by Rae Nantes
"Oh?" the man glanced around at himself. "My apologies, but I'm also a foreigner in these lands, you see. I'm from the far west." He spoke with vigor, and his voice was a few decibels too loud.
"The far west," Ediha echoed.
"I'm from a place called France. Have you heard of it?"
Ediha shook his head. "I've heard of Spain."
The old man barked a laugh. "Is that so? Well, I'll have you know they're neighbors!"
"I see."
The man offered a handshake. "The name's John."
"Ediha." He accepted it as well as he could with John’s giant hands. "So... why are you here?"
"I'm searching for something," John said, "and I've been asking the locals about it, but they aren't giving me a lick of information!"
"Okay."
"Which is why I approached you." His eyes seemed to darken if only for an instant. "Mayhaps you've seen what I was after."
Ediha realized that maybe this entire conversation might've been a bad idea. This was one of those westerners, and as Stef had educated him, they weren't to be trusted. "Depends on what you're after."
"There's a pale-skinned man, maybe a shade lighter than me, with blond hair and a black eyepatch. I'm expecting him to pass through here soon."
Ediha looked over at Saito. The girl was trying to flirt with him, but he was all business. Ediha felt the sweat on his back. "Is this a friend of yours? What was his name?"
John eased closer, almost crouching over Ediha yet still towering above. "Mondego," he whispered. "Have you seen him?"
"...No."
John backed away. "Shame."
"Why are you after him?"
"He's an arch-heretic," John said.
"Arch-heretic?"
John stood with conviction. His voice almost bellowed in the store. "A leader of sinners. Of evildoers. He has committed a great sin, and it is my charge to put him to justice."
The tension in Ediha's body nearly deflated. It was nice to see that others were after Mondego, that devil, and he almost considered spilling everything he knew to this strange hero. Yet still, Ediha thought it would be better for Rika to decide something like this. She was the one who knew who to trust.
Ediha gave him a polite smile. "If I see him, I'll let you know."
John barked another laugh. "No, you won't! I'll be gone by sunset, but believe me when I say that I sincerely appreciate the gesture." He held out his hand, and Ediha took it. After a manly handshake between them, John marched toward the exit, his armor clanking with every step.
"Oh, just one more thing," he paused.
"Yes?" Ediha asked.
"I'm looking for another. A tiny woman with short black hair, sharp eyes, and looks like..." he trailed off when he saw all the women in the room. "You likely wouldn't notice her here, but she goes by the name of Rika."
Ediha paused, then shook his head. "Is she a friend?"
"She is also an arch-heretic."
2:13
“Ivan, are you even listening to me?”
He turned in his office chair, the holoscreen glow caught his thinning hair like a halo. Behind him, a woman with a stern expression and her hands on her hips. “Yes?”
“I thought you said the Soul was inactive this season,” she said.
“It’s supposed to be.”
She huffed and walked off toward the window. The busy streets of Stella Vallis ran below. The streetlights were on, as they always were this far underground. She brushed her long hair aside. “Martin Luther is dead. How can there be a Protestant Reformation without a Martin Luther?”
Ivan shrugged and went back to his holoscreen. In front of him were graphs and lines of text. “By chance, I suppose."
“By chance,” she echoed. “It just so happens that some other random person decided to rise up and challenge the church and nail the complaints to the door and have the momentum to start a schism.” She turned to him. He was busy with his screen. “We both know these things don’t happen by chance.”
Silence found them. Ivan tapped at the holoscreen windows, going back and forth and back again. “Looks like someone left it on,” he said. “It’s set to minimum, so it shouldn’t be an issue.”
“If the boss finds out—”
“He won’t,” Ivan said. “He doesn’t even care. Besides, the sociology nerds are happy with the research. They’re paying a lot of money for this, by the way.”
She said nothing. Outside, a cello began to play. Another one of the musicians was out today, and the usual lunch crowd gathered to listen. Within the office, the music was just a dull hum.
