Archemi Online Chronicles Boxset

by James Osiris Baldwin

  I kind of awkwardly wiped everything, then straightened up and went back to the window, bending down to look out. We were on the hairpin road leading up to the castle, just about to turn the bend that led into the gatehouse. When I looked up at the portcullis, my blood turned to ice.

  Kirov hung limp along a long metal stake mounted on the wall like a flagpole. The sharp end jutted out from his mouth. But even worse were the bodies mounted alongside him: Stefin the Jeweller, his eyes still bugged from terror and agony, two women, and three children. All staked, and left out for the crows.

  I squeezed the bars until my knuckles groaned, clenching and unclenching my jaw. “I see Andrik’s fucking death sentence, is what I see.”

  “That’s what I figured.” Suri sounded as exhausted as I felt. “Volods, Sultirs, Emperors… royals are all the fuckin’ same. He’s probably going to stake us, too. If I end up back in Al-Asad-”

  “Don’t say that.” I drew a furious shuddering breath, and pushed back from the window to pace back and forth inside the narrow space. “I won’t let them send you back.”

  “You can’t. I’ve already tried breaking the window and the piss grate on my side. No luck, and I’m up to 42 Strength after my last level. So what I was gonna say was... if I end up in Al-Asad, don’t give up on me. I’ll find a way out again, somehow. I dunno. Maybe it’ll be easier to break out now that these Architects are mostly out of the way.”

  “I won’t give up on you, and I won’t give up on Karalti.” I rolled my shoulders, balled and unballed my fists, and wracked my brains for a solution as we turned and climbed the final hill toward the keep. “If I have to bust through the walls like the fucking Kool Aid Man, I will. These motherfuckers don’t know who they’re dealing with.”

  “The Kool Aid what?”

  “The Kool Aid Man. You know. He’s this giant jug full of juice that breaks through walls and screams ‘OHHH YEAAAH!’.”

  “Right. Think you could start by breaking through the walls of this prison wagon, then?”

  I took a moment to compose my best nerd voice. “Weell, ackthully, there’s more to life than just muthcles? And I hypothesize we’re going to have to use our brains for thith dilemma?”

  “Christ.” I was pretty sure I could hear Suri’s eyes rolling around and around in her head, like the wagon wheels. “How are you managing to take the piss when we’re about to die?”

  “I was taking a piss when I was so rudely interrupted.”

  She groaned. “If you keep talking about your fetish, I’m gonna start telling you all about my trip to the grate.”

  I pressed up against the wall. “I’m just trying to warm up before King Ramrod gets busy with those stakes.”

  Suri barked a short, bitter laugh.

  “Biznasck! Shut up in there!” A guard pulled up beside my window on his hookwing, banging his spear against the bars before riding off ahead.

  “You shut up.” I gave him the finger, but he didn’t see it. “Asshole.”

  In all honesty, I had no idea what to do - other than joke around to stop myself from going insane with anxiety and rage. Death by stake was not exactly my idea of a fun time, but I couldn’t believe an NPC was capable of inflicting that kind of torture on players. There had to be some real-world law against that, something that would prevent it from happening. We were just going to have to wing it once we were inside the castle, and hope that one of us could think of something.

  The wagon stopped thunking as we rumbled over the drawbridge, and then smoothed out even more once we were headed through the grand gates leading into Vulkan Keep proper. Guards were pacing by the wagon on both sides now, so I hung by the wall and ground my teeth, waiting for the right opportunity. I’d escaped imprisonment twice in Archemi already. I was sure I could do it again.

  We didn’t go inside a building: we went underground, moving past the hookwing stables to somewhere deeper under the Keep. When the wagons stopped, I heard Suri shuffle around in her nest of chains, moving away from the back wall toward her cell entry point.

  “Stop it! Let me go!” A high, girlish voice cried out from up the line. Rin.

  “You there - help the mages with that dragon. It won’t carry itself!” A thickly accented voice demanded of the other guards. “You - put the disruptor to that silverskin’s head. If she does not comply, you stun her like a cow.”

  Fuck. I had no idea what a ‘disruptor’ was, but it sounded like magitech.

