by Jakob Tanner
With looting done, I returned to the conversation.
“It’s amazing so much of the architecture has still survived,” said Kari.
“They say Ariellum was a thriving metropolis back in its time,” said Jackson. “A technological epicenter rivaling the great Rorn cave cities of old.”
“And what is it now?” murmured Shade, cutting off our conversation. “Nothing but ruins and ash. What good did being the epicenter do it? What was so crucial about technological advancement?”
“Didn’t you say it had to do with wars with the Rorn and the Aeri?” said Serena.
“There’s always war. Always politics. And there’s always the poor chumps caught in the middle of it all. Victims of context, I’d say. The classic wrong place at the wrong time. That’s what happens to—what was the phrase Kari?—the average Joe.”
There was a lot of truth in what Shade was saying. Look where we were: potentially trapped in a desolate wasteland full of carnivorous sand sharks and what for? To control the flow of power between the rival nations of Illyria. I knew it wasn’t so simple. We were fighting for a good cause: to save the average Joe being enslaved over in Arethkar, to stop them from coming to Laergard and inflicting the same forced labor on the rest of us. We had good reasons to fight, but Shade was right: we’d never asked for those reasons. They were thrust upon us.
“C’mon Shade,” I said. “We gotta keep our heads up. We need to find the Ultriga Weapon and bring it back with us, so we can stop Arethkar and stop their madness. Save all the average Joes in peril of falling victim to poor circumstances.”
Shade nodded his head, glumly.
“Plus,” I added. “When this is all finished we’ll have a huge feast of sand shark burgers and mead for days. Did you hear that Shade? Mead for freaking days!”
“Aye,” said Shade, cracking a grin, smiling at the thought of delicious beer. “You know just what to say to cheer me up.”
The happy moment didn’t last very long. Walking through the main thoroughfare of the ruins was a band of three warrior mobs, clad in ripped ragged clothing. Above their heads was the nameplate title: [Fallen Soldier]. They were kind of like zombies: gray emaciated skin, sickly bald heads, and lifeless eyes the color of pure white marble. That was where any comparison to classic undead monsters ended. Jutting out along their arms and out the back of their necks were an assortment of black obsidian spikes as well as the odd purple crystal, glowing across their gray skin.
“What are those?” asked Kari, clutching her healer’s staff.
“The fallen,” said Jackson. “Denizens of the bottom world. They can live centuries off very little sustenance, but when they find prey, they make sure to eat more than people’s flesh, but their souls as well.”
“What the heck does that mean?” said Serena. “Our souls!? Will we not respawn if killed by these things?”
“You’ll respawn but you’ll pay an additional penalty,” said Jackson. “If the rumors are to be believed, the fallen are able to strip player’s of their memories. Not a noticeable amount at first, but enough deaths from the fallen will leave you not knowing who you are or where you came from.”
“Damn,” I said. “Let’s not screw around with these things then. Bring it on.”
The fallen soldiers approached, waddling slowly towards us. Their mouths hung open like wolves excited at new found prey. Their teeth were rotten and brown. The decomposing figures were eager for flesh and memories to devour.
One stretched out its arms and opened its hands wide.
Kari cast defensive buffs, first on Serena, and then on the rest of us. The fallen soldier kept its arm stretched out, its palm open wide. It grimaced and shivered as a hole opened up in the center of the soldier’s hand. Emerging from its gray flesh was a sharp piece of obsidian rock. It screamed and the sharp bones launched from the creature’s hand and came flying towards us.
“Cover!”
We all ducked out of the way of the projectile.
“We got at least one ranged fighter to deal with then,” I said. “Let’s take it out first.”
The two other fallen soldiers stretched out their arms. Black rock emerged from their palms. Uh-oh. Were they all going to be ranged? For one soldier, the black bone morphed into a spear, attached to its arm. The other bone seeped out of its palm and between its knuckles, creating bone claws on either hand.
I stretched out my arm and swept it from right to left in front of me, conjuring a flame wall to divide us and the fallen.
