Awaken Online- Flame

by Travis Bagwell

  The guard captain was cut off as several objects suddenly landed around the group of guards, champions, and beetles. Each object gave off a soft thump and threw up a cloud of loose dust as it struck the ground.

  Finn glanced at one of the objects, at first thinking it was just a rock. At this point, if rocks started raining from the sky, he wouldn’t be too surprised – not after everything he had already witnessed. Yet as he kicked at the loose sand to get a better look, he realized he was actually staring at a faintly glowing yellow sphere, fractures already forming along the surface from the impact.

  Oh shit, Finn thought.

  “Take cover!” Altair shouted.

  But it was too late.

  Before anyone could react, at least a dozen of the amber spheres exploded throughout the caravan. The blasts caused an implosion of air, sucking up the sand and condensing it into hard, dense balls. Only a few seconds later, the orbs exploded outward in a blast of wind and sand. Finn and his companions were sent sprawling from the concussive force of the explosions, hitting the ground hard as a maelstrom of sand whipped and whirled around them, completely obscuring the area in a thick cloud.

  Finn’s vision swam, and red notifications flashed in his peripheral vision, his thoughts flailing. Those amber orbs hadn’t been natural formations or native creatures. They looked like they had been manufactured – created. With that realization, a single thought pierced through the fog of noise and pain.

  We’re under attack.

  Chapter 13 - Betrayed

  Bilel’s Journal – Entry 59

  I have been studying the Najima closely for weeks now. Renquist and the other librarians, upon learning of my progress, have sought to help with far more enthusiasm than I had expected. They even went so far as to set up a small laboratory on the upper levels of the library and warded the room to prevent unauthorized entry. It seems Renquist doesn’t entirely trust the other mages… not that I blame him for his caution.

  Despite their assistance, most of my observations have been rather mundane, merely mirroring much of what we already knew or suspected. The body absorbs ambient mana from the world, and this energy is siphoned to the Najima, where it is then primarily converted to the caster’s dominant affinity. Although this process is not comprehensive. Not all mana is converted to a single affinity, leaving trace amounts of the other mana types lingering throughout a mage’s body. This explains the multi-colored patterns I have previously observed.

  Perhaps it is the quantity of a particular type of mana – denoted by a caster’s dominant affinity – that permits them to cast a certain school of spells? Assuming this is the case, and we were to develop a way to somehow increase the other types of mana present in a person’s body, would that allow a mage to manipulate multiple schools of magic? An intriguing question, but one that is currently impossible to test.

  ***

  Finn was lying on the ground and seat pressed against his cheek.

  He blinked rapidly, his vision swimming.

  His ears were ringing, and the sounds around him were muted and surreal. Lifting a hand to touch one aching ear, his fingers came away slick with blood. His eardrums must have burst, a fact that was confirmed by the notifications flashing in the corner of his vision. He knew from experience that it would take several precious seconds for his natural health regeneration to repair the damage.

  As Finn’s vision gradually began to settle, he realized that his hearing probably wasn’t going to help the situation. The explosions had created a dense cloud of sand that obscured the area from sight and stung his eyes, forcing him to tug the hem of his robes up and over his mouth and nose. Even more frustrating, he could hear additional thumps and blasts, more gems striking the ground and exploding – likely to maintain the cloud of sand.

  As he tried to focus, squeezing his eyes into thin slits to avoid the whipping sand, Finn saw shadowy wraiths moving amid the chaos – their bodies seeming to flow and drift through the murky fog with a fluid grace. It took Finn several long, pain-filled seconds to realize that those ghostly silhouettes were real, not some sort of hazy hallucination.

  The screams offered some evidence.

  A guard let out a cry from nearby, the sound barely audible as the ringing in Finn’s ears began to recede. A shadow immediately fell upon the man, stabbing forward with its dark limbs. The cry was abruptly cut off in a choked gurgle, and as the guard fell limp, the shadow disappeared back into the sand.