  Suri was next out. She launched herself at the guards with a shout, cursing in three different languages as she fought. A mostly-naked Berserker was still a Berserker, and I tensed with excitement as one guard gargled and fell while others shouted in alarm. But once again, there were too many of them, and not enough of us. Suri was bought to ground, and I clenched my jaws together at the sound of her being beaten into silence.

  Twenty nearly-silent minutes passed before a heavy fist thumped against my door. “You! Stand facing the back wall with your hands up. If you do not comply, then the lives of your women and your dragon are forfeit.”

  I frowned. There was a good chance they were forfeit anyway, but I remembered the words that Karalti’s mother had said to me not long ago. “Herald… you are a creature of shadow. Be subtle and be clever.”

  I drew a deep breath, turned around, and put my hands up.

  A key turned inside a heavy lock, and then the door opened out, admitting two guards. They took me by the elbows, and I let them walk me out - not resisting, but not doing anything to help them, either. We were in a loading-dock like area that had a low stone platform and multiple doors leading further underground. There was no sign of Rin or Suri - save for Suri’s blood on the ground. The Captain gave a terse nod when he saw me, then spun on his heel and clanked his way toward one of the doors, unlocking it ahead of us.

  The guards frogmarched me through a series of dimly lit tunnels - winding tunnels with deep S-curves and defensible murder holes. Several steel doors and a flight of stairs later, I found myself entering through a secret door into the Great Hall, where Volod Andrik Corvinus the Third sat in his throne, contemplating a huge magical circle that had been drawn straight onto the flagstones. Karalti was in the middle of it, wrapped up like a tamale in layers of blankets and chains. When she saw me, she whimpered - but it was clear she couldn’t move.

  I kept the insults and angry words locked down deep inside as I was taken around Karalti to join Rin and Suri, who had been made to kneel in front of the staged area that contained the Corvinus Throne. There were other people here besides the Volod, flanking Andrik to either side: to his left was Garen, the Commander of the Kingsguard, who was dressed in full black dragon plate armor. He had his hands wrapped around the hilt of his greatsword, the point resting on the floor, and was now flagged as a combatant. He had a violet HP ring with a skull beside it, as did the other five Kingsguard who ranged around the throne.

  To Andrik’s right was the Voivode, Janos Lanz, and a well-muscled, olive-skinned man with piercing green eyes I didn’t recognize. He was old enough to have gray streaks in his curling hair, and was wearing robes and an apron similar to the ornate clothing of Forgemaster Toth. I could guess this was his replacement.

  “You know, I really would like to be wrong about foreigners for once in my life.” Andrik said. He sat with one ankle crossed over his other knee. He was dressed in his scorched armor, his ruby crown, and had a jeweled longsword resting over his lap. “I hired you in good faith. I offered you hospitality in my castle-”

  “Yeah. You did. And you just broke hospitality,” I snapped back.

  The guard on my right slapped me over the back of the head. “Silence.”

  Andrik’s pale eyes glittered with rage. “I host you rabble in my home, and what does my spy report? Not only were you were seen entering a known hideout for the Nightstalkers - the organization associated with these terrorist acts - but you were seen laughing and fraternizing with them, shortly before you detonating explosives in t
he Main Square. Then you and THAT-” he pointed down at Rin, “-began slaughtering my people, in broad daylight.

  “I have a name!” Rin replied hotly.

  “You are the Slayer’s accomplice.” Andrik rose to his feet, the sword in hand. It was slightly too long for him, and the tip of the blade scraped the marble floor as he took a step forward. “And you, all of you, were working with her. Hiding her. Conspiring against me.”

  “Mate, you’ve lost your fuckin’ mind.” Suri’s voice was thick and stuffy. They’d broken her nose.

  “You mean to tell me that the series of convenient escapes that have occurred since he arrived are coincidences?” He pointed the sword at me, and I leaned back. “That you and this fugitive dragon thief didn’t warn this Mercurion to escape her home? I know you Starborn are capable of communicating with each other over distances. How did Kanzo set up explosives at the auction house? How is he moving around the city? I’ll tell you - he is aided and abetted by terrorists and foreigners, and YOU!”

  The ‘you’ was clearly directed at Suri and I. And in that moment, I made my choice.

  “Well, you caught me.” I jerked my head and sniffed. “She had nothing to do with it though. It was me.”

  Suri turned her head sharply. So did Rin.

