The Cheater's Return

by Brian McGoldrick

  Patrick snorted. "Her hate is nothing new, and she's the type to come at someone she hates from the front. She won't try to backstab me. If she wants to kill me, she'll come at me head-on."

  Vincent was not convinced, and as he recounted his encounter with Chin-Sun, his expression was cold.

  Patrick shook his head and rolled his eyes. "That sounds about typical. She'll never admit it, but Chin-Sun practically worships Mi-Cha. After their parents died, Mi-Cha was all the family that she had. Because they had lost their parents, Mi-Cha pampered her and let do and say whatever she wanted.

  "Before I was perma-banned, I never saw much of her, and afterward, she was pretty clear that I was nothing but a fat, ugly loser. Chin-Sun's always hated me, but she's not the type to try and hurt people just because she doesn't like them. If she was, there would be a lot of people in the hospital or dead. Mostly, she just pretends what she doesn't like doesn't exist."

  Vincent did not hide his discontent. "I don't know about that."

  Patrick shrugged. "We still have just under a hundred days in the game until War Mode is activated. For now, let's see what happens with her. Maybe, she'll come around."

  Vincent gave Patrick a level stare and did not conceal his discontent. "When War Mode goes live, I will not hold back if that snotty bitch endangers us."

  "I understand."

  * * * * *

  Everyone was gathered in the same sitting room that they had used before their last time logging into Primacy Online .

  Morgan took a moment to examine all their faces before speaking. "Once we log in, I am going to take Crom through a spatial rift. There are some items that will make dealing with the Church much easier, and it is best to acquire them now. Depending on what the Quantum Control Program does in reaction, there might be considerable danger. Whether the three of you come with us or not, the choice is yours."

  Vincent did not hide his confusion or concern. "I have two questions. First, where does this spatial rift lead to? Second, what do you mean by the QCP's reaction?"

  Morgan met Vincent's stare with a level gaze. "The Sunset Lands. You are aware of the name?"

  "The Sunset Lands? You don't mean the continent from the original Primacy Online , do you?"

  "I do."

  With a sigh, Vincent sat back in his chair. Turning his head to the side, he looked Laura, but there was just as much confusion in her eyes as his.

  "The first Primacy Online was shutdown a millennium ago. How can we go there?"

  "There is only one Primacy Online . It has never been shut down. All the game's continents exist on the same world. Have you never wondered why the Church of the Sun is exactly the same from game to game? If each game was a separately constructed quantum reality, why would the Church always be exactly the same? Why would Thera always exist?" Morgan's level gaze never left Vincent's eyes.

  Again Vincent and Laura shared a look. They did not say anything, but Laura gave Vincent a faint nod.

  "Then, the QCP?"

  Morgan revealed a faint, cold smile. "I am unsure what it will do. The quests that it gave to Crom and myself suggest it is changing. It might be evolving; I cannot say for certain. Since we are not part of the Church, it might take action against us. Even if there is no action taken by the Quantum Control Program, the other side of the rift is dangerous. It is another land filled with barrows and the living dead. There are much more hostile and angry spirits there, a great many of them."

  "What is the likelihood of the QCP taking action against us?"

  A hint of amusement flickered in Morgan's eyes. "I have absolutely no idea. In the fifteen millennia I have played the game, I have never seen the Quantum Control Program act the way it is acting, now."

  Vincent and Laura looked at one another, and they both nodded.

  Laura returned her attention to Morgan. "We will both go with you."

  Morgan smiled at Laura and turned her attention to Chin-Sun. "What about you?"

  Chin-Sun glared at Patrick. "If Fat Pig is going, it can't be that dangerous. I'll go with you."

  As she stared at Chin-Sun, Morgan did not hide the coldness in her eyes. "Make certain to activate the life support functions on your capsules. If anything goes wrong, we might have to stay logged in for several days."

