Magi Legend

by Andrew Dobell

  “Nope,” Kennedy confirmed.

  “Well let’s not hang around here talking, let’s see what’s through door number one, hey?” Bryn suggested and led the way into the darkness, sweeping his torch around as he went.

  Kennedy followed and the two women brought up the rear.

  Moving through the archway, they walked up a short corridor before they entered into another chamber. Larger than the first and decorated with intricate carvings and crude, eroded paintings in a style he’d not seen before, it was an amazing space, but otherwise empty, apart from a single large set of double doors on the far wall.

  The doors were made from wood and metal and clearly ancient. They also looked to be way ahead of their time.

  “Incredible,” he said.

  “This is… Impossible,” Sandy muttered.

  “What is this place?” Lillia asked.

  “No idea,” Kennedy answered. “But, there’s only one way to find out for sure.”

  “We go through door number two,” Bryn answered.

  Home Again, Home Again

  Manhattan, New York

  A moment’s feeling of dislocation and they were standing in the foyer of her Brownstone in New York City. Liz, Yoh, Gentle Water, and Sabine, who was still wearing her tattered clothing from her time in captivity in Nymira’s Sepulchre, stood around her. Sabine looked around and nodded.

  “Nice place,” she said.

  “Thanks,” Amanda replied with a satisfied sigh as she looked around, enjoying being back in her home again. “It’s good to be back.”

  She noticed that Liz was looking at her with a curious expression. “What’s going on?” Liz asked.

  Amanda smiled. “Okay, sure. It’s time we had a chat, but I need to bring a few people here as it’s a lot for me to go over and I really don’t want to be repeating myself.”

  “I think that would be a good idea,” Liz agreed. “You’re acting very strange, and it seems like you’ve jumped in Magical ability. Again.”

  “To be sure.”

  “So, are you going to explain it?”

  “I will. Look, go have a seat in the front room, I’ll go find the others, and then we can discuss everything. It’s going to take some explaining.”

  “Okay, if you say so.” Liz looked confused but curious.

  “Do you want me to…?” Yoh began, pointing into the house with his thumb.

  “No, no. I’ll find the others, you go and sit with Liz, keep her company. And no spoilers, okay?”

  Yoh smiled at her. “Of course, Amanda-san,” he said, and followed Liz into the living room.

  Gentle Water was standing close to Sabine. He had the beginnings of a smile creeping into the corners of his mouth as he watched the little back and forth between them.

  “It good to have you back, Graceful Phoenix,” he said softly and quietly, stepping up to her.

  Amanda took him in her arms and hugged him. “It’s good to be back and to finally end this deception. Although, I wonder if they’ll believe it when I tell them what happened.”

  “You have me and others to back up your story.”

  “I know. Can you look after Sabine? Maybe get her settled in a room or something, while I find the others?”

  Gentle Water bowed his head briefly and smiled. “Of course, Graceful Phoenix. I see who else I find, too.”

  “Sure.” Amanda looked over at Sabine, who was standing, looking slightly awkward, wondering what to do. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m good, thanks,” she said. She had a languid southern drawl to her voice that Amanda found appealing.

  “Gentle Water will get you settled, so he will. If you’d like, you can sit in on the little meeting we’ll be having in a few minutes, as well. Or you can just get some rest in your room if you prefer. We’ll get some clothes sorted for you, too.”

  “Sounds great.” Sabine smiled as Gentle Water stepped up to her and guided her towards the stairs. Amanda watched them for a moment before returning her focus to the task at hand. She had no idea where Howie might be, but she knew that Shaun, Vanessa, and Matt would be in the basement in Shaun’s office.

  Walking down the steps, she entered the basement which doubled as a garage, complete with her custom Fireblade Motorbike. Wow, it had been a long time since she’d ridden that. She walked past it, running her fingers over the leather seat, wanting desperately to just jump on it and go screaming along the highways.

