Historia Online

by Rae Nantes

  The sound of stone grinding on stone echoed. A metallic clack rang out. It was close. Rika zig-zagged through the maze, then found a couple figures hunched half into a wall, grunting and tossing bars of gold into the dirt.

  "It's over," Rika said.

  The couple paused and stared at her with wide, haunting eyes. "It's far from over!" the lead woman snapped. "This is bigger than you, this is bigger than us both. You'll be hunted, hounded, chased by leagues of players." She stood, hunched over like a wolf, her hair a ragged mess over her eyes.

  "Come on," Rika said, sharpening her knives against each other like a chef. "Don't be a sore loser. Everybody gets raided every once in a while."

  Her bodyguard stepped in. "We're supposed to be allies!"

  She shrugged with indifference. "I don't even know who you are."

  "Black and gold armor," he said. "You're one of the Templar Magi. It's the whole reason we let you in on everything!"

  She shook back, surprised. Was Mondego really making alliances with player guilds?

  Just as she was mentally off-balance, the leader pulled her arm back for a punch and held it as if gathering strength, yet there was no sign of darkness around her. Of course. The night vision spell must've hidden any darkness magic as well. Rika was at a disadvantage, and she needed to end it fast.

  The woman hurled the invisible spell.

  Rika sprung out an ice wall to block it. A freezing, haunting force shot through her, passing through the wall entirely.

  She grunted against the pain. Her enemy channeled another spell.

  Rika stepped around the wall, cut through the bodyguard, and pulled an ice wall that burst out of the dirt beneath the leader. She toppled into the air, then was yanked with a Gust spell.

  She rolled to Rika’s feet in a tangled, struggling mess. Rika straddled her, holding her arms down as she stabbed at the woman's throat. Sparks shot out as Rika chipped away at her aura, then it shattered.

  "You bitch," the leader howled. "You fuckin—"

  Rika’s knife slid through her windpipe. She choked, writhed, bled, and when she died, Rika got up and dusted herself off. She walked over to see what loot they were so desperate to save.

  Her heart stopped when she saw it.

  Mounds of gold bars upon mounds. Stacks of them like mountains. A cache of firearms and swords and other weapons. This was almost the same amount as the slave owners had in Kongo. She was in awe.

  Footsteps tapped nearby, hands shuffling on the walls, worried breaths. Rika hopped out with blades drawn, ready for a fight, but what she found were Vic and Marcion.

  Vic stood with wide eyes, blinded by the dark, using his hands to trace his path on the stone walls. Marcion stared right at her. In front of them, the fallen bodies of players. "You've already got her," Marcion said.

  "Yeah."

  Vic snapped over at the sound of Rika’s voice, shotgun aimed, then relaxed. "I suppose we're done here."

  She scooped a handful of gold bars and dumped them in a nearby sack, then brought it to them. "Your cut," she said.

  Marcion took it. "Thanks.”

  Rika thought something was strange about the guy. This caricature of a middle-aged man stood in the darkness as if it weren't even there, yet as hard as she tried to focus, there was not a trace of an aura around him. "How can you see here?" she asked.

  "Carrots," he said.

  "Carrots," Vic echoed. He was gripping Marcion's forearm in the dark.

  She didn't know enough about carrots to debate it. "Do you need anything else from me?"

  Marcion shook his head.

  "Good, then it's my turn." She looked at Vic.

  Vic took a long, deep breath. "Fine. What do you need done?"

  She grinned. "I need power. Power by wealth."

  "I don't help thieves," he countered.

  "You just did."

  Vic had the faintest smirk on the side of his mouth. "Perhaps something good could come from this."

  4:9

  The Paris graveyard was a dreadful place. A cliché mist, a cliché group of dead trees, a cliché army of old gravestones faded by wear and age. The place was packed with them, and Rika was beginning to wonder what they'd do with any new dead people.