  “Yup. Guilty as charged. I’ve been sucking the mana out of Kanzo’s cock all this time.” I pumped a fist as enthusiastically as the chains allowed for. “Fuck the police! Screw monarchy! This is Vlachia, son! Guns, gloryholes and freedom - yeehaw!”

  “Oh - so you admit you are complicit? That was unexpected.” Andrik’s eyes narrowed as he turned toward me. “You see, I had a discussion with someone from Ilia, someone whose opinion I greatly respect. They warned me not to trust anything you said, but to expect you to deny and defer blame. Do you think being honest will bring you mercy?”

  “I think it should help you lay blame where blame’s due.” I shrugged. “Suri didn’t know. She was just doing her job.”

  She scowled. “Hector-”

  “I did message Rin behind Suri’s back. I let her off the hook, twice.” I held up my hands. “I did fight Kanzo, and let him escape. I didn’t kill Red on the spot at the party, and I did go to Cat Alley and speak to Mister King.”

  Andrik was looking increasingly smug.

  “But you know what I didn’t do?” I continued. “I didn’t frame my older brother as a furry-loving pervert so that I could usurp his throne for myself, and then try and hire someone to kill him when he came back from exile as the ironically named ‘King of Cats’ to kick your ass.”

  Before I’d finished speaking, the Mark of Matir flared with a sharp pain, and in the corner of my eye, a violet and black ‘X’ icon appeared. The vow of secrecy I had taken had been broken. Now, I was a marked man.

  Andrik had affected amusement right up until the assassination conspiracy part, and then his expression froze into a hard, cold, calculating mask.

  “Yeah, that oath you put me under? Fuck it.” I said, shrugging off one of the guards as he tried to cuff me across the ear. “You made me, the Herald of Matir, swear under the Kara Bukat Talom-”

  “Silence him!” Andrik snapped at the guards behind me.

  “-and you offered money for me to kill Ignas Corvinus!” I spat, nearly shouting his brother’s name in his face as I struggled against the soldiers, trying to avoid being knocked out.

  “Your Majesty? Does he speak the truth?” Voivode of Czongrad, Janos Lanz, stepped forward. the new Forgemaster had turned ashen.

  “What? Of course not. It’s desperate nonsense.” Andrik, barely holding his calm, waved it off.

  Suri bared her teeth. “Oh no, it’s true alright. Ignas is alive. The King of Cats is Ignas.”

  I was hit in the head enough times that I lost track of up and down. They must have knocked me out - because I blinked, and in that second, I went from being up on one knee to lying on my face on the floor.

  “He’s not lying!” Rin exclaimed. “I met him as well. He’s blackmailing Kanzo so that he will take revenge on Andrik for-”

  “SHUT UP!” Andrik turned away from me and lunged toward Rin, the sword raised. “SHUT UP, YOU SIMULACRA BITCH!”

  “No! Sire! Her blood-!” Ur Garen charged forward to intercept his king.

  Before he got there in time, Andrik struck Rin across the face with the flat of the blade, pitching her to the ground. She fell with a short scream, and kept screaming as he began to kick her, over and over again. Chained as she was, she was defenseless.

  “Lay off her, you rat-bastard!” I pushed myself up, only to be taken down again. Oof: I only had 15 HP left.

  “Stay back, Garen! And give me that!” Andrik wrenched a spear from the hands of one of the attending soldiers. Suri and I shouted and struggled as more soldiers came in to back up the ones holding us, while the Voivode, the priest, and everyone else watched on in mute horror as Andrik began to beat Rin with the haft of the spear. She hadn’t been high on health to start with: each blow took off a sliver of her HP.

  [Rin is in critical condition!]

  “RIN!” I felt Matir’s power surge in my body, prickling up from the Mark as I prepared to use Life for Life. It would give me enough energy to get these fuckers off me, and then... then...

  “No! Just find me!” Pinned under three soldiers, I couldn’t see Rin - just hear her, as her voice weakened and cracked. “Don’t... here... just... fi-!”

  There was a horrible dull crack as Andrik broke the spear haft over Rin’s body.

  [Rin Lu has died.]