  Not now, though, she thought to herself. She’d have time for that later. Looking at the far wall, she could see movement on the other side of the frosted glass doors.

  Walking over, she opened them and went inside. Shaun stood behind Vanessa, who was in her usual seat, tapping away at something on her keyboard. While Matt, the newest member of Shaun’s team, having been here for just one day, sat relaxed in his seat with a sleek, high-tech headset on. The device was glowing with Essentia.

  He seemed oblivious to her arrival, but Shaun and Vanessa both looked up at her and smiled. Shaun’s fanged, Nosferatu Vampire-grin looked as freaky as ever.

  “Good afternoon, Amanda,” Shaun greeted her. Vanessa nodded from her seat before returning to her work. “I trust you dealt with Nymira?”

  “We did, yes. In fact, I have someone I’d like you to do a quick bit of research on. We saved a Magus from captivity at Nymira’s place. She goes by the name Sabine, or sometimes Voodoo. Can you do a quick check on her, make sure she’s Arcadian and trustworthy?”

  “Sure thing. Do you know anything else about her?”

  “She said she was training to become an Arcanum agent until her Epiphany, and then Victoria placed her into a coven in New Orleans before it was destroyed by Nymira.”

  “Okay, great,” Shaun said as he tapped away on his tablet, taking notes as she spoke.

  Amanda glanced back at Matt, who was still oblivious to her presence with his Essentia-filled VR headset on.

  “How’s he settling in?” she asked.

  “He’s fine. He was a little unsure at first, but we installed his VR rig last night, and he’s been testing it ever since. I think he’ll be a useful addition to the team. He’s made something of a name for himself in the DWeb, which neither of us have ventured into,” he said, waving at Vanessa and himself.

  “Sounds good,” Amanda confirmed, looking back at Matt. He’d unwittingly been a part of her life from the very beginning, she thought. He helped her mother, Sophia deliver her on the Island of Tārūt over twenty years ago after he left college. That had been his first experience with Magic, and it had profoundly impacted him profoundly. To the point that he eventually left his job and his life behind to research it and find out more.

  “Can we pull him out of there?” she asked.

  “We could,” Shaun said, “but it wouldn’t be pleasant for him. Why do you ask?”

  “I need you all upstairs for a meeting. I have a few things I want to discuss with you.”

  “I see. Well, we can either send him a message, or one of us can go in and find him. It’s not a mundane VR rig. It’s a Magical one he got from someone on the DWeb which gives him full emersion. It can be jarring and sometimes painful to just pull the headset off. Let me send him a message, he’ll be out in a few…”

  “Actually, no, don’t do that,” Amanda said, looking up at Shaun. “You said one of us could go in there after him?”

  “Certainly, we have another one of these Magical rigs here, we’ve just never used it,” he said, waving at a mass of wires hooked up to a strange device on the desk that was also infused with Essentia.

  “I’ve never been into VR,” Amanda admitted.

  “You want to go in?” Shaun asked.

  “Yeah, why not? It’ll be fun. How do I find him?”

  “Once you’re in, you can run a user search and hyperlink to his area,” Shaun said as Amanda sat in the seat next to Matt.

  “Alright. I’ll try not to be too long. So, do I just put this on?” she asked, lifting the headset up.r />
  That’s right. And, once it’s on, I’ll log you in. Just let the Magic in the device do its thing, don’t resist it.”

  “Okay,” Amanda said and lifted the headset onto her head. The device automatically adjusted to her size and hugged her head and ears softly. It was pitch-dark inside apart from a single word slowly pulsating green that read, Standby.

  “I’m logging you in, now,” Shaun called out. There was a beep, and suddenly the Essentia in the device washed through her as the Magic it contained reached into her mind.

  She had a feeling of dislocation and dizziness for a moment as the feel of the chair she was sitting in faded away and she could no longer hear or sense Shaun or the room she’d been in.

