equip my level 85 gear. I feel powerful again as my totally OP stats return. My HP bar slides back down to 60 percent as my total max increases by nearly double. “Don’t worry. They’re good for now. Let’s kill these freaking guys!”
“You take the giant,” Aiko says, and then adds with irritation, “I’m killing this damn mage!”
She shoots across the tile with a Charge Strike, stunning the mage right in the middle of a cast. The remaining giant turns to squash her, but I draw its attention with a War Cry.
“Over here!”
I side step the downward swing of its massive, tree-sized club and the whole tile shakes as it bashes the floor. I circle around it to go back-to-back with Aiko. She gives me a grin over her shoulder and I get a strange sense of déjà vu, recalling our fight with those Bark Spiders back in the Silken Hollow.
We work as a team, downing our opponents with rapid katana strikes and avoiding their attacks with fancy footwork that feels almost like a dance. She kills the mage, resulting in another burst of split XP and then together we both down the giant.
You defeated the Mountain Giant!
You gain 54000 experience points.
I look for Ziegfried but don’t see him.
“Where the heck is he?”
“There!” Aiko points, taking off after him.
I follow her and see Ziegfried on the run, having abandoned his team ages ago, it seems. He’s nearly to the end of the tile already. I grit my teeth with anger as I press on. Aiko reaches him first, pegging him with a Charge Strike.
Aiko uses Charge Strike.
Aiko hits Sir Ziegfried for 372 damage.
Sir Ziegfried is stunned!
She lays right into him with a flurry of rapid critical attacks, dropping him to a quarter HP before he manages to pop a hold breaker.
Sir Ziegfried uses Iron Will!
Sir Ziegfried is no longer stunned.
He starts to run again, but I lock him down with a Charge Strike of my own, dropping him to 15 percent.
He cries out as both Aiko and I prepare to lay into him.
“Please stop!” he yells, dropping his weapon as he falls to his knees. “I yield! I yield!”
I hold my attack, which perhaps causes Aiko to do the same. She kicks away his sword as we stand over him.
Ziegfried looks up at us with wild fear in his eyes, breathing heavily. Then he grins at me revealing blood-stained teeth. “That’s a good lad, eh? I’m your prisoner now. You can’t harm a prisoner, can you?”
He begins to laugh and my stomach turns with revulsion.
“Prisoners?” I say. “You killed your own men, you sick piece of crap!”
“Deserters,” he says. “But they served good purpose. Now come on, take me prisoner. I’m sure if you parlay with Braxus he’ll trade me for that traitor, Diana. You owe her don’t you? And he’s probably tired of her by now.”
My heart freezes.
Diana?
He must read the look on my face because he lets out a wheezing laugh. “Oh…! You didn’t know! We figured out the first night that it was her who helped you escape. She’s been serving in Braxus’ harem ever since.” He then winks at Aiko. “She almost looks as good in green as you did.”
Rage bursts within my heart as the words taint my soul. I’m moving before I know it, drawing my arm back with a Charged Attack. “Die you filthy—”
“No, Reece!” Aiko catches my wrist.
“What are you doing?” I shout at her.
“He may be useful, don’t kill him!”
I settle somewhat at hearing that, but every ounce of my being wants to tear this guy apart.
Aiko lets go of my arm and says to him, “If you value your pathetic life you can buy it from us now.”
I send her an angry PM.
Me: What are you doing?
Aiko: Shut up and make sure he doesn’t move.
“Buy it with what?” Ziegfried says.
“Information.” Aiko sheathes her twin kunai and steps towards him. “How many men does Braxus have left outside and where are they positioned? If you answer truthfully, I’ll spare your wretched life and let you run shamefully back to your master once we get outside.”
He smirks at her. “Smart girl. Fine…I’ll give you the numbers, but only the location once we get outside. Deal?”
Aiko pauses a moment and then nods. “How many?”
“He’ll have a reserve company of over 300 soldiers by now and ten more warrior giants. 15 mammoths and a platoon of battle mages.” Then he grins at her. “There’s no giant angel out there, girl, so you’d do well to follow through with this deal. I may even be able to convince him to be lenient with you.”
Just the thought of that causes my blood to boil.
I hate this guy. I hate him just as much as I hate Braxus!
Me: You should have let me kill him, Aiko! He doesn’t deserve to live!
Aiko glances at me out of the corner of her eye.
Aiko: Take it easy with thoughts like that, Reece. There’s more than one way to become a Shard Wraith, you know? Don’t lose your soul over a piece of trash like this.
What the heck did that mean?
Aiko looks back to Ziegfried. “Thank you, Sir Ziegfried. You have yourself a deal.”
She reaches down to help him up and when he takes her hand to shake it, her other hand moves in a blur. Aiko stabs Ziegfried in the throat so fast I barely comprehend what’s happened.
Aiko uses Assassinate!
Aiko successfully Assassinates Sir Ziegfried!
His eyes widen in shock as a gurgle emanates from his throat.
Aiko leans forward and spits in his face. “Go to hell, you filth.”
She withdraws her blade and Ziegfried falls to ground face-first, blood pooling on the floor.