“Remember guys,” I said. “Certain moves can combo with my flame walls. Don’t hesitate to try.”
Shade assented to this plan with the bursting sound of his flintlock pistols firing. The bullets zoomed across the ruined ancient pathway, gathering renewed burning energy as it passed through my walls of flames. The bullets smashed into the spear soldier, igniting his chest with fire. His HP took a hit along with a burning debuff draining him of even more health. He patted down the flames, the burning debuff flickering away.
“Oh baby,” said Shade. “Can somebody say flame bullets!” He fired off more pistol rounds, shooting my conjured wall of flames.
Emerging from the other side was the sharp obsidian bone. As it passed through the fire, it too took on a fiery hue.
“Damn, they’re using your own magic against you,” said Serena.
“It’s bullshit,” I said. “New plan. Serena go take on the two melee fighters.”
“I don’t know if I can take all those hits,” said Serena. “Even with Kari healing me.”
“Well, Jackson and Shade are going to sneak around and take out the ranged soldier.”
“They will take a few seconds while I’ll be bombarded.”
That’s your job as tank, I wanted to say. Why was she hesitating? It was the threat to our memories. Serena was fighting with extra caution, fearing her memories. Everyone was.
“Understood,” I said. “I’ll blink and occupy the ranged monster while I wait for back-up. Sound good?”
“Sounds crazy,” said Serena.
Serena made a war cry and ran towards the fallen creatures. She leapt in the air and triggered charge strike, her whole body shot through the upper portion of my flame wall, taking on a fiery hue. She transitioned into blade tornado, spinning in an intense circle of spinning metal like a flaming chainsaw. Her attack smashed into the two melee soldiers. They attempted to block the attack, but the cumulative power of her sprint, charge attack, and blade tornado knocked the two soldiers back. They were stunned and burned by her molten hot sword.
“Protect Thy Allies,” yelled Serena, pulling in all the aggro and hate from the enemy mobs. The spear soldier came running at her. She kicked it at bay and turned around in time to clash blade against blade with the sword-armed fallen soldier. The monster threw out a left hook with its other bladed hand. Serena pulled her head back, barely dodging the deadly blow. She retaliated by head butting the creature in the face, knocking it back a step.
The ranged soldier stretched out its arm, powering up another bone blast, heading straight for Serena.
Time to move. Or rather, blink.
“You guys better be quick and come save my ass,” I said to Shade and Jackson. I initiated electric blink.
I emerged in a sparkle of electricity in front of the ranged fallen soldier. The fallen triggered its projectile blast. I reached out my hand, fingers stretched out and crackling with electricity. I unleashed lightning cage, cancelling the fallen’s ranged attack.
The monstrous fallen soldier shrieked and held up its hands, running towards me.
“Ick, get away,” I said, triggering flame dodge, sliding away from the monster. I escaped with ease but it had unintended consequences. The fallen soldier turned its attention away from me and back at Serena.
“No, you dumb monster crud,” I said, charging up a fireball in the palm of my hand and whipping it at the soldier. “Fight me!”
The molten ball of flame to the side of its
head was enough to regain its attention.
“That’s right,” I said. “Come to me.”
The fallen soldier dodged my second fireball. He emerged from his roll, arm cocked on his knee, and let out his own bone blast. The projectile moved swiftly through the air. It clipped my shoulder. A sharp pain pierced my upper body and knocked me back a step.
“Agh,” I cried, reaching up to the wound and finding my fingers, covered in blood.
Two status warnings popped up in my HUD.
Bleeding (heavy) (debuff): You have an open wound. You will lose 3 HP every ten seconds. You cannot regenerate health until you stop bleeding.
Shock (debuff): What’s this? Blood? It’s freaking you out. No shit, Sherlock. You’re shocked! (Duration: 1 minute)
My vision wobbled. I fell to my knees.
The fallen soldier returned his focus on Serena. He threw two more bone shards towards the blade soldier. There was no way to stop them.