“How’s your pet project coming along?” Ivan asked.
“I’ve realized something,” she said, ignoring him. “They’re so lifelike, the nipsies.”
Ivan laughed. “That’s the point.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time in the world, even more in the one I’m working on.” Her voice took on a distant, dream-like tone. “Without a thought-governor, they would be indistinguishable from any real person.”
Ivan turned to her. “Careful now, if they hear that kind of talk, they’re likely to fire you.”
“You don’t agree, do you?”
He rubbed his eyes. “At the end of the day, it’s a video game. We get paid, scientists get happy, players get a good time. Everyone wins.”
“Not everyone.” She walked toward the door to leave. With a wave of her badge, the door slid open. “Are you diving in today?”
“Yeah, I have some things to take care of."
“Mondego?” she asked.
He shook his head. “They want him alive a little longer.”
She smiled. “You’re just there to have fun.”
Ivan chuckled. “Aren’t we all, Sasha?”
2:14
Rika logged in, shooed away the old cleaning women, and wrestled Saito out of his bed. Ediha and Valgus were laughing like some lunatics at the scene, harder every time an old lady offered a grandmotherly smile on the way out. Rika didn’t understand and didn’t care to. It was the start of the weekend, and if everything went well, they could finish the quest before the new week.
With her aggressive coaching, the party was able to gather their things and restart the journey in record time.
They stepped out of the portal and into a fantasy world. At least, it felt like no place that should've ever existed, yet it did, here, and they were now stuck until Valgus could bring them elsewhere.
A cold so ruthless, it nipped at their bones, gripped at their faces, and threatened to freeze their hair solid. The wind whipped and whapped, yanking flurries of snow to slap against their faces, changing direction at random moments, then doing it again.
The ground crunched beneath thick snow that blanketed the entire mountain ridge. This was Tibet, and Rika thought that if she looked hard enough through the haze and clouds of the blizzard, she would've been able to see Mt. Everest.
But she didn't.
The snowfall was too thick, the blizzard too intense, the cold too punishing to even think about pulling her chin away from her chest to try.
They marched along in a single file line, each of them wrapped tight with furs over leathers, so thick that it was hard to move around in. Guns on their backs, swords at their waists. Rika felt heavy, and five minutes in, she was ready to quit.
"Hey," Ediha shouted over the storm. "Is that it?"
She followed his squinted gaze and pointed finger to the top of the mountain. A roof on four pillars stared back down at them. It looked more like a gazebo than a temple. There was someone, or something standing there. Two figures obscured by the blizzard.
Rika double-checked the paper map, then nodded to the others. Five minutes of hiking, and they were at the pitiful looking temple, staring face-to-face with what looked like some medieval crusader. He was adorned in thick black armor trimmed with gold and a horned helm that masked his face. There was no sign of the other person.
"Halt," the knight said. "I am
Octavius, exalted of the Templar Magi. Are you a seeker of the light?" He rested his hands on a massive claymore that was stuck into the ice.
Rika blew into her hands and shivered against a coming wind. "We're just here for the Ice Temple."
He didn't budge, and she worried that he might've actually been frozen under all that armor. "Then rest well," he said. "And drink upon the river of truth."
Was this guy for real? Rika had no idea if this was a hardcore nipsy or just some weirdo roleplayer. She was having serious doubts if he actually hiked up the mountain with all that armor.
"Rika-sama," Saito said. “It leads further below.”
She looked over to see Saito halfway down a flight of stairs that sat right in the middle of the temple base. A warm, orange glow poured up at them. She offered the knight a slight bow and hurried after.
Warmth. The place inside was a refuge from the elements. A dirty concrete cube that looked like it was copy-pasted right from a subway station. They clanked their way down the rickety metal stairs to find a campfire fluttering in the center of the room. Along the walls, a handful of similarly armored knights were sitting around a cheap folding table, likely interrupted mid-conversation. They were playing cards, staring at them like unwanted tourists as they glared around with wide eyes, searching for the altar.