  Instead, she was rushing through strange nothingness filled with glowing code until she suddenly stopped and realised she was standing on something. Looking around, the code was gone, leaving her standing in an utterly featureless darkness, but she could see herself quite clearly. Her body was evenly lit and naked.

  “What the?” she said to herself, looking around into the pitch blackness.

  “Welcome,” said a disembodied female-sounding voice. “Please, choose your avatar.”

  As the voice finished speaking, a mirror image of herself materialized before her. It was slightly disconcerting.

  “So, um, what do I do?” she asked, hoping the voice would help her out.

  “Choose your avatar. Your rig has a full neural interface, so you may adjust your appearance and outfit just by thinking about it, or if you prefer, I can bring up the manual controls.”

  “Sure, bring up the controls, that’d be grand. Let’s see what this does.”

  Before her, and slightly off to one side, a holographic display of sliders and buttons appeared, each one labelled with the attribute it controlled. She scanned down the list, which included hair length, hair colour, hairstyle, and then found the controls for her body. She moved her finger to the one for hair length and adjusted the slider, moving it slightly to the right.

  Her hair steadily lengthened.

  “Whoa! That’s cool,” she said, smiling. “Wow, I could have some fun with this.” Scanning down the list, she spotted breast size, with sliders for more detailed control of that part of her body. She laughed. “Of course.”

  Scanning the controls, she wondered if… yep, there was a control for gender. She had, in fact, transformed herself with Magic into a man in real life a few times, usually for undercover work. She knew how that felt, and had no desire to try it again here. Looking back at her reflection, Amanda decided she was quite happy looking like her usual self. Besides, she wanted Matt to recognise her. But, she’d need clothes of some kind.

  At the top of the control panel, she noticed another tab for clothing and tapped it. She saw a whole range of presets, from sci-fi power armour to suits of medieval full plate armour. There was everything from bikinis to cocktail dresses, and so much more in between. She clicked on a few of them to try them out, and found that she could then adjust them from their base form, but she wasn’t thrilled with the options. On the right of the console, she noticed there was an option for a custom outfit. She clicked it and saw she could insert a mental image into the web. She thought about what she wanted to wear, running through a few ideas in her head.

  After a moment, she settled on one. Focusing on getting a crystal clear image of it in her mind’s eye, Amanda tapped the button that would read her mental image, and closed her eyes in the hope that it worked. A second later, it felt like she was wearing something, so she opened her eyes and smiled.

  She now wore her sheer red dress and shoes that Maria had given her for the ball. She’d worn the outfit a few times and loved it, but there seemed to be so few opportunities to wear it.

  This seemed like the perfect opportunity to get some more use out of it, even if it was a just a virtual copy.

  Plus, given that this place sounded like it was not too far from the world of The Matrix, she liked the idea of being The Woman in the Red Dress. The reference to one of her favourite films amused her and she wondered who else would get it.

  She twisted around on the spot to make sure it looked good from all angles, and then added a floating effect to the skirt, causing it to flare out around her, trailing mist and digital red fire. She smiled to herself and clicked Finish at the bottom of the control display.

  The display faded from view, and a glowing white door appeared. She approached it and stepped through into an open-air plaza filled with people going about their business. Further away, beyond a railing at the edge of the platform, a city stretched off into the distance. But this was no ordinary city. It was a strange, fantastical one that reminded Amanda of some kind of futuristic sprawl, like a bright cyberpunk city. Buildings were stacked on top of one another in a somewhat haphazard way, linked to each other via large catwalks and platforms filled with people.

  “Wow,” she exclaimed under her breath.

  All around her were people. Most of them human-looking, usually with outlandish costumes, or taking on the appearance of someone from popular culture. She’d already seen Lara Croft, Batman, and Conan the Barbarian. Some of the avatars weren’t even human. Several were flying around or floating a foot above the ground. It was like some crazy cosplay city on steroids.

  Was that Gandalf?