  Dead Islands, Toraigh

  First Month 26, 10 RC

  The spatial rift is on Barrow Island, to the north of Crom Cruach's barrow. Looking at it, the rift appears to be a constantly shifting black gap in the middle of the air. More than being black, the rift is like an absence of light and color. It seems to absorb everything that touches it.

  As I stare at the spatial rift, I feel a chill, like cold, clammy hands running down my spine. That thing is anything but safe.

  "Unlike the majority of the rifts that exist on Tathlum, this is a two-way passage. It was created during the last war between the Fomhoraigh and the Tuatha De Danan, more than a hundred thousand years ago."

  As she looks at Raven Goddess, Serena's eyes narrow. "When I read about the first Primacy Online , there was something I wondered about. You are the only person on Earth with the surname of Danan. Did you change your last name because of the game?"

  Raven Goddess' eyes have a hint of bitterness in them. "I grew up in an orphanage. It was in the early days of the foundation of the City of Mann and everything was very chaotic. The names of my parents were unknown. I was arbitrarily assigned a last name in the orphanage, but from the first time I logged in, I have always been more at home on Tathlum than on Earth. I chose the name of Danan for myself."

  Laura's expression softens. Just like Raven, she and Cavallo are orphans. Of all the people here, I am the only one with a living parent, but my mother would prefer me dead to alive, and the same applies to my brothers. Kelly, my sister, might be the only family I have that does not want me dead.

  Cavallo stares intently at the rift, and his eyes fill with an eager light. "I always wanted to see the Sunset Lands."

  Raven Goddess' expression turns gloomy. "You will be disappointed. The Church eventually destroys all that it controls."

  With confusion visible in his eyes, Cavallo looks at Raven Goddess. "What do you mean?"

  "You will see. The rift is as safe as it will ever be. Let us go." Suiting her actions to her words, Raven Goddess steps into the rift.

  Glancing at Vincent, I shrug and follow Raven Goddess.

  Travelling through the spatial rift is a strange experience. It feels like both an instant and a long time, and when I exit the rift I have gone from day to night. I can still access the game UI, and the date is still First Month 26, 10 RC. I am not sure of the exact time we entered the rift, but based on the displayed time, not much time could have passed.

  I move a few steps to the side of the rift, so as to not block the rest of the party. I am not sure what would happen to anyone blocked from exiting a spatial rift, but I cannot imagine the results would be anything good.

  Feeling a low-grade chill in my gut, I look around, but I do not see any signs of imminent danger. I am certain that the chill is from my Danger Sense , but since acquiring the Talent, I have yet to feel anything quite like this. I have no idea what the source of the danger might be.

  The land is covered in grey mud that has a purplish tint to it in places. Here and there, the black skeletons of leafless trees rise from the mud, but there is no sign anything living. Dark cloud cover blocks any view of the night sky, so I have no idea how long it will be until the local dawn.

  Cavallo exits the rift, followed by Serena, and Chin-Sun comes out last.

  I look at Raven Goddess and see her watching me. "Are we on the opposite side of the planet from where we were?"

  Raven Goddess nods. "We are a bit less than halfway around Tathlum, at the moment. The Sunset Lands and Toraigh are close to opposite one another, and more than nine-tenths of Toraigh is in the southern hemisphere, while the entirety of the Sunset Lands is in the northern hemisphere."

  "This
is really the Sunset Lands?" Cavallo has lost his usual stony indifference. With his mouth hanging slightly open, a mix of confusion and shock is plastered all over his face.

  Standing next to her husband, Serena looks around and shivers. "This is deader than one of Earth's radioactive wastelands."

  Cavallo turns toward Raven Goddess. "This was done by the Church?"

  Not answering immediately, Raven Goddess surveys the area. "First, the Church stripped this land of resources. All the best timber was clear-cut. All the mineral resources were extracted. For a time, they maintained massive plantations and ranches, but as the land became infertile and toxic wastes from their mining operations built up, they abandoned them. Afterward, they sucked the Mana and life force out of the land itself. The Sunset Lands are dead, and the oceans for hundreds of miles around them are dead or dying.

