The Cheater's Return

by Brian McGoldrick

  As I stare at the distant horizon without answering, I think of my time as a fluffer for the Northern Warriors. The Arena League controllers do not raise their own sheathes. Because the unformed minds of children leave the least imprint on arena sheathes, the League teams hire children to raise sheathes for competition use. The children come from lower class families or orphanages, and most of them acquire Thompson's Syndrome. It is technically against the law, but neither the Church nor the city-state government's care. Outside of World Wars, the conflicts between city-states and corporations are most often settled by the Arena League teams and every city-state has their own teams that belong to city or regional leagues. There is a huge industry associated with the Arena League that revolves around merchandising and betting.

  "By the time I understood what quantum connection was and the damage it would do, I already had Thompson's. I was as good as dead, so why not get the most out of my time in the game?"

  As a faint, sad smile appears on her lips, Raven Goddess shakes her head. "You are a foolish and insufferable man."

  "I try."

  Shaking her head, Raven Goddess looks toward the bottom of the hill.

  Below us, a small Church outpost was built on the eastern shore of this island. The outpost consists of little more than a ditch with sharpened stakes at the top and five log cabin style buildings, but there is a dock with a boat tied off to it.

  Other than a single priest, there appear to be only ten or twelve soldiers in the outpost, and only two guards are posted. This is no different than when we logged off.

  According to Raven Goddess, we need to get to Barrow Island, and to get there, we need a boat. Since the Church of the Sun is being so kind as to offer one, it would be thankless to not kill them and take theirs.

  "There is no good way to approach them without being seen."

  Raven Goddess nods and looks to the west. "It would be better to wait for darkness. There is not much more than an hour remaining. You spent a great deal of time tuning our capsules."

  "Even if we are only using them for a few days, until we enter cryo-capsules, a better upload percentage will make things easier. Don't you like the way it feels to be fully uploaded?"

  Raven Goddess frowns. "I feel different. I need to get used to this."

  I conceal my smirk.

  * * * * *

  As we approach the Church outpost along the shore, the sun has already been set for a couple hours. The sentries changed shifts just after sunset, so we do not need to worry about them changing again for the next couple of hours.

  We split up. Raven Goddess moves to the front gap in the spikes, and I approach the dock. With the layout of the outpost, the sentries have a clear view of each other through the middle of the outpost, and we will need to take them both down quickly.

  Once I am below the docks, I keep my system clock open and watch the time advance. As soon as it hits the target time, I make sure the sentry is looking out to sea and leap onto the dock, with my staff in hand.

  Thud!

  The sentry crumples to his knees, and putting my knee in his back, I jam my staff across his neck and pull, until I hear the crunching of his neck bones.

  Looking toward the inland entry to the outpost, I see Raven Goddess standing over another corpse with a single short sword in hand. She waves her sword in the air and gives me a thumbs-up signal.

  Two of the buildings have lamps burning in them. The first is the largest, and looking through the cracks in the shutters, it appears to be a mess hall and chapel in one. The second seems to the priest's personal quarters.

  I point to the door and Raven Goddess nods. Silently, she takes up a position next to the door, and I move back to mess hall.

  When I signal my readiness, Raven Goddess pushes the door to the priest's cabin open and disappears inside.

  "Who are you?" I barely hear the priest's voice.

  Clang! Clang! Crash! Bang!

  "Guards! Help me! Attack!"

  "Shit! Everyone gather arms! Let's go!" Someone inside the mess hall calls out orders, and the clatter of furniture being moved and weapons being unsheathed is clearly audible.

  As the door opens and one of the Church soldiers steps out, he takes my staff to his face and goes flying back into the men behind him. His face is a mess, and from the indentation left where his nose was, he should be injured badly enough that he will not survive.

  "What the fuck?"

  Another of the soldiers, bravely and recklessly, charges out and stares up at me in shock. The tip of my staff slams into his face, and as he flies backward into the doorjamb, broken teeth and blood spray everywhere.