Aiko defeats Sir Ziegfried.
You gain 67000 experience points.
I look to Aiko stunned. “What the—?”
“We need to get to the exit,” Aiko says, no-nonsense. “Gilly and my sisters are in danger.”
My heart stops again. “What?”
Aiko wipes her blade before sheathing it again. “I gave Ziegfried a crap deal, but he didn’t have any leverage. He would have been better off going with the flow and stroking my ego until we got outside. But he went and pushed it with that counteroffer. The only thing he wanted to ensure was that he got to the outside safely.”
“Yeah, and?”
“So it means he expects there to be help waiting for him on the other side.”
“What?” I was so concerned about everyone else that I never even gave thought to that. That Braxus could have repositioned to pounce on us the moment we made it back out. But it sounds just like something he’d do. My skin grows cold. Did I just send Val Helena, Gilly and Becky into a death trap? “Oh God…”
I look at Ziegfried’s body on the floor and the hatred and anger comes raging back. I kick him in the side screaming and cursing, losing all composure. “You piece of trash! Tell me I didn’t do it! Tell me I didn’t just kill them after going through all this!”
“Reece!” Aiko shouts and grabs me from behind. “Reece! Stop it!”
“Why?!” I shout bitterly and throw her off me. “I just killed them, Aiko!”
“It’s a maybe!” she cries, pushing back at me. “The exit is not in the same place as the entrance. If it were, it’d trigger the Shadow King again as soon as you left. The labyrinth dumps you out at a different location as a result. He and Braxus wouldn’t have known that for sure. Only Val and I do.”
“Are you certain?”
“No…” Aiko admits sullenly. “But what I am sure of is that if Braxus tried camping near the entrance and triggered the Shadow King again, then there’s a chance he may have gone looking for an alternate location…and found the real one.”
God, no…
“We just need to hurry and hope that I’m wrong.
”
Chapter 21: Shard Wraith
I force myself to calm down a bit. Losing it like that again isn’t going to help anyone. But I’m still not liking the sound of this, either. I reach down and absorb Ziegfried’s wretched body, disgusted even by the armor and few nano-shards that drop with it. But then I see something else.
You find a Labyrinth Key [43]
You find a Warden’s Key [18]
Holy crap. I guess Rembrandt was right again. Ziegfried had plenty of keys to block us if he wanted to. Or maybe he was just trying to lead us into the trap that he believed was waiting for us on the outside. I pray that he’s wrong.
“Hopefully no one’s even there,” Aiko says, perhaps to comfort me some, or herself even. “But we need to hurry. I don’t want to take any chances.”
She’s right about that.
Aiko is about to take off but something else still isn’t sitting well with me.
“Hey wait a minute,” I say stopping her.
“What?”
“Once you knew you were going to kill him, why didn’t you just let me do it?”
She looks back at me perplexed. “What?”
“You stopped me from killing him at first, I understand that, but then you go and do it yourself. Why?”
“Reece, we don’t have time—”
“No, answer me. I want to know.”
She releases a sigh. “You were about to kill him in anger. I killed him because he no longer served a purpose. That’s it.”
I shake my head at her, not buying it for a second. “I don’t understand you, Aiko. You chastised me before about not being able to kill Braxus. But when it comes to killing Ziegfried, you stop me? Why? Did you not think I could do it?”
“Reece, I didn’t know you before,” she says, and her eyes soften. “But I do now. And I know that this isn’t the path for you. You’re made to be more than this. Better than this. Trust me, the time will come when you’ll have to kill, but… don’t let it be for vengeance or hate.”
Now she’s sounding just like Val. And who is she to talk?
“Right,” I say sardonically. “And you didn’t just kill him in hatred? I saw you spit in his face.”
She doesn’t say anything for a moment and then her next words take me aback. “That’s right, Reece. I did kill him with hatred in my heart. And I enjoyed every second of it.”
My blood chills as a coldness enters her violet eyes.
“Like I told you before, there’s more than one way to become a Shard Wraith.” And then she turns from me, looking towards the edge of the tile. “I just don’t want you to become one.”
Holy heck.
“Aiko…..”
“Come on, we need to move.”
* * *
Bruce felt the buzz in his pocket and fumbled to retrieve his device again.
Please… he prayed. Please be good news.
He checked the screen and his heart nearly stopped.
There it was.
The yellow line next to Gilly’s name was moving, the status light green. Her brainwaves had returned!
He stood and shouted, “I’m cancelling the vote!”
Dennis stopped mid-sentence in his diatribe with Dr. Evelyn Munroe. Dennis looked at him. “You can’t do that, Bruce. There’s a motion already on the tab—”
“The situation has changed,” he said and slammed his device on the middle of the table. “See for yourself.”
“What is that?” Bob Shultz said peering at the holoscreen hovering over the comm.
“It’s the vitals information from the excursion team,” Bruce said. “Look, Dennis. Gilly’s come back. She’s alive!”
A buzz went around the table as Dennis craned his neck to get a better look at the holoscreen. The software engineer frowned.
Thank you, God, Bruce said inwardly. His prayers had been answered. Thank you!