"Worry not," one of the knights said from underneath his helm. "We are custodians of the holy sites. We are guardians of this place."
Ediha asked, "Are you from France?"
The knights shook their heads. "No," one said. "We are beyond borders."
One of the other knights pointed at the far wall. "What you seek is down the cavern."
The concrete walls gave way to ice, almost glowing blue, that seemed to encroach on the place like ivy. It seemed a tunnel had been chiseled out, and it led further in.
With hesitant steps, they sauntered over and into the cave.
Rika’s eyes brightened at the sparkling azure and sapphire that made the hall. It snaked along, its rough edges cold to the touch with an icy mist. Their broken and scattered reflections moving beside them, jumping to every jutting angle and corner of this chiseled architecture. This far down into the temple, the raging winds of the blizzard outside amounted to only a dull, faint hum. Their footsteps echoed - tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap. Before long, they reached the end.
If she hadn’t known any better, Rika would have imagined this to be the treasure room of a dungeon or a mythic raid. The room was pale and blue like the rest of the hall with a ceiling that seemed to reach forever above to pull sunlight in. It glittered in all its wonder, and although they were tempted to gaze in awe at this hidden secret place, their eyes could not leave the figure standing before them.
A person in a black leather robe stood in the center of the room facing away.
“Halt,” Rika said.
“Oh?” It was the voice of a man. A voice she recognized. “We have a guest today - yes, yes - a guest.”
She ripped the longsword from its scabbard, its grinding rattle echoing off the walls and down the cavern. The others stepped back and raised their rifles at the man. “Identify yourself,” she ordered.
The man shimmered in a light. A strange pale mist poured from him. They tensed in anticipation. He eased up his arms in surrender, then carefully spun around to face them.
Bald with a tuft of hair on his chin. Red paint smeared over his lips. Eyeshadow that made him look like a puma. It was the turbo-creep, Garrock. “Oh my, oh my, oh my,” he grinned. Behind him was the ice altar.
Rika raised her weapon high. A flame burst from its edge, and she felt the heat from it.
“Wait, hold up!” Valgus said. He jumped between them with his arms out. “I know this guy!” A broad smile was stretching across his face.
Rika narrowed her eyes at them both. “Are you in cahoots with this spooky clown boy?”
Garrock threw back his head and cackled with a piercing laugh. “Kha, kha, kha! Valgus, old friend! Old friend - yes, yes.”
They smiled at each other, held out their arms, and fell into each other in a deep embrace. Valgus grunted under the spooky boy’s grip. “This is a coworker of mine. We lost contact in-game after the whole Mexico thing.”
“Valgus,” Rika said through her teeth, “Is he working with Mondego?”
“No, no, no,” he rushed out. “It’s not like that.” They backed out of their hug, and Valgus patted the man’s shoulder. “He was after the temple, and I was there for, y’know, business.”
Ediha and Saito lowered their weapons, but Rika kept hers firm. “Then why were you in Mondego’s camp that night when we fought?”
“We both were,” Valgus said. “I, uh, didn’t see your fight, but Garrock told me about it at work.”
“Indeed,” Garrock said. “I respawned far, far away and lost much time - yes, yes. It is fine, yes, that our fated meeting was so… fruitful.”
She rested her sword arm, but she didn’t sheath it. After all, she had no reason to trust him as much as Valgus did. This was a game after all, and killing old friends was part of the sport. “And I assume you’re here for the ice element?”
Garrock nodded with a smile. “Yes, yes. The ice, of course.”
“Okay, then,” she said. “You can leave now. Bye.”
“You are searching for Mondego, yes?”
Rika paused, and before she could speak, Ediha said, “What do you know of Mondego?”
“Mondego, Mondego, Mondego. A wanted man - yes, yes - coveted by many.”
Ediha said, “I met a knight in Beijing who was also searching for him.”