  A third soldier stares at me from inside the mess hall, and with both swords in hand, Raven Goddess exits the priest's cabin. She immediately advances on the second guard I sent flying and finishes him off.

  "Put down your weapons and come out with your hands up!"

  A soldier standing in the door glares at me. "If you surrender now, we'll give you a clean death. If you don't, the Church will hunt you down and torture you to death."

  "Gaius, move!"

  Clack! Clack!

  As the soldier squats, I dodge to the side, and two crossbow bolts just barely miss me.

  "Get oil and the lamp from the priest's cabin. We'll burn them out." I do not keep my voice down. I want the soldiers to hear what I say.

  Raven Goddess' expression changes to one of pure malice. "The Church pigs love to see people burn. They should be overjoyed to die by fire."

  Raven Goddess' tone of voice almost sends a chill down my spine. If the Church soldiers have any sense, they should be scared.

  "Don't do anything stupid! If you don't surrender, your death will be long and painful!"

  Raven Goddess laughs. "Who is cowering inside a dry wood building, and who is outside? Death by fire is supposed to be painful."

  While the soldiers make more pointless threats, Raven Goddess gets a small, more or less gallon-sized, keg of oil and the lamp from the priest's cabin. Pulling the plug out of the oil keg, she splashes oil on the cabin.

  "This is your last chance. Surrender or burn!" The hate and malice in Raven Goddess' voice is the perfect counterpart to the vicious look in her eyes.

  "Go to Hell!"

  Crash!

  With a flick of her wrist, Raven Goddess breaks the lantern on the cabin, and the oil ignites. It only takes a few minutes for the intensity of the flames to force us to back up.

  "I surrender!" A spear and shield land on the ground outside the building, and a soldier rushes out. Right behind him, two more carrying crossbows charge out.

  Clack! Clack!

  I dodge one of the crossbow bolts, but the other hits me in the abdomen.

  "Mother fucker!"

  I lunge forward, and the tip of my staff hits one crossbowman in the stomach. With the breath knocked out of him, he flies backward and slams into the burning building.

  Crunch!

  As the second crossbowman drops his crossbow and tries to draw his sword, my kick hits him in the chest and sends him flying into the side of the flaming building, like the other one. Neither of them gets back to their feet, but they flop around, as the flames engulf them.

  While Raven Goddess kills the soldier that threw his weapons out, I keep the others inside the building from getting out. Every time one makes a rush for the door, I lunge forward, and using the tip of my staff, I knock him back.

  "We surrender! Please, let us out!"

  "Remove all your weapons and crawl out!" I do not keep my anger out of my voice.

  After ten seconds or so, six men crawl out. Looking at me with fearful, smoke-stained faces, they try to control their coughing.

  "Lie on your stomachs! Hands behind your backs!"

  After Raven Goddess ties the six men hand and foot, she cuts the throat of the last one that she tied up.

  "No!"

  "We surrendered!"

  Raven Goddess laughs coldly. "We never promised t
hat you would live if you surrendered. You should be thankful that I am not torturing you in the way that your Church has done to so many of my friends and family."

  While the five remaining soldiers beg for mercy, Raven Goddess slits their throats one at a time.

  After she finishes, Raven Goddess looks up at me. "You have not said anything."

  I shrug. "It's not like I haven't killed helpless prisoners myself. You have your reasons. It's not my place to judge."

  Raven Goddess smiles sadly. "Let us go. These Church vermin kindly bequeathed their cutter to us."

  I pull the crossbow bolt out of my stomach and follow Raven Goddess to the boat. It will only take a few hours, at most, for a small wound like this to completely heal.

  Before setting sail Raven Goddess, shows me how to handle the sails and gives me a brief explanation on the art of sailing. In Primacy Online V, I had been a passenger on small sailing ships a few times, but they were short journeys, and I was never a crewman.

  As the dock and the burning outpost fade into the distance, Raven Goddess' handling of the boat seems to be better than the crews of the ships I rode on in the past. Of course, my amateur estimation could be totally off the mark.