  "The Church has moved on, to Mag Mell, and is in the process of doing the same thing to another continent."

  Cavallo shakes his head. "I don't understand. Why? Why do they do it?"

  Raven Goddess nonchalantly shrugs her shoulders, but her normally calm demeanor is broken by burning rage and hate that becomes visible in her eyes. "Why does the Church do anything?"

  "What do they do with the resources?"

  Raven Goddess smiles, but her eyes are cold and empty. They look deader than those of a corpse. "They ship everything to Thera. I have not been to Thera in more than thirteen thousand years, and I do not know what happens upon its shores."

  "What was Thera like?" Serena's eyes reveal the light of curiosity, a morbid curiosity.

  With a faraway look in her eyes, Raven Goddess takes so long to answer that I am surprised when she starts talking. "Thera is an island continent. It is only about a third the size of Australia, but when I was there, it had a population in excess of two billion people. It was a very ordered nation. Even the smallest scrap of land was under the direct jurisdiction of the Church of the Sun. All of it was put to use to support their enormous population, but the land was failing. Millennia ago, they had already used up their homeland."

  A disgruntled expression twists Chin-Sun's face. "Yukon City has a population of over forty million people. How is a couple billion in such a big place excessive?"

  Raven Goddess scoffs. "How many sub-layers exist beneath Yukon City? Do you know how extensive the underground hydroponics farms are? Do you know how large the protein factories are? Thera does not have Earth's advanced technology. Despite their use of some magic in their daily lives, the level of their common technology does not include any form of engines, farming machinery, or hydroponics."

  Chin-Sun's anger and resentment turn her face ugly, but she does not reply to Raven Goddess.

  After gathering her thoughts for a moment, Raven Goddess continues. "Everyone in Thera that was not part of the Clergy was the property of the Church. The Church rigorously controlled prices, wages, housing, the availability of food, and almost all other aspects of their people's lives. Most people did just enough to get by. They did not have enough food for excessive exertion and doing more than the minimum to meet their work quotas gained them nothing. The Clergy was mostly hereditary and had become a de facto nobility. Nearly, the entirety of the remaining population lived in a state of poverty. For the commoner men, joining the military and becoming a Crusader was the only option that led to a modicum of freedom and power. Being generally smaller and weaker, that was not an option open to women, but they could serve the military in the form of comfort women, whores. It is ironic that life in a regimented, expansionist military organization, which placed little to no value on the lives of its soldiers, granted more freedom and a better chance to survive to old age than life outside the military.

  "Thera had depleted nearly all its resources, and the Church was changing the way the nation operated, so that it could support itself by plundering and parasitizing other lands. In time, all of Tathlum will look like this."

  While Cavallo and Serena stare at one another without saying anything, Raven Goddess scans the surrounding area. From the vacant look in her eyes, I do not think she sees the plain of mud that is here, now. Whatever she is seeing, it exists only in her mind and her memories.

  With the corners of her lips faintly upturned in an expression that feels more like a frown than a smile, Raven Goddess points toward a bit of a hill of mud, rising from the plain of mud. "To the southwest, there was once a village in that area. It was destroyed in the last war against the Fomhoraigh, but it was rebuilt into a town once the war ended. There were almost none among the people of this region that followed the callings that have been made into Classes by the Shackles of the Domination. It was a land of farmers and ranchers, a generally peaceful land."

  Raven Goddess turns away from the hill and points toward the northwest. "It will take us most of the day to reach the barrows."

  I look up at the cloudy sky. "It's the middle of the night."

  "And if we start walking, now, it will take us most of the day to reach the barrows."

  As we head toward the northwest, the grey mud clings to our feet like thick glue. Every step takes as much effort as a dozen steps on solid ground and releases a nauseating stench, worse than rotting garbage, from the disturbed surface of the muck.

  "Yuck. This stinks!" From Chin-Sun's expression, she is struggling not to vomit.

  "If the Church has its way, one day, all of Tathlum will be like this." Either Raven Goddess does not bother to hide the burning anger in her eyes, or it is too intense to conceal.