  “We’re under attack,” Altair cried out, the sound coming from a few dozen yards to Finn’s right. He must have moved after the detonations. “Guards to my voice.”

  Finn started to cast Imbue Fire but hesitated as he saw the wraiths moving toward the source of the guard captain’s cry, the sounds of battle already carrying through the air. It seemed that whoever – or whatever – was attacking them also had difficulty seeing amid the sand, relying on the cries of their victims. If he summoned his blades, the fire would just paint a target on his back.

  He couldn’t afford a respawn – not right now. That would put him back in Lahab and a solid two days behind his competitors, assuming he could even get back to the Abyss without guards or a mount. There was too much at stake to risk it.

  Yet he couldn’t just lie here and play dead either. What if the wraiths defeated Altair and his guards? He suspected they would come for him next.

  No, Finn needed to act. And quickly.

  His eyes skimmed to his UI, noting that the icons for both Kyyle and Julia hadn’t grayed out. They were alive and likely somewhere nearby. He needed to regroup with his companions and get to a defensible position. Perhaps if he could get his back to the ridge down into the Abyss, that would help. Then he could clear the sand, and they could take on their attackers from one direction.

  First things first. Finn moved his fingers slowly, pulling up his chat log. He typed out a short message, urging his friends to keep quiet and move to his location. While they couldn’t see easily amid the sand, they should be able to see his icon on their map since they were in the same group.

  Now he just needed to find the edge of the Abyss.

  Finn grimaced and squeezed his eyes shut. This next part wasn’t going to be fun.

  “Mashhad,” he murmured quietly.

  Suddenly, the sand was gone, replaced with a cloud of green and yellow that swirled around him. Amid those whirling colors, Finn could make out the other guards, their bodies shining with a bright multi-colored light. He shifted his attention to the ground, noting that the glass below him – a dark-green mixture – stood out vividly against the sand. Using his map, he knew the edge of the Abyss was only a few yards away, and he should be able to see the edge of the ridge by noting where the dark green ended.

  Or miss it and fall to his death… no pressure.

  Finn shifted slightly, just enough to inch forward. Even that small movement was enough to make his vision swim, not helped by the swirling green fog that now surrounded him. Yet he swallowed hard against the bile at the back of his throat and kept moving, gradually crawling forward through the sands as the sounds of battle raged around him. A glance at his map showed that Kyyle and Julia were doing the same, inching slowly toward his location.

  It was incredibly difficult to maintain his sight while moving, even at this glacial pace, his stomach flip-flopping as the colors swam and jerked with each movement. That was how he almost missed the edge of the ridge. His first warning was his hand passing through open air. Finn lurched forward but managed to catch himself, backing away quickly despite the way that movement caused the world to list and blur in his vision.

  Now that he could feel the edge of the ridge, Finn dropped his sight for a moment. He needed to regen his mana and stamina. Quickly pulling up the in-game chat, he typed out a warning to Kyyle and Julia. Once finished, he debated briefly whether he should re-activate the sight. It was costly and painful to use, but without it, he would be blind – at least until he managed to clear the sand. He was ju
st going to need to suffer through the disorienting colors for a bit longer.

  “Mashhad,” he murmured, the world soon cast in color once more.

  Finn’s hands began to twine through the gestures of Fireball, moving as quickly as he could to summon two projectiles. Finn picked a location a few yards to his left, but still within his control range – not wanting to give away his position until he had cleared the sand. Only a few seconds later, two blinding points of orange and red erupted amid the green haze.

  With a twitch of his fingers, the Fireballs began to spin – faster and faster.

  The flames heated the air, and the rotation sent it funneling upwards, siphoning off the sand in the air and melting some of the particles. To Finn’s eyes, his projectiles created a tornado of red, green, and yellow, multiple energies merging and dissolving. Meanwhile, molten droplets of glass soon began to rain down, causing small streamers of smoke to curl away from Finn’s robes where they struck.

  But the green-and-yellow fog began to dissipate…

  …just in time to see something unusual happen.

