Archemi Online Chronicles Boxset

by James Osiris Baldwin

  The Amalgamation tensed up in a way that my gamer brain was instinctively familiar with: ‘Area of Effect attack imminent’.

  “Hector!” Karalti’s voice pierced the battle fugue as I began to run a circle around it, putting broken furniture between us. “What’s happening!?”

  “I thought you hated me.”

  “I do! But not THAT much.”

  “Big monster. Lots of HP.” I saw the monster stiffen, and triggered Shadow Dance.

  The Gibbering Flesh Amalgamation’s body erupted with splinters of wood, bone, and absorbed weapons, blasting everything in a thirty-foot radius like the grossest nail-bomb in history. Most of it went through my temporarily-gaseous form, but I took a few shards to the chest when I rematerialized. Twenty-three HP down the drain.

  Karalti called to me again. “I’m coming! Hang on! Suri is coming, too!”

  “What!? Stop her! She only has one arm!” Panting, I ran back toward the Amalgamation and Jumped, this time with the intent to use Obscuring Veil - the new Jump combo chain I’d forgotten about in the excitement - but the creature did something I’d never seen in a video game before. It anticipated my move. As I plummeted toward it, a huge mouth unzippered along its side, gaping into what could have almost passed for a fang-lined grin.

  “GOAT BALLS!” I couldn’t change my trajectory fast enough.

  [x3 damage! You deal 401 damage! Amalgamation is immune to critical hits!]’

  [You are entangled! -50% maneuverability!]

  [Amalgamation has swallowed you whole!]

  The flesh horror slammed shut around me like a Venus flytrap, plunging me into darkness. And suddenly, I really missed Umbra Burst.

  [Amalgamation uses Engulf! You take 100 damage!]

  Pain blossomed in about half a dozen place on my body at once. It was fucking chewing me! Revulsion crawled up the back of my throat. I slammed down three Moss Tinctures as my health dropped down into the red, bringing it back up to half after the last attack. I had eleven potions left.

  [Amalgamation uses Engulf! You take 100 damage!]

  Fuck. Shadow Dance allowed me to become immaterial enough to allow blows to pass through me, but it unfortunately didn’t allow me to phase through barriers. I struggled with everything I had, plunging the spear into the monster’s body like a butter churn.

  [You deal 120 damage to Amalgamation! HP: 3060/5000]

  [Amalgamation uses Engulf! You take 100 damage! HP: 414/559]

  And then it occurred to me - I now had Whirlwind Butcher III. And it wasn’t affected by the entanglement penalty.

  I couldn’t see or hear, but I felt dark, savage strength gather in my body, then ejected explosively as I tore my spear up and around through the belly of the monster. I was inside it - so all six blows hit, and they tore it to shreds.

  [You deal 758 damage to Gibbering Flesh Amalgamation!]

  [Karalti uses her breath weapon! 450 damage!]

  [Amalgamation is on fire!]

  [Suri uses Primal Rage! Suri loses control!]

  I felt the boss monster rumble through. The side of it split, and it spat me out into the open air. I twisted like an acrobat and landed, only to look up and see one of the weirdest sights I’d ever witnessed in my entire life.

  The Flesh Amalgamation was crowned with white fire, and lurched as it sizzled and popped with a smell that was alarmingly similar to barbecued pork. Karalti had torn a hole in the ceiling and was raining Ghost Fire down on it from above. Suri had stripped her flimsy dress down to her waist and torn off a long strip of it, which she had tied around the bloody stump of her left arm at the elbow as a makeshift tourniquet. She was boiling with a red aura, and her face was a mask of uncontrollable frenzy as she ran in, topless, with an ax, and leaped bodily onto the Amalgamation with no apparent regard for her life.

  “No! Whyyy!? You have a hundred and eighty HP and NO FUCKING ARMOR!” I yelled in frustration as I shook red goo off myself and sprinted back into the battle.

  [Amalgamation hits Suri for 75 reduced damage!]

  [Suri’s rage builds as she is injured! Damage reduction and attack power drastically increases!]

  [Suri hits Amalgamation for 440 damage!]

  [Amalgamation hits Suri for 55 reduced damage!]

  [Suri’s rage builds as she is injured! Damage reduction and attack power drastically increases!]