  Someone in the Church's hierarchy fucked me over good. I hate the Church, but my anger is like a guttering candle compared to the conflagration of hate and anger I see in Raven Goddess' eyes. If just emotions were enough to kill, everyone in the Church would be dead a thousand times over.

  As we pass near a dead tree, I make a slight detour and tap on the tree trunk that resembles greasy charcoal. It feels like oily stone to the touch, and when I hit it with a palm strike, the tree barely trembles. I am not sure if the tree has been petrified or if the cause is something else.

  Taking longer steps, I rejoin the others. I would hate to have to fight in this muck; even with my strength, it would reduce my mobility to nearly nothing. As soon as I near her again, Raven Goddess grabs a hold of my arm and uses me to take some of the weight off her feet.

  "Huh?" I glance down at the top of Raven Goddess' head.

  "I think I have found a use for you. You make a passable walking stick." Her words sound like an attempt at banter, but her heart is not in it. Her voice has a hollow ring to it, and the arm wrapped my own is trembling with repressed emotion.

  Only stopping to rest when we find outcroppings of stone that rise above the grey mud, we travel through what is left of the night and the entirety of the day. Thick dark clouds hide the sky, but rain never falls.

  The chill of ever-present danger never leaves my gut, but I never see anything beyond the mud and the charcoal-like husks of the dead trees. It keeps me constantly on edge and wears away at my patience.

  As day turns into twilight, a patch of green becomes visible on the distant horizon, and with the fading light, a blackish-silver glow replaces it.

  "Is that light up ahead our destination?"

  With a glint of surprise in her eyes, Raven Goddess looks up at me. "Is it a silver light tainted by Darkness?"

  "Yes."

  While still walking, Raven Goddess stares at the horizon for fifteen or twenty seconds. "You can see it already?"

  "Yes. Why else would I be asking?"

  As the hatred and anger disappear from Raven Goddess' eyes, she smiles up at me, but after just a few moments, the dark emotions take over, again. "You are stronger than I expected you to be, this early. That is a protected barrow land, similar to the protection around Crom Cruach's barrow."

  After about twenty-five minutes, everyone can see the glow on the horizon. The closer we come to it, the more of the horizon it fills, until eventually, it stretches a
s far as I can see to either side.

  Once we are a dozen kilometers out, inside the blackish-silver glow, trees and grass-covered barrows become clearly visible, and when we get to within a few kilometers, incorporeal undead are visible. Some of the undead wander aimlessly. Some of them hunt or patrol aggressively. Others stand around like statues. Just the undead that I can see number in the thousands. There could easily be tens or hundreds of thousands, if not more, inside that glow.

  When we are still a kilometer or so out, Raven Goddess stops walking, and everyone gathers around her.

  "Crom. Cavallo. Do either of you have a spell for invisibility to undead?" Raven Goddess looks from me to Cavallo.

  Cavallo nods. "I have a spell Invisibility to Undead , but it's self only."

  "I have one called Nonexistence to Undead . I can use it on others at double the Mana cost, but it's not a buff. It's a sustained spell."

  I copy the description in the party text chat.

  Nonexistence to Undead

  » The undead are born of Darkness and depend on Darkness for their continued unlife.

  » Nonexistence to Undead uses Darkness to render the caster completely undetectable to the all forms of the living dead. The pattern of Darkness around the caster will cause any undead coming into contact with it to unconsciously avoid the caster.

  » The caster's effects on his environment are not concealed.

  » Any undead that perceives a change in the environment has a chance to see through this spell.

  » The Willpower of the caster directly enhances the difficulty in seeing through this spell.

  » This spell can be used on others at double the Mana cost.

  » Minimum Level: 10

  » School: Darkness

  » Type: Sustained

  » Mana Cost: 1MP/Minute for self; 2MP/Minute for friends

  Raven Goddess smiles brilliantly. "You have that spell. Wonderful. How long can you maintain it on all of us?"