  As the fog lifted, Finn saw what he assumed was a guard, his body awash in a rainbow of colors. The man seemed to be struggling against something, his left arm raised protectively, and his right stabbing forward with a blade. Yet to Finn’s enhanced sight, he appeared to be fighting nothing at all.

  Finn’s brow furrowed in confusion, and he dropped his Mana Sight.

  It was only then that the world resolved back into focus. Finn saw that he had cleared an area of sand, and indeed, the guard was lying on the ground. Except the man was clearly fighting off one of the wraiths, its body roughly humanoid and covered in loose flowing streamers of fabric nearly identical in color to the sand around them.

  Finn hesitated for only a moment before sending his two Fireballs streaking toward the creature. It seemed to anticipate the attack and rolled to the side, avoiding the blasts of fire and quickly disappearing back into the cloud of sand. Its form blended seamlessly into the beige mist. Yet the guard remained unmoving, his blood leaching into the ground. Finn had been too late.

  He wasn’t given long to dwell on that as he was hauled to his feet. Glancing to his side, he found Julia standing there with daggers in each hand. Kyyle was beside her, his eyes glowing a dark green and the energy already curling around his staff.

  “No time to be lying around,” Julia grunted.

  “No shit,” Finn muttered, eyeing the sands. “About time you two showed up.” Already more shadows were flitting through the dense cloud of sand that lingered in front them, creating a semi-circle around their position, their backs to the ridge of the Abyss. He took a tentative step back and realized that they didn’t have much room to work with.

  “Kyyle, you may want to make us a ledge,” Finn suggested, even as he summoned his flaming blades. He was still at about half mana after using his sight, but that should give him a little time to maintain his channels.

  The earth mage nodded, and the glass near the edge of the pit shifted and flowed outward, creating a wider platform. The group quickly took advantage, moving onto the makeshift ledge and putting more distance between themselves and the cloud of sand.

  Then their opponents attacked.

  They shot out of the sand with blazing speed. Julia was just as fast, darting forward, and her limbs were a blur as she parried and dodged. Finn stayed just a step behind her, using his flaming daggers to put pressure on their opponents.

  Julia parried a blow, lashed out with her foot to put her opponent off-balance, and then her other arm snapped forward. The wraith twisted around the strike, but Finn’s blade was waiting for it, the flaming knife racing toward the creature’s neck.

  Gotcha, Finn thought.

  Yet he watched in surprise as the creature took a single step back into the cloud of sand, its head and neck immediately dissolving into streamers of beige particles and the blade passing through the cloud harmlessly. An instant, later, the wraith’s body re-solidified, and it continued its rapid-fire dance with Julia.

  What the fuck are these things? Finn wondered.

  Kyyle joined the fray and started creating small pits and walls in the field, trying to slow their enemies. Even so, the creatures were incredibly fast and almost impossible to hit. Each time they got close, the creatures would retreat into the sand and disintegrate. They were also slowly pushing the group farther and farther back onto their makeshift platform as the line of sand drifted back into the pocket of clear air that Finn had created, forcing Kyyle to reinforce and widen the artificial ledge.

  As Finn took another step backward, he saw light flash from the cloud of sand in front of them. Only a moment later, reinforcements arrived. A billowing blast of air magic suddenly split the dense cloud, creating a furrow of clear air. Through this valley strode Malik and Kalisha, their companions crowded around them along with nearly a dozen of the merchant’s mechanids. It seemed a brief truce had been called during the ambush.

  They strode onto the ledge that Kyyle had created, setting up a defensive line along the ridge. Kalisha’s automatons scurried forward, creating a rough metallic line of bodies. Then the crystals in their torsos flashed once, and green energy arced between them. All at once, a massive wall of earth erupted from the ground, the barrier towering 15 feet into the air and thickening until it was at least a few yards deep – effectively walling off the ridge and Kyyle’s platform.

  “Thanks for the help,” Finn muttered, retracting his blades toward himself. A glance at his UI showed that his mana was low, although his group had taken little damage.