  [Suri hits Amalgamation for 660 damage!]

  [Amalgamation takes 100 Fire damage!]

  Oh wow. Okay. That was why. But even with crazy berserker DR, she only had 50 HP left and could only take a few more hits with that amputation in play - and I bet that this ability of hers would cost her afterward.

  As I ran, I planned my next moves. And then I sprung up to Jump.

  The Amalgamation didn’t have to turn to see me - it had eyes everywhere. As it had last time, a gaping maw split along its side, but I didn’t carry Jump through into its meteoric strike this time. I used it evasively, springing off the edge of its meat-mouth, and then triggered my other new ability: Shattering Darkness. Dark energy rippled along my spear, then blasted forward as I stuck the huge monster with the very tip of the Alpha Rod. An icy blast of shadow sped down the haft and blew into the Amalgamation, sending thin spikes of black ice through the entire mass of its body.

  [You used an Ice attack! It’s super effective!]

  [You deal 500 Freezing damage to Amalgamation!]

  [Amalgamation takes 100 Fire damage!]

  [Suri hits Amalgamation for 660 damage!]

  The overkill stacked up in a single round. Simultaneously burning and freezing, the Amalgamation emitted a shrill roar that rattled my teeth. Suri’s final ax blow sent cracks through its frozen body. It rumbled, slowly expanding with bursts of magical light, and then exploded into chunks.

  [You have defeated Gibbering Flesh Amalgamation!]

  [You gain 1000 EXP!]

  [Congratulations! You are Level 12!]

  “Dun dahh da dah da-ow!” I pressed a hand to one of my ringing ears as a small spike of pain flashed through it, then pulled it away with a grimace as I realized it was covered in blood and slime. “Eww. Fucking gross, man.”

  Suri staggered up bare-breasted, gore-streaked, her remaining hand clenched around the haft of her ax. She panted through her teeth, her gold eyes blazing. It was like staring into the face of War personified.

  “Well. Th-th at was a bit nasty, wasn’t it?” The woman tried to lean on her weapon to rest, and stumbled to her knees. She swayed for a second, and then fell flat on her face.

  I ran to her side just as Karalti dropped through the gaping hole in the ceiling, sending dirt and broken tiles, plaster, and wood everywhere. She landed on the remains of the Flesh Amalgamation as I stopped beside Suri and felt for her pulse on IRL instinct.

  “Are you okay?” My dragon squeaked.

  “I feel like a refugee from a German porn set, but I’m okay.” To my great relief, Suri’s heart was strong. I checked her in the Party menu: she had healed some HP, but she was still under 180 because of the severed arm. Her stamina was zero, and her status was ‘Unconscious’. I guessed that was a symptom of the Berserk Rage ability she’d used. “Come on, we have to go outside and see who survived. Search the monster. But... be respectful. My friend was sucked into that.”

  “Okay. Well, it’s good that I don’t hate you anymore.” Karalti hopped off it, and began to delicately nose through the remains.

  I felt heat from above, and looked up to see that the ceiling was on fire. Great. With a heavy heart, I slung my cloak off and crouched down. I used it to cover Suri up, then went to loot the Amalgamation.

  [Gold Ruby Ring x 3]

  [Gold Necklace x 4]

  [Broken Plates x 10]

  [Iron Sword x 4]

  [Green crystal Mana x 6]

  [100 olbia]

  [Petko Matthias’ pipe]

  The last one was genuinely painful. I pulled the pipe out of the sticky mess and wiped it off. Matthias. You poor son
of a bitch.

  “Hey! I found something!” Karalti said from behind me.

  “What?” Swallowing my grief, I stashed the pipe and turned to face her.

  Karalti trotted over, and spat something into the palm of my hand. It was a ring with a grinning cat’s face, just like the one we’d found on the rogue outside of Kanzo’s laboratory.

  “Well, what do you know,” I muttered, turning it around. “It’s our old friend, the King of Cats.”

  Chapter 31

  “I am truly sorry I did not take you seriously. I have failed my nation, my king, and Father Matthias.” Kirov was slumped in a chair, with his sword resting over his knees and his helmet by his feet. He looked like he’d been gutshot.

  Kirov, Suri, and I were all bunkered in Suri’s quarters - a suite that had clearly been lived in longer than the one Karalti and I currently occupied. My dragon was out hunting.