  "You have not used Item Ancestry on any of the accessories we acquired from the village."

  "Yeah."

  While Raven Goddess stares at me, a few minutes of silence stretch out. "Item Ancestry is one of the most powerful Divination Talents that you could have. Its strength may be directly tied to your own, but as long the Rank and Level of an item does suppress you, it can see through almost any type of sealing."

  I sigh. "I don't particularly like using it. When I see the images in an item, I don't feel like I'm myself. I'm trapped in the item, and I can't act in any way, shape, or form. I don't like that feeling of helplessness. If I come out of my cryogenic capsule alive, I'm going to be like that, helpless."

  After growing up in the crime-ridden slums of Yukon City and fighting through the Lands of Avalon as a Shadow Knight, there is not much that scares me, but the fate that awaits me, if I live long enough for my Thompson's Syndrome to run its course, is one thing that does.

  As the moon rises, we continue to sail into the night.

  Dead Islands, Toraigh

  First Month 6, 10 RC

  Not long after midnight, we are in a stretch of more open water past the northern tip of the island we started on. It is much larger than the islands surrounding it. While the other islands range from only a kilometer or so across to maybe five or six kilometers, it has to be at least forty kilometers from north to south and a little over twenty east to west where we were. The only consistent feature of the islands is that each has at least one small mountain peak on it.

  "Even though it is uncomfortable for you, you should still take advantage of such a strong Ability." Raven Goddess' husky voice comes to me like a whisper under the light of the moon.

  I sigh. "I know. I'm just contemplating some things before I do it."

  "Procrastinating." Raven Goddess' expression is impossible to read in the moonlight. Even with my Night Vision , her eyes seem to be hidden in shadows, and her lips are nothing but a straight line dividing the territory between her nose and her chin.

  "Yeah, probably."

  Only a single moon is visible tonight, and it is halfway back to the horizon before I take out a ring and stare at it for a time.

  Item Ancestry!

  * * * * *

  As the blackness fades into a scene, two fingers hold me up in the light streaming in from window set above shoulder height in a rough stone wall.

  "Another failure. Its Mana storage is pathetic." His appearance hidden in shadows, the speaker has a deep voice.

  With a flick of his thumb, I am thrown into a chest with dozens of other pieces of jewelry.

  * * * * *

  The moonlit ocean and the sailboat appear before me, and I can move again.

  "That's it? Just one little scene?"

  "Not everything has a history of powerful images." Raven Goddess' voice has an amused tone to it.

  If Raven Goddess had not responded to my comment, I would not have realized that I had spoken aloud. A somewhat self-mocking, wry smile twists my lips, and Raven Goddess laughs. I think I said them out loud just to reinforce that fact that I can.

  Ring of Mana Storage

  » (Uncommon)

  » +20 Mana

  I toss the ring to Raven Goddess. "The person, who I think made it, called it pathetic, but it doesn't seem that bad for having no minimum Level requirements.

  "No, it is not, but it would soon become far outclassed by other items. Are you going to keep identifying the accessories?"

  I nod. "I'll do it every time my Mana is full. That Item Ancestry is a ridiculous Mana pig. I mean a normal low-Level Ability or spell only costs 1 or 2 MP to use. Something ridiculously powerful that you can use at low Level would be all of 5 MP, but this thing is 40 MP."

  Raven Goddess laughs, probably at me. "I told you it is one of the most powerful Divination Abilities you can have. Every time you use it, you can learn more about the history of an item, but if an item has a heavy history, you will have to bear the weight of it."

  "Yeah. That quest doll was a hard one to take. I've done a lot of bad things to people that may not have deserved what I did to them, but watching a father butcher his own daughter alive is too much. What makes people abuse and torture their own children?" Memories from my childhood that I normally keep repressed slip out, and I shudder, as I stare into the night.