  “You fucker!” I didn’t want to listen to what she’d said. I snarled aloud as a surge of feral, furious strength rolled through me... strength that froze me as the guards hauled me upright, and I saw Andrik throw the broken spear away. He had the point of his sword pressed to the back of Suri’s neck. “You-!”

  “She’s next if you BOTH DON’T SHUT UP!” Panting, red-faced, he punctuated each word by pushing with the blade. “I want that Mercurion bitch staked out over the gate leading into the Tanners' District. NOW.”

  Even with a greathelm obscuring Garen’s face, I could see him hesitate. “Sire, she’s-”

  “STAKE HER OVER THE FUCKING GATE!” Andrik screamed back at him.

  “... Yes, sire.” Garen stiffly bowed his head, cutting around us to approach Rin’s body, but no sooner had he bent down to pick her up than her corpse pixelated and vanished, leaving only her gear behind. “Uhh...”

  Suri grunted against the floor, flinching as the point of the sword dug in at the base of her skull. “She’s Starborn, you idiot.”

  Andrik’s cheeks flushed a red so dark it was nearly purple.

  “We must speak to this King of Cats.” The new Forgemaster had a deep voice, thick with concern - and disgust. “If there is no truth to what this man - who is branded with the Mark of one of the Nine - has said...”

  “There is no truth to it! My cat-fucking sodomite of a brother is dead!” Andrik turned on him, teeth bared. “I am your king! I am a descendant of Khors himself!”

  The Voivode’s face was wooden, his mouth a grim slash in his face. “I must concur with the High Forgemaster. There must be an appearance, and when the truth is satisfied, an execution.”

  “Yes. Execution.” Andrik’s cheeks were still burning. Breathing heavily, sweat running down from under the silver band of his crown, he took the sword away from Suri’s neck. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. “Though there are worse things than death for a Starborn, aren’t there? Hector, I am giving you one final ultimatum.”

  The Volod withdrew back to his throne, and plopped down. He took his crown from his head, and with his fingers, popped out one of the rubies from its setting. Several people around us gasped.

  “This ruby.” He wrapped a fist around it, nostrils trembling. “Will contain a message from me to this self-styled king of filth. If he is Ignas, he will be able to receive the message, and he will know where to come to face me. We
will wait in the appointed place. You will have two hours to deliver this ruby and return. And if you can’t, I am sending your dragon back to Ilia, to her rightful owners. If you fail in your mission, or if you run, you will never see her again.”

  Karalti bugled behind me, a shrill cry of distress that Andrik ignored as he whispered against his fist and concentrated. There was a soft flare of red light between his fingers... and then he threw the gem at me. It hit me in the chest and clattered to the floor.

  Quest Update: The Slayer of Taltos/Stalkers in the Night

  You have 120 minutes to find Ignas and deliver his brother’s message. Run.

  Chapter 40

  “Rin! Are you alive? Where the hell did you respawn?!” I P.M’d Rin as I raced Cutthroat down the road from Vulkan Keep at full speed, holding onto her saddle with my knees like a jockey as we churned up dirt on the way down to the city gate.

  “I’m okay! I’m sure that hurt, but yay for terminal amnesia! V(^__^)v” She texted back.

  “Listen: I have two hours to deliver a Corvinus Ruby with a message to Ignas and get back to the castle. Andrik is summoning him to the Keep. I just spent fifteen getting the fuck out of Vulkan Keep, and I’m a good fifteen to twenty minutes from Cat Alley. I’m on the fastest hookwing I know-”

  “You can’t go straight to the International District! (O_O)! It has to be a trap!” Rin replied. “Not to mention, wherever you met Ignas, he’s not going to be there anymore.”

  I’d had a horrible gnawing feeling about that as well. Ignas wasn’t the sort of guy to take risks - like waiting in the same place where agents of his crazypants brother had visited earlier in the day. “Shitballs. Any idea where he might have gone?”

  “No, I don’t... but I know someone who can help.” There was a pause, then a second message. “You’re not going to like it... (>_>);”

  “It’s fucking Kanzo, isn’t it?” I steered Cutthroat out of the way of incoming traffic, belting past them toward the open gate.

  “Yeah... I respawned in his location. After the bomb went off, the King of Cats contacted him and told him to get to a meeting to get his ‘daughter’ back. They said they were going to release her. He’s still here... I bet the two of us could convince him to take us to the handover.”