  “The guy had the explosives stitched up into him. There’s no way anyone could have known.” I wrung out a cloth, and wiped it over Suri’s face. She was in bed, covered up and mostly well, though she was still passed out. A check of the wiki had revealed that the Berserk Rage ability inflicted a fatigue penalty equal to the amount of Adrenaline used to power the ability. In Suri’s case, that was nearly all of it - which meant she’d be out until we did something about her arm and her health and stamina could start to regen normally.

  “That bottle of mana and reagent was probably smuggled in days ago. I should have believed you in your entirety,” Kirov replied miserably. “You are the guardian of a sacred draak, and you have proven yourself to be a mighty warrior, as is Suri. I admit, I had my doubts about her...”

  “About Suri?”

  He nodded. “The Volod, well... He is something of, how should I put it? He can be something of a cad, and she is fair of face and form. I’d wondered if he hired her because of that.”

  “What you just said is more insulting to Suri than it is to the Volod.” I dropped the cloth back in the bucket of warm mineral water beside the bed, then reached out and felt Suri’s temperature. Her forehead was hot. I was worried about that arm - blood poisoning was a feature of this VR.

  “What I mean to say is that His Majesty is inordinately fond of the company of beautiful women, and that, well… He’s done it before.”

  I snorted. “Call it like it is, then. He’s a fuckboy.”

  Kirov’s tattooed face twitched. “That is... vulgar.”

  “So is assuming shit about people based on optics.” I pulled my pack around, and began to withdraw items from my Inventory: my alchemy set and some of the herbs I’d bought. I settled a mortar and pestle in my lap, threw in some Holy Basil and Green Moss, and then added some powdered Birch Bark as a binder before starting to grind. The three ingredients formed the basis for a simple Blood Cleansing potion that helped ward off the Infection debuff. Like real blood poisoning, the debuff could kill a player if you didn’t head it off.

  “You are once more correct.” The lines around Kirov’s mouth deepened, and he sagged even more deeply into his chair. “I am a disgrace.”

  “No offense, but if you want some bread to go with your whine, I’m not the man to talk to.” I scowled as I beat the potion ingredients together, then added [Pure Alcohol] to the mixture. “Look, shit happens. We both lost a friend, but we’ve got terrorists to catch and a murderer to put down. Matthias threw himself on that bomber to save people’s lives. We owe him our best until the job is done.”

  Kirov hunched. “I know what you speak is the truth. Perhaps I just needed to hear it from someone outside my own head.”

  “That’s usually how it goes.” I mashed the plant matter into the alcohol. The mixture turned a bright lime-green color as the plant matter broke up into the potion. Not particularly realistic, but satisfying.

  [You have made 2 x Sweet Basil Tinctures]

  I took two of my empty flasks out, and bottled the liquid. One went in my Inventory for later, and one went to Suri. I wet a new rag with it, and applied it to the stump of her arm.

  Just as I was doing that, the door opened. A small, wizened old woman with her hair wrapped up in a scarf came bustling in. She had piercing dark eyes and a bounce in her step. She carried a brown leather doctor’s bag in one hand. “A-ha! If it isn’t Ur Kirov!”

  “Elder Mashka.” Kirov stood up and bowed respectfully. “Elder, this is-”

  “I know who the dragonrider is, boy. Don’t you think everyone in Vlachia does by now? Bozye mada.” The old woman rolled her eyes, but her expression softened when she lit on Suri in her bed. She bustled over.

  “Rytier Hector, this is Mashka Kali,” Kirov said weakly. “She is the Palace Alchemist.”

  “AND the Field Medic for the Knights of the Red Star,” Mashka added crisply. “AND the Senior Medical Instructor of the Vulkan Garrison.”

  I smiled ruefully as the old woman pushed in, bumping me aside with her hip. “I never would have guessed.”

  “Let me see... hmmm...” Mashka pursed her wrinkled lips as she checked Suri’s vitals, then her arm. “I have a Limb Restoration decoction, but it will make her ill.”

  “Alchemical?” I asked.

  The woman gave me a waspish - but curious - look. Then her gaze fell on the mortar, with its bright green potion. “A student of the art, are you?”

  “I’m muddling along,” I replied. “Only had some really basic training from some village herbalists. The rest is self-taught.”