  * * * * *

  By the time we beach the sailboat on another island, the sun is near to the horizon. The island we started from was one of the bigger ones, and this is one of the smaller ones. Like most of the islands in this area, the beach is made up of small stones, rather than sand. These islands all have a rough look to them. With their large hills and small mountains that look like they have been broken by impacts or explosions, they all give the impression that they have survived some great disaster.

  While collecting firewood, I feel like I am being watched, but I do not see any signs of anything other than small animals and birds. Still, I cannot shake the oppressive feeling, and as I return to the boat, I keep an eye on the woods.

  "Is there something wrong?" Seeing my actions, Raven Goddess scans the woods, as well.

  I shake my head. "I'm not sure. I feel like I'm being watched, but there does not seem to be any danger."

  "It could be your Danger Sense. There are many old, dark things hidden among these islands far more dangerous than Level 10 Extermination Difficulty monsters. The tomb should be ample evidence of that. You are certain, you do not feel any imminent threat or danger?"

  Again, I shake my head. "No, just that feeling of being watched."

  "We had best sleep one at a time and have the other keep watch."

  "I agree."

  During the course of the day, I identified all of the objects that Raven Goddess and I acquired from the village that had an air of magic about them. There were only seven in total. The Mana ring is probably the best. The others all give the equivalent of a one Level boost to a specific characteristic or Ability. I put on the Mana ring and Agility ring, and Raven Goddess puts on an Agility bracelet.

  Ring of Agility

  » (Uncommon)

  » +3 Agility

  It is basically a piece of common trash, but if I cannot find a single piece of armor in Half-Giant size, I can use all the Agility that I can acquire. Even if I find Half-Giant sized armor, I will need more Agility.

  With or without using the System Assist Mode, Agility will aid my movement and reaction speeds. At the moment, it feels like my mind is operating slightly faster than my body. It may be due to this body being nearly a third larger than my human one.

  Dead Islands, Toraigh

  First Month 7, 10 RC

  When we leave the island, the sun still has not cleared the eastern horizon, but since both Raven God
dess and I are rested, I do not want to stay on that island a moment longer than necessary. For the entire night, there was not a single waking moment that I was not plagued by the feeling of being watched.

  As we sail away, I watch the quiet shoreline. Just for a moment, as I scan the trees, I think that I see something, but before I can tell what it is, the thing is gone.

  As the island recedes into out wake, Raven Goddess periodically looks back with a pensive frown on her lips.

  The morning passes slowly, but Raven Goddess and I do not talk much to pass the time. After being together again for a few days, there is little need for us to talk to fill what would have once been uncomfortable gaps of silence. We know each other well enough that we can pass the time in silence and not be discomforted.

  Before the sun has reached high noon, we come to a huge open expanse of water. Looking to the east and west, I have the impression that this clear stretch of water is roughly circular.

  "Once in the distant past, there was a battle between Gods that was fought here. From here to the shores of Toraigh in the south and the far end of this sea of islands in the north, this was all solid land, but the class of two titanic figures shattered this land. The circular sea was the point of their final clash."

  I look at Raven Goddess in the back of the boat. "Who were they? Who won?"

  Raven Goddess shrugs. "Their names have been lost to the mists of time, but one was a servant of Balor, a Fomhoraigh, said to be the mightiest of them after Balor himself, and the other was something else."

  "Who won?"

  "The one that was something else. He created this flooded crater."

  "He? Then, the winner was a male?"

  "Yes. Both the combatants were male; that much is still known."

  I look out across the huge expanse of water. I cannot tell how big it is, but from what I can see, it cannot be less than a hundred miles across.

  "Where is Barrow Island?"

  Raven Goddess smiles. "Where you think it is, on the far side of the crater."

  Dead Islands, Toraigh

  First Month 8, 10 RC

  We are long past our normal four-hour logout, but we are still a couple hours' sail from the island ahead. Trying to log out on the boat would be a bit of a problem, but staying logged in for extra time is not a particular issue for us. Still, we are over six hours for this current session, but even so, four-hour logouts are just the convention of normal players. As a cryogenic immortal, who knows what would be a normal logout time for Raven Goddess?