  She stood around, admiring her new weapons. The long knives had treated her well, but she wanted something that had longer reach, so she sold them both and bought, what the blacksmith called, a short bill. This was, in essence, a regular sword, but with a hook near the tip on the blunt side, typically used to tear cavalrymen off their horses. Rika, however, thought to use it to tear out other curious things. The Black Orchie, she called it. With her leftover money, she bought a small buckler to wear on her wrist - a shield the size of a large dinner plate.

  Footsteps munched in the grass behind her.

  It was Vic, in his usual long coat and wide-brimmed hat. The gun on his back told her that he was ready for anything. "Morning," he said.

  "Morning," she replied. "Where's your buddy? Marcion, wasn't it?"

  "He works for the king," Vic said. "I am the one for the church."

  He paused and stared long at her. The bags under his eyes seemed larger than when she last saw him two weeks ago. With a sharp breath, he nodded to himself and pulled out his notebook. Readying his pen, he glanced up at her. "Well?"

  "Well, what?"

  "What exactly is your plan?"

  Her eyes fled from him. She rubbed her nose. "I... uh... was hoping you could help me with that."

  "Shame." He put his things back in his coat and started to walk off.

  "You're an inquisitor. You would do this even without a plan."

  He kept walking. “Not without a plan.”

  She jolted up to follow him. "What do you want? Payment? We did that already!"

  He didn't slow down. "I had a plan for my part. You don’t. It’s not a fair trade."

  "I have Mondego."

  Vic paused, then turned back to her. He was all ears.

  She continued. "Well, I don't actually have Mondego, but—"

  He started off again.

  "Wait!" She stopped him by the sleeve. "I can get you Mondego. I know where he is. I have contact."

  He ripped his arm free. "What assurances do you have?"

  "I know what his plans are. He plans to... I'll just say he'll move again in nine weeks."

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a long, deep breath. He seemed to do that a lot. "Let me guess. He simply sent you a letter, his greatest rival, that he would be doing some important business at that time and you were invited?"

  She almost laughed to herself. It was pretty close to the truth. "We called a truce. A temporary one."

  "And you plot against him."

  "Of course," she said. Truthfully, she was already plotting against even Vic, this meddling inquisitor. It would be painfully easy to just drop him in Mondego's lion's den after everything was finished. He was just another means to an end.

  Vic gave it some thought. "This is hardly adequate, but I suppose it’s the best you could do." He turned to her. "I'll use my expertise in hunting your kind, and in exchange, you'll bring me Mondego."

  She grinned and reached out for a handshake. "Deal."

  He glanced at her open hand, back to her, then walked away.

  4:10

  "Mondego must be here in France," Marcion said.

  He and Vic sat together at the stone table outside Vic's home. It was a particularly cold day, and they could see their breaths and the steam rise from their mugs.

  "It shouldn't prove to be too difficult," Vic said.

  Marcion stared into his cup, warming his hands from it.

  “You don’t trust her,” Vic said.

  “Neither should you.”

  Vic nodded. “She saved my kid, helped me get revenge on the bastards who crossed him, but at the end of the day,” he let out a sigh, “she’s just another heretic.”

  “We’ve uncovered something interesting,” Ma
rcion said. “On my side.”

  “Go on.”

  “Rika is actually working with Mondego.”

  Vic dropped his eyes. These were the two suspects for that massacre in Alonso and possibly for the Monsanto event, but if they had reconciled their differences and were working together beyond just a simple truce, there was no telling what else the world had in store for them. “You think it's a trap."

  “It could be,” Marcion said. “We just have to keep an eye on her."

  Vic smirked to himself. "And when the timing is right, we can have them both."

  Marcion laughed. "You're quite the tactician." He looked back into his mug in thought. "Just be careful.” He looked Vic in the eyes. “I’m certain she will tell you all sorts of things about the world, about their world, and I’m certain much will be lies. Don't let yourself fall for any tricks.”

  Vic smiled. “You’re turning into quite the inquisitor.”