Kari was dedicating all her focus on healing and protecting Serena. Those two bone shards coming in at the speed of a professional baseball pitcher would not help their cause.
I had to get the fallen soldier’s attention back on me. I shut my eyes and triggered electric blink and when I opened them again, I was inches away from the awful creature’s face. I lifted my arms to do skull shock, but it swatted my hands away and clasped me with its gray decrepit fingernails. It placed its dry rough hands onto my cheeks.
My whole body went very cold. It was a frostiness that sunk underneath your skin, bristled through your veins and wrapped its icy grip around your bones. I felt not just a physical coldness, but a mental and emotional one too. Like my mind was drowning in a frozen lake and the surface was icing over, sealing me out.
My HUD flashed.
Memory Drain (debuff): What’s going on? Who am I? Why is there a status screen expressing my thoughts? Oh snap! You’re losing your memory (duration: ∞)
I was struggling to breathe. Was it my memories disappearing or was my body forgetting how to function as well?
Then the coldness was gone. So was the battlefield. The pain. The urgency. Then nothing at all.
I was in a hospital room, sitting on a visitor’s chair. My brother was on a bed with wires and tubes attached to him. He had a broken arm. He had fought the group of kids who had wanted to steal my lunch money. I didn’t understand: the trade-off wasn’t worth it.
“Why didn’t you let me give them my money?
He looked up to the ceiling stoically. His plastered arm forced to rest over his stomach.
“You’re my younger brother, I wasn’t going to let them disrespect you and our family.”
“But was it worth getting sent to the hospital?”
“When you do something right for the sake of your family, to hell with the consequences!”
“Thanks big bro.”
He kept his eyes to the ceiling of our bedroom, pissed off with the state of his broken body. “Anytime bro. Anytime—“
“Clay!”
Serena shook me awake. Where was I? What was happening? The battle with the fallen soldiers came back to me. The horrible decrepit hands reaching up to me. It stole my memories.
The three soldiers were now dead on the ground.
“They took my—” I raised my hands to my head.
“You’re okay,” said Jackson. “They will come back to you. They weren’t permanently taken. They can only take when they kill you and fortunately, we were only a second or two away from pummeling him to death before he grabbed you. Why’d you electric blink so close to him?”
“I wanted to stop Serena from taking anymore damage,” I said. My vision spun and my eyes struggled to stay open. I was lethargic, like I’d woken up from an afternoon nap and wasn’t sure who I was or where I was going or what I was doing.
Serena grabbed my hand and smiled. “Thanks hon. They were powerful. I appreciate you taking some of the hits.”
“Where did you go?” said Kari.
“I dunno. It was a memory of my brother and me as kids. It was weird.”
“Freaky,” said Kari.
“Let’s keep moving,” said Serena.
“Agreed,” added Jackson, crossing his arms and glancing towards the ruined city.
“Well, if we’re ready to go,” said Shade, pointing up to the end of the thoroughfare we were currently on, specifically at a temple-looking structure at the top of the hill. “That’s the temple of the ancients. Anything placed under protection would’ve been put there. It’s where leaders were said to have been buried.”
“Great—an ancient burial site,” I grinned as I stood up. “What could possibly go wrong?”
27
Before we headed up towards the temple, we quickly looted the fallen soldiers. Yes, we were in a rush to get out of there, but these were unique mobs and the chances of encountering them elsewhere were slim. Any drops they left behind were bound to be valuable and rare.
This line of thinking proved to be true. The purple shards on their backs were called “mnemonic stones.” They were what powered these creatures, gave them life but also the hunger for people’s memories. The blackened shards were called “Obsidian Stones of Forgetting.” There were more of them than the pink mnemonic stones. I had a feeling the mnemonic stones slowly turned into the “Obsidian Stones of Forgetting” after a certain period of time.
“But if this place is locked from the rest of Illyria, how have these things survived? What memories have they fed off?”