  “I’m not sure they’re here to help,” Julia said under her breath, retreating next to Finn and keeping her blades drawn as she eyed the others suspiciously.

  Even as she spoke, the merchants and fighters turned to Finn and his group, their weapons raised as Kalisha’s drones continued to maintain the earthen wall. Finn saw Vanessa among them, the ice mage’s eyes flashing an ominous sapphire as she watched Finn.

  Shit, Finn thought. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  “We finally meet again – this time without those pesky guards,” Vanessa snapped.

  Finn just rolled his eyes and shifted his attention to Kalisha instead, a move that seemed to piss off the water mage even more. “I thought we were on cordial terms. The Emir’s instructions were also clear – no fighting before we enter the Abyss.”

  Kalisha nodded, tapping her lips with one finger. “You’re right, but our quiet buddies here made an offer I couldn’t pass up – residents before travelers and whatnot,” she replied, gesturing at Malik and the other mute fighters. “And technically, you’re inside the Abyss. Sort of.” She waved at their makeshift ledge, the group hanging above the chasm.

  That was certainly a creative interpretation of the Emir’s instructions. As she spoke, Finn glanced down, trying to see if there was a ledge or column of glass below them that they could retreat to. Even as he did, he saw a shimmering blue barrier extend from the wall of the shaft, stretching across the length of the chasm. He had no idea what the hell that was, but Julia had picked up on it too, biting at her lip as she glanced between the Abyss and their opponents.

  Regardless of that new mystery, it didn’t look like there was anywhere to go but straight down.

  “And if the guards see you ambush us like this?” Finn offered in rebuttal, trying to buy himself some time to think. He waved at Altair and his soldiers farther down the ridge. The soldiers had managed to clear a small pocket of air and were desperately trying to hold off the sand wraiths. They were within line of sight, even if they appeared to be busy at the moment.

  What the hell is our move here? Finn thought frantically, his mind racing. They were outnumbered, in a shitty location, with some sort of sand ghosts attacking them on the other side of Kalisha’s barrier. Fighting seemed like a long shot. Yet they still couldn’t afford to respawn back in Lahab. They would lose far too much time trying to get back.

/>   He felt a brief pulse of warmth drift through his body, his fire mana simmering in his veins in response to the desperate emotions that were surging through his mind. With that warmth came a memory – Finn recalling the Seer’s whispered words.

  “A storm is coming, but you cannot be afraid to leap.”

  She couldn’t possibly have meant that literally, Finn thought to himself. Had the Seer really foreseen this situation? Or had she just muttered something vague and gotten lucky?

  “You’re right, we can’t afford to have any witnesses,” the merchant replied calmly, and Finn’s eyes snapped back to her. The engineer gestured at Vanessa, and the water mage’s eyes flashed as her fingers twined through a series of gestures. Suddenly, a fresh cloud of sand billowed outward and encircled them, although Finn didn’t feel any of the harsh particles slide against his skin. It was an illusion then, just enough to obscure them from Altair’s sight – assuming he even had the time or attention to look in their direction.

  “Now we have some privacy. I really hate to do this, but one competitor is much better than two. I’m sure you understand. It’s just good business,” Kalisha explained with a shrug. Even as she finished speaking, Malik and his two companions stepped forward, their blades raised, and the gems embedded in the metal glowing ominously as they charged up their attack.

  Finn glanced at Julia and then at the pit behind them. It seemed they didn’t have many options, and the Seer had urged him to take a leap…

  How deep had Altair said the shaft was again? A couple thousand feet? Maybe enough time to figure out a way not to get crushed into a fine pulp.

  As he met his daughter’s eyes, he saw the same realization blooming there – a stony resignation settling across her face.

  This was going to suck. A lot.

  Finn and Julia backpedaled as the fighters approached. Julia sheathed her blades and grabbed Finn’s arm, even as he directed his blades into position, the fiery knives slicing through the fake sand that drifted around them.