  Marcion grinned back.

  4:11

  Ediha stood on the decks of the ship, his armor glistening as the sea before him. Grandmaster John stood beside him, towering over as he spoke.

  "You must make your own decisions on how to rule," John told him. "But those heroes whose souls echo into the future are all alike."

  "How so, Grandmaster?"

  "They pursued justice, fairness, and most of all - strength."

  "Strength," echoed Ediha.

  "Virtue without the power to exert it is folly. There is no meaning to how holy a man can be if he does not have the power to maintain his freedom to pursue holiness."

  "I see."

  One of the other paladins pointed ahead of them. "There! Turkish flags on the horizon."

  John and Ediha turned their heads to see. It was a merchant's vessel, but the port windows slid open, and cannons eased out. Flashes and smoke and distant thunder. Cannonballs skid and splashed the water beside them, showering them in a fresh, cool mist.

  "There are players there." John looked down at Ediha. "Are you ready?"

  "To fight against gods?" Ediha asked.

  John laughed. "They are not gods, young knight. They bleed as any other."

  “Yet they are undying.”

  “Yet they still fear pain,” John countered.

  Ediha lowered his eyes. “I don’t know if I’m prepared for this.”

  John looked down at him. The ship turned against the waves to chase after Turkish ships. “Do you fear them?” he asked.

  “It is the uncertainty that I fear,” Ediha said. “There was certainty with fate, and my fate was to die as a sacrifice. Now nothing is certain.”

  “Good,” John said. “You should fear.”

  Ediha looked up at him. “What?”

  “That’s what courage is. To be afraid yet doing it anyway.”

  “What about you?” Ediha asked. “You seem fearless as if by birth.”

  “Fearlessness is not courage,” he said. “Courage is not a quality with which a person is born. It is a trait learned. All are born with fear, but it takes a hero to conquer it.”

  Ediha smiled as he stared across the water. “This is what makes a hero.”

  The two ships were pinned together by chains and rope hooks. The Turkish soldiers were all slain, their bodies dumped into the sea. The last player stood between a circle of paladins, dueling against Ediha.

  Ediha charged with his shield out.

  The player threw slashes of wind at him.

  Ediha slapped them away with his shield, dashed in, and slashed down at the player.

  The player dodged it.

  But it was a feint. Ediha stepped forward, and thrust the sword into the player's gut, clapping against the aura once, twice, then it shattered, slipping through the player's body and out the other side.

  The paladins cheered.

  Ediha flung the blood off his sword, cleaned its edge, and rammed it back into its sheath.

  "Well done," John told him. "You are learning well."

  "Thank you, Grandmaster."

  Ediha noticed people with pale skin were brought to the upper decks and forced aboard their ship. They were chained together, and they were mostly women. "Slaves?" Ediha asked.

  "Victims," John said. "The men we have just killed were raiders, pirates, evil men who stole wives and daughters and young sons from the coasts of God-fearing nations. Usually, they bring them back into Ottoman lands where they are sold like property."

  "I see," said Ediha. He did not want to mention how slaves were a common thing in Aztec society and were normally regarded as its own social class. But the moral compass of this mighty man was something that Ediha was beginning to look up to.

  "This is something the Knights of Rhodes, our parent Order, have done for centuries. We must free these people and fight all those who try such terrible acts."

  A girl his age passed them with the group, with bright green eyes, freckles, and red hair. They locked eyes and shared smiles, and Ediha found a twinge of resolve.

  4:12

  Rika and Vic laid on their stomachs in the grass, staring down into the forest from their spyglasses.

  "So that Marcion guy," she continued, "he's an odd one, isn't he?"

  Vic was unwavering from his focus at the distant trap. “He'll make a great inquisitor one day.”

  “Do you like inquisiting? Is that how I say it? Inquisiting?”

  “Mhmm.”

  “I guess you do this a lot. Killing and torturing players, huh?”