“From the memories of the dying Lirana of Ariellum,” said Shade. He carved out a stone from the back of the fallen soldier and tugged at its body as he ripped it off.
We gathered all the drops and continued on our way. The crumbling remains of the temple loomed over the city. Half-standing columns and toppled corniced rooftops laid on the ground where a once glorious structure stood. Nothing grew amongst the ruined homes we passed. Not a vine or plant grew in the windows where I’m sure flowerpots used to hang. The remnants of drain pipes and canals only housed skeletons and dirt. The streets where young Lirana children once played were now dead and deserted. The same streets where men and women went to work. Merchants, politicians, technicians, historians. A whole culture of Lirana—similar yet vastly different from the one I’d come to know. A Lirana not burdened by guilt, loss, and melancholy for a world that no longer was. Such a peaceful thought still lingered here. I blinked and was brought back to the hollow crumbling ruins we were walking through. The peaceful thought was only that. A thought. An idle fancy. A daydream.
At the end of the thoroughfare was a winding stairwell leading up to the temple. The staircase wound around the hilltop.
We walked up the steps and arrived at the first platform. Waiting for us there were three more fallen soldiers.
“Give me a break,” sighed Kari. “My MP just replenished back to full.”
“Let’s change up our tactics this time, yeah?” I said. “Serena—still draw their hate with your “Protect Thy Allies” ability, but once you’ve drawn their aggro, kite them. Shade and Jackson, you guys take them from the rear. I’ll try and crowd control them with my spells. Everybody ready?”
“Ready!”
Serena ran into the center of the platform and beat her chest with her fist. “Protect Thy Allies!”
The fallen wailed and turned towards her. She charge striked away from them and they followed her.
My arms stretched out and my hands clawed at the air, manipulating the ground at the feet of the fallen soldiers. The dirt cracked and rippled, shards of stone stabbed them and tripped them over. The crippled debuff sign flickered underneath their status bars. Next I conjured two swirling balls of fire in each of my hands and blasted them off to the rippling ground. The combo sparked and the crackling ruptured ground turned molten with hot lava causing the creatures even more pain.
With all the AoE damage I was inflicting, I’d gained the enemies’ aggro. They headed towards me. Their b
one weapons emerging from their palms.
“Protect Thy Allies!” bellowed Serena again, retriggering their hate back onto her.
The monsters stumbled across the molten landscape I had created. Jackson leapt across my area of burning rock with a spinning kick, lodging it right into a fallen soldier’s face. The creature’s neck twisted. A cracking sound echoed across the battlefield. The fallen twisted its neck back to center.
Shade slid through the legs of one and emerged beneath another and unleashed mug shot with his daggers. It was basically a frontward facing backstab. The knife dug into the fallen’s chest. Crimson blood spurted out from the hole his knife left.
Right as the creatures turned their sights on our melee DPS squad, Serena triggered her “Protect Thy Allies” move again. The creatures chased after her. Shade and Jackson subsequently retreated and I returned to crowd controlling them.
I stretched out my arms and opened up my palms and pushed. A gale of wind emerged and knocked the creatures back a step. I quickly swiped my arms across the battlefield and turned the once burning and broken rock into a sheet of ice. They clamored after Serena and even tripped onto the ice to do so. Their movement was now slowed to a crawl. This was our chance to finish them off. My hand crackled with lightning and I threw out a whip of electric energy. The lightning cage wrapped around one of the fallen, paralyzing him completely.
“It’s all or nothing now guys!”
The group descended on the weakened fallen with Serena leading the charge. She charge striked her way to the center of them and unleashed blade tornado, slicing up their flesh and skin. Jackson dealt intense punches and blows to their stomach, shattering their black obsidian bones from the inside out. Amidst this chaos, Shade triggered backstab on the fallen soldiers with ease. They were too distracted to see a well-timed stealth attack in the midst of such a flurry of activity. Even Kari threw out her offensive magic—holy spells that dealt a considerable amount of damage.