Bruce cleared his throat and calmed his voice as best he could amidst the rapid beating of his heart. He couldn’t wait to end this meeting and everything it represented. To get home to tell his wife their Gilly was alive. She’s alive! “I believe that’s sufficient evidence to negate the core purpose of this debate. With the excursion team still in action, there’s still hope of obtaining the nano resources we need to survive. We can discuss this academically, but there’s no need to pull the trigger now. I call for the motion to be struck.”
“I agree,” Evelyn said. “If the team can still function then we need to postpone this.”
“I’m for that.” Martha Kirkwood nodded.
“Let’s not get excited,” Dennis said raising his hands in a slowdown gesture. “While I can agree with that in theory, I’m afraid it’s just not the reality, Bruce.”
Bruce eyed him harshly. “What?”
“Your daughter hasn’t come back. There’s no sign of—”
“Are you blind, man?” Bruce bellowed. “Look!”
“Bruce, I’m sorry. I know you probably want to see that, but…”
What the hell was he talking about?
Bruce magnified the hologram and checked at it again.
He looked next to Gilly’s name for the yellow line.
But it was flat.
The blood drained from his entire body. “What the…?”
“Is it possible you were mistaken, Bruce?” Evelyn said sympathetically. “The lines are close together.”
Had he? Did he misread it just now? “I…I saw…At least, I thought I saw….”
His soul unraveled as all his hope came undone.
This can’t be…
Dennis rested a hand on his back. “It’s okay, Bruce. We all want it to be true. But the condition of the excursion team has not changed…for any of them.”
* * *
I’m still shaking off Aiko’s haunting words when we reach my brother and Rembrandt on the upper tile. I’m going to need to contemplate and deconstruct what she told me for sure, but now definitely isn’t the time.
There’s only the Dwarf, Dillard, left now. Maxis and Rembrandt have him down to 10% health, Maxis tanking while Rembrandt peppers him from afar. He’s wailing and rambling still, but I can barely make sense of what he’s saying.
“The nano will kill us all,” he cries. “But not if you go first!”
Aiko vanishes ahead of me as she casts Shadow Cloak. A few seconds later she reappears behind Dillard with a Backstab that sends him crumbling into a pile of nano-dust.
Aiko Backstabs Dillard for 763 damage!
Aiko has defeated Dillard!
You gain 0 experience points.
“We need to go!” Aiko shouts, getting back on the run. “Now!”
Maxis looks at me bewildered as I dash past him.
“What’s going on, man?” he says.
“I’ll explain on the way!” I say. “Just run! We need to get to the exit!”
Maxis and Rembrandt follow me without pause and we Sprint to keep pace with Aiko as she runs far ahead of us toward the blue portal at the end of the tile. I do my best to translate the situation while running, my voice reverberating with the rapid pounding of my stride.
“Braxus may have laid a trap for us at the exit,” I say, and nearly choke on my own words as a hard lump forms in my throat. “Ziegfried hinted at it right before we killed him. I sent Val out there on her own, man. On her own with Becky and Gilly….”
I can’t finish the rest. My stomach feels sick.
I don’t want to say what could have happened to them next.
Don’t want to admit the possibilities.
I look to my brother for a response, but he doesn’t say anything. I expected anger or rage, and I’d take either right now, even if it was directed at me, but instead all I see is an intense look of desperation and fear in his eyes.
This is not good.
Even Rembrandt seems at a loss for words.
It’s as if we’re all preparing ourselves to find the worst.
Please, God, please let everything
be all right when we get outside.
But a thousand different scenarios are already flying through my head. I picture those mages atop the mammoths, incinerating Val Helena the moment she steps out of the portal, killing Gilly and Becky with her.
The image leaves a gaping hole in my soul.
Why did I choose to go back? Why didn’t I think to stay and protect them?
My decision haunts me with dread as I check the party list, hoping for any indication of their predicament. But a “No Data” message is all I see next to their names. Nothing is going to change until I hit that portal. Only then will I know.
It’s just ahead of me now, a few hundred feet away. I was desperate to reach it before, but now, the closer I get, the stronger the pull I feel from the invisible anchor dragging behind me, slowing me from reaching the inevitable truth waiting just outside.
Please, God…Please let them be okay…
Aiko jumps through the portal ahead of me, vanishing in a puff of nano-dust.
I take a breath and shut my eyes, diving through behind her.
And the world goes black.
* * *
My senses stream back to me in a multicolored burst of light.
Cold air fills my lungs as I take my first breath. I open my eyes with trepidation, afraid of what I might see. It’s dark…nighttime. A sea of stars is overhead, partially hidden by wispy gray clouds. I’m standing in a circle of white sand bordered by two-foot-high crystals, spaced evenly apart. Aiko is already standing next to me and shouting.
“Val!” she cries.
I don’t see anyone else. Not Braxus or any of his men. Surely that was a good sign, right?
Rembrandt and Maxis arrive with a punch of air, their bodies phasing into existence like they were shot from a cannon from miles away and then suddenly decelerated at the last second.
“Where are they?” Maxis says. “Val!”
My heart races as I check the party list next, waiting for it to update.