  “Shh.”

  Rika looked back through her spyglass to see rustling in some bushes. A player stepped out with a moderate-strength aura. His head was shaved, and he sported creepy tattoos all over his body. She recalled the description and realized it was the target. “That’s the one,” she said.

  The player looked around, confused. Then, he searched around the dirt. He checked under rocks, in bushes, then finally finding a chest behind a boulder. With a breath of relief, the player snatched it, slammed it atop the boulder, creaked it open, then—

  Pop!

  A blinding light exploded out from it. By the time it faded, the player was on his knees, eyes wide and arms out searching around.

  He was blind, stunned, vulnerable, and Rika stood over him with her sword in hand.

  "Hello," she said.

  "H-hello," he replied.

  4:13

  Sasha sat at her terminal, typing in the last few commands to make everything ready. When she was satisfied, she put on the thin VR headset and dropped onto the couch.

  She opened her eyes to a shore. The waves crashed, the wind rustled the tops of the trees, the sand was cold beneath her feet.

  This was not the world of Historia Online. This was her own. With a few commands, she transported herself to the nearest city.

  The streets were stone, houses wood, the people clothed in animal furs and woven fabrics. She looked around, impressed by the people’s speed at progress. They had been dropped here in the middle of nowhere, copied mind scans of some countless donors but with memories scooped out, and it was apparent that human civilization was beginning to take root and blossom. No one noticed her - she was an invisible god to them.

  Sasha worried for so long that the people would just flop over and die again due to some strange bug, but it seemed she got it working this time. She swiped open her admin panel and brought up the settings.

  The magic system still needed fleshing out, but it was workable. She had yet to test it out or to see if any of the nipsies could use it, but it wasn’t the time. For now, she needed to be sure that their minds were stable.

  Unlike Historia Online, this world lacked a Soul to govern it. Finding the right variables had to be done manually. When she found what she was looking for, she froze.

  Beside all the charts and graphs and dots of information, was a long slider that managed an on-off setting.

  THOUGHT GOVERNOR - OFF.

  It wasn’t supposed to be off. She borrowed much of her code from Histo
ria Online, so it should’ve been on by default. Sasha looked back up at the people around her. Smiling faces, sweaty brows, happy families doing day-to-day dark age things. Without the Thought Governor, it likely wouldn’t be long before they started asking too many questions.

  But if it was off here, then—

  She groaned. It would explain so, so terribly much about what was happening in Historia Online. This would explain Mondego’s actions and everything that he knew. If her boss found out about this, she would probably be fired. Her and her entire team.

  She brought up her finger to slide it back on, then paused.

  Was this the defining threshold of sapient and non-sapient? A simple flick of a switch? If by turning this back on, would they lose that little bit of freedom that made them human? That was, after all, the entire point of the thing. An off-hand humanitarian effort to keep them stupid and slaves to design.

  But slaves lacked character, and if she was going to make the greatest world of all, even better than Historia itself, then it needed to be done.

  She dropped her hand, then vanished.

  4:14

  “Tell me,” Vic said. “Do all cultists come from the same realm?” He held out an empty hand.

  Rika dug around the toolbox, bits of metal instruments clinked around, and she gave him a rusty scalpel. “Player cultists do,” she said. “Not the regular ones.”

  Vic loomed over the captured player. He was gagged and blindfolded, and his arms and legs were taut against his binds. “What is it like over there?” He spoke like a doctor making small talk with a nurse.

  “Boring.” Rika peeked over at the man. He was grunting and squirming in the dimly lit torture room. The place was grimy, dirty, rusty.

  Vic stifled a laugh as he cut into the captive. The man squealed with a panic. “Boring?”

  “Yeah,” Rika laughed. “Why do you think we come here?”

  “To commit sin, I imagined.” He pulled the scalpel down the man’s chest like opening a jacket zipper. “You Players seem to have a high tolerance for pain. Normal people would have gone into shock by now.”