  She grunted. “Yes, the Limb Regrowth potion is alchemical. She’s Fireblooded, which means she isn’t likely to transform into some nasty beastie, but she will be unwell. The limb regeneration takes four hours, and the illness will last twelve.”

  I rubbed my chin in thought. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to share the recipe?”

  “At a glance, I can tell your Alchemy skill is not high enough for you to craft it, though we could fix that.” Masha turned back to Suri. “For now, study its effects.”

  Masha rummaged through her bag, and took out a small, oddly shaped vial that contained a small amount of bright yellow liquid. Visually, the main difference between alchemical and herbal potions was that alchemical potions always glowed, as this one did.

  “She will not Strange?” Kirov’s eyebrows furrowed.

  “There is always a small chance the cure acts as a poison. In her case, it is unlikely. A fever and the sweats is the worst she can expect, and that’s a small price to pay for the cost of a limb.” The old woman tipped Suri’s head up, set the uncorked potion to her lips, and slowly let it trickle in. She followed it up with a plain herbal [Stamina Potion].

  Suri’s face scrunched in pain, and then she groaned under her breath.

  “Don’t let her push herself. Probably a difficult job with this particular woman, but she can’t afford to exert herself for the next four hours. It is best that she sleep all through the night and into tomorrow.” Masha nodded, and snapped her bag closed.

  “We’ll do our best to keep her down,” I said. “Did I hear you make an offer to teach me Alchemy, ma’am?”

  “I’ll consider it, though you must pay for tuition.” The brisk little woman turned to face me. “People never seem to value the wisdom they are given for free.”

  “Deal,” I said. “But not until she’s okay.”

  Masha smiled, then gave us a tiny nod and hastened off the way she’d come.

  “I ought to leave too. I must face my Brothers and the Volod, and determine what the future holds for me and my family.” Kirov rose, the round plates of his armor clinking like coins.

  I cocked my head. “You have a family? I didn’t know that.”

  He smiled faintly. “A wife and a little daughter, yes. Good luck, and thank you. Believe me, rytier, the story of you and Suri’s battle against the foul creature that killed so many will be spread around the city come morn.”

  “Mama always told me I’d be famous.” I flashed him a big sloppy grin, which lasted until he clo
sed the door behind him. Then it abruptly fell away. I slumped back with a sigh of relief, and looked down at Suri. When I saw her looking back, I jumped about a foot inside of my own skin.

  I straightened up in my seat. “Oh, shit, Suri! Hi! You’re looking very...”

  “Stumpy?” she croaked.

  “I was going say you looked ‘pruned’,” I replied. “You know, like a rose bush. You cut it back for the winter so that it grows out in the spring. That means when your arm grows back, there’ll be like... four of them.”

  “Three more fists to punch you in the face with.” She groaned, shifting around on the bed. “You got me a limb regrowth brew?”

  “Sure did. Masha - the Healer - said you’d feel like a gaping crusty ass for about twelve hours.” I folded my arms, resigned to remaining on duty.

  Suri sighed. “That’d be right. So, you saved my ass, huh?”

  “You saved mine,” I replied. “You and Karalti. I have to say, for someone who doesn’t like to respawn, you came running back in like a suicidal maniac.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “You didn’t even think to equip your armor, though?”

  “Primal Rage only works without armor. One of those Berserker things.” Suri was beginning to look quite flushed and hot. Her cheeks were reddening, and her hair was damp and sticking to her brow.

  I wrung out the rag from the bucket, and dabbed her forehead with it. Her lips parted, as if she were about to say something, but then she seemed to think better of it and relaxed back against the pillows.

  “You need some water?” I asked.

  Suri nodded, eyes closed. I got up, and went to the dresser to pour her a cup from pitcher.

  “Thanks,” she said. “For not letting me die.”

  “Well, I remember you telling me that you never wanted to.” I shrugged. “I get it. I have phobias too. For me, it’s bugs. Not like…big bugs. Little bugs that get under your clothes and bite you and shit. Ticks, scorpions, shit like that. I fucking hate ticks.”

  “I’m not afraid to die,” Suri said. “I’m scared of where I end up when I come back.”

  I turned back around, and found Suri looking away from me toward the window. “What do you mean?”