Garrock grinned beneath his painted frown. "Fascinating."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Rika asked.
"I..." Ediha looked away in shame. "We didn't have much time to talk about it."
Garrock's eyes were staring past her. His grin now sharp. “There is a lot that is happening, yes. A great, great many things.”
Rika pinched the bridge of her nose. Just listening to the guy was giving her chills. "I’m not really in the mood for a monologue."
Garrock took a deep breath. The fog poured from him. “Those templars that are here, those warriors who guard the temples, they are a product of the schism, you see. A great schism, grand in design.” Tik. Tik. Tik. He was using a knife blade to tap at the altar. “Pray tell, have you heard of the Protestant Reformation?”
“No,” Rika said.
“Oh my, oh my, oh my! You play in this… world, and yet you know nothing? A travesty it is - yes, yes.” He chuckled to himself. “It was an era of great religious turmoil, great religious strife, great religious violence. Great, great, great indeed! It resulted in more than thirty years of war. Thirty years of great suffering, yes. Yet now, now, we must see what fruit the world bears when its people partake in this… sin.”
“Magic,” Ediha said.
“Magic,” Garrock echoed. “Factions are being born, sides being created, ideologies being chiseled into the world. Those born with, and those born without. Those who partake, and those who do not. Those who accept, and those who… reject.”
A shout echoed from the cavern. Something slammed, footsteps pounded, armor rattled.
“Your mistake, little nipsy boy, is that you are chasing the eye of the storm, and it will swallow you whole.” He swiped open his player screen, tapped at his map, and a portal spawned in. Snow dust swirled around, and the hum reverberated off the walls. He nodded at Valgus. “Until we meet again, old friend!”
“Until then,” Valgus said.
The black door dissipated, and the echoes of stomping feet returned.
Rika looked back down the cavern hall, anticipating even more unwelcome company. The footsteps were still far away. She turned to Valgus. “How much time left until we can port out?”
He checked his player screen. “Seven minutes.”
“We need to hurry,” she said.
They approached the altar, a short concrete pillar with a solid
outcrop of ice on the top. Designs and mysterious images were etched in - something that looked like a scene from Greek mythology.
They nodded at one another. They placed their hands upon the icy artwork, felt its freezing chill shoot up their arms and down their backs and into their souls. They became light, pulsing, empowering with the spell.
Ice Element unlocked.
Rika swiped open her player screen to steal a glance of what she unlocked. The blue glow of the screen flashed through the room.
"You!" a voice shouted. They spun over to see one of the Templars. "You're one of them." He rattled toward her, speaking beneath his helm, his footsteps heavy on the ice floor.
She swiped the screen away and gripped her sword. "One of who?"
"You are not of this world, are you?" the knight asked. "You are one of the dreamers."
"I'm just—"
Another echo hit them from up the cavern. "Templar Magi, to arms!”
The templar turned to her. "You best leave now, dreamer."
2:15
They followed after, stomping up the rickety metal stairs, and back into the frigid cold.
The Templars were standing at the edge of the slope, staring down at a mass of figures. Cloaks and capes whipped against the blizzard winds.
"What's happening?" Rika asked the lead Templar.
"Pray leave at once," the Templar replied.
She looked back down the sloped path. It was the only way to or from the temple, at least with any reasonable safety. Throwing oneself off a mountain was always an option, sure, but never a good one. The lead Templar likely assumed that they were able to teleport out of there, but he might not have been familiar with the 30-minute cooldown on the spell.
A gruff voice rang out through the wind. "Templars!" It came from the figure in front - a knight with similar armor as the Templar Magi, but with white armor and a gold tabard draped over the front. It was a paladin. "We are the Pax Divinus, and we come by order of the church and his Holiness the Pope." His voice echoed against the storm. He rammed the tip of his huge sword into the ice and slammed his fist against his chest - a salute that rattled his armor. "We have come to apprehend Mondego, the Heresiarch."