  Reaching the railing, she spent a little time just looking out over the crazy-looking city above and below her. There were clubs and bars and costume shops. Weapon shops and massage parlours mixed in between cafés and sports emporiums. It was incredible.

  For a little while, she lost herself looking around at all the sights and spectacles that surrounded her until she saw a woman stop and a holographic display open before her. She tapped a button on it and suddenly disappeared.

  Maybe that was hyperlinking, she thought. She needed to find Matt. After all, that’s why she was here. For a moment, she wondered how she would get that control panel to appear, but figured it was probably in the same way that changing her appearance had worked moments ago.

  She focused and willed the display into existence and sure enough, just like Magic, the screen appeared.

  There were more options now, including a stats list, an item list, an experience counter, but there was also a search function. She concentrated again, and the name Matt Walker appeared in the box. She hit search, but nothing came back.

  Strange, she thought, only for it to dawn on her that he wouldn’t be online under his given name. He’d be using his online name, which was Edge. She entered it and sure enough, he popped up, as well as countless variations on the same name.

  Feeling sure she knew which one Matt was, she tapped the name and a window opened with some information and a few options, one of which was “Hyperlink to Area.”

  Amanda tapped it. The scene around her shifted and she found herself standing in another dark space like the one she’d first appeared in. A single phrase hung in the air before her.

  “Join Lobby?”

  Beneath it were the words “Yes” and “No.” Amanda tapped yes, and the scene shifted again.

  It looked like she was standing outside, on some kind of old, disused Air Force base complete with a crashed, burning plane. All around her were people, either standing talking to each other, running about, or picking up guns and shooting them. The bullets seemed to pass harmlessly through the other people, though.

  “Bloody hell, what is this?” she whispered, looking around at the faces of the others, trying to spot Matt. As she scanned the area, some of those closest to her turned to look at the new arrival. Several of them wrinkled their noses at her as they looked her up and down. She had to admit, she stood out like a sore thumb. Everyone was wearing either practical or military clothing. For the moment though, she ignored them and continued to hunt for Matt. On her second scan through the faces around her, she spotted him. He was dressed in dark camouflage gear and held a rifle, which he was looking at and checking over.


  Amanda smiled and walked over. “Matt, here you are.”

  Matt looked up, clearly surprised to see her. “Amanda? What are you...?”

  “I came to find you in the basement. We have a meeting, but you were online.”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry. Did I miss anything?”

  “No. Not yet. Can you log off?”

  “Urr, yeah, I can. I just joined this lobby though, and if I leave now, I’ll be penalised.”

  “Oh, right. What lobby is this?”

  It’s a game. Kind of like a Battle Royale, king of the hill type of thing. It’s based on some popular Riven games. The guys that created this one called it Hard Target.”

  “Hard Target?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you’re about to play it?”

  Matt raised his eyebrows and smiled at her. “So are you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re in the lobby for the game. We’ll be starting in a few minutes.”

  “Oh, shite. I had no idea.”

  “Didn’t it warn you that you were joining a lobby?”

  “Well, yes,” Amanda admitted, “but I didn’t really know what that meant.”

  “Yeah, it means you’re joining a game or a world, like this one.”

  “Is it a long game?” she asked, curious as to just what she’d gotten herself into.

  “No. Not really. Usually, they’re somewhere between five and twenty minutes. You’re new to the game though, so I doubt we’ll last long.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Matt,” Amanda said making sure there was some sass in her voice.

  “What? Oh, sorry. Just telling you how it is.”

  “Yeah, I get that. Feck it, why not? Let’s do this. I think I need to change my outfit, though, not sure this dress is the most practical thing.”

  - Somewhere in the Middle East

  Between them, the group managed to open one of the enormous wooden doors. Its iron hinges creaked and squealed as it pivoted slowly on the spot. Opening it as far as they could, Kennedy looked to see what was on the other side and saw only darkness.