Endless Online: Oblivion's Blade

by M. H. Johnson

  Val turned to Halvar. "It's a Shadowknight, whatever the hell that means. I think it's mostly spirit, but your gun won't do jack!" He turned to Elise, his intent gaze upon her glittering blade making his hunch a certainty. "Elise. Your sword may counter it. If you confront it with your sword, I'll try to harry it with fire!"

  Sten frowned, trying in vain to use a metallic disk placed on his friend's chest. "Damn, this thing is worthless! Arcane resonances are too high, the routers are already blown." He turned up, eyes widening as he took in the Shadowknight, registering Val's words after the fact. "Elise, are you up for this?"

  She paled, gazing at the horror even then approaching, step by awful step, the earth trembling with each footstep. Awful laughter filled the cathedral.

  "Fresh slaves for the master." A voice hoary as winter washed through their souls.

  Val's heart began to hammer as he embraced the icy cold certainty of death. Became one with it, feeling his own furious, icy resolve seep into his veins, the memory of every scream he had ever heard or inflicted washing through him. Blood on his hands, frosty hate in his soul.

  He was not Val Hunter as he slowly pivoted around his terrible foe. He was the night itself. Darkness. He was the emptiness between thought and action. He was death flowing forward, icy cold before blazing in sudden hot fury, left hand jutting out as he roared an oath that just felt right, twisted words his ears couldn't even comprehend as fiery magics blazed through him, staggering the demon of vilest shadow, now roaring in inhuman fury.

  Firestream critical hit! Shadowmind stealth successful, critical damage rendered! Foe's matrix has been pierced, mobility impaired until it feeds upon fresh souls. (Yours, perchance, Val?) 10 mana spent.

  Stealth Level 3 successfully quantized. You were a sneaky sniping bastard long ago, Val, in a life no more real than faerie tales. You always knew just where to move and when to stay utterly still. Just as you learned to hide your mind so none could sense the death waiting for them in your gaze. Fitting, then, you should remember your own darkness when fighting darker faeries still.

  Yet their foe was no simple ghost chained to endless unlife, but a being of power who clearly understood the lessons of battle as well as any mercenary. With awful speed it twisted around, the howling demon's shadowy sword hindered not at all by Val's mundane saber held in tierce. Only its surprise and Val's quick reflexes prevented Val from tasting whatever horrors that blade promised.

  Elise blinked, shocked to see Val act seemingly out of nowhere, precious seconds they dare not lose. "Elise!" Val screamed, backpedaling furiously as the now roaring knight of death and shadow lurched after Val.

  "Shit!" Val hissed, darting back as the awful blade of darkness tore through the air, Val's saber once again proving utterly unable to counter living shadow as Val stumbled to the ground, nowhere near as graceful as he was quick, but never one to freeze, rolling for all he was worth as the shadowknight's blade cut through stone and air, leaving no trace of its passage, though Val had no doubt it would be different should that blade touch his body, cleaving into Val's very soul.

  And suddenly a second roar of pain.

  Val did not waste time. Did not hesitate, spent no precious seconds orienting himself for safety, trusting that Elise had come through. He sprang up in the direction of that howl, arcane syllables already pouring from his lips, feeling that strangely sweet, fiery connection between that which was and which could be, glorying in the torrent of flame pouring from now both hands as he crashed to his knees and aimed upwards, straight into the shadowknight's face, his foe howling as liquid shadow began to burn, even as its dark blade swept over Val's head.

  The creature's howls abruptly cut off, staggering back before it's crimson eyes blinked in strange otherworldly surprise, Elise's blade having pierced right through it from behind, shadow armor proving no more viable than mist at stopping Elise's blade.

  The Shadowknight fell to its knees as Elise pulled out her now glowing blade. Eyes like violet flame, Elise roared, spinning about in a headsman's pirouette, cleaving through the demon's helm with a single terrible blow.

  Val had time to share a heartfelt grin with Elise before collapsing to the ground, Gregor's desperate cries stopping abruptly as Val's began.

  Shadowknight defeated! Thanks to effective use of stealth, fire, and an artifact from a family steeped in Psion tradition, you and Elise have managed to take down a foe that could have killed either of you with a single swipe! His potency and legacy have now been transferred to your party. Experience points distributed! He also hosted scores of tortured souls, and there is only one suitable vessel for containing them. Congratulations! You now host the power and agony of forty-two souls. Do you wish to feed upon them now? Yes / No.

  Val cried out, flooded by excruciating pain even as he caught a flash of his experience bar filling with blue, suddenly very close to what he assumed would be level 3 before that delusion was washed away in a sea of inconceivable pain. No! I'm not eating any poor souls! Even as he writhed in agony, he sensed their awful despair. Knew that he felt but the tiniest whisper of the perpetual pain tormenting them endlessly. It was a desperate struggle, resisting the call that would bring him sweetest relief. Yet for better or worse, he was well used to pain, and now it seemed forty-two souls were desperately counting on him for release and, he somehow sensed, the potential for rebirth and hope anew.

  So too, some dark, bitter part of himself knew that he could simply choose to feed upon them. That their power would rush into him, unlike anything he had ever experienced before. And they would be consumed utterly, gone forever.

  Even in his state of agony, catching sight of the wide-eyed helpless gazes of spirits that had died as no more than children was too much for him to bear.

  He would endure this, he swore to himself, even as he choked down screams, trembling as a surprisingly gentle Halvar held him steady, Sten himself gazing down with concerned dark eyes, Gregor looking as free of hostility as Val had ever seen him.

  "What's wrong with him?" An exhausted Gregor asked.

  Elise shook her head. "He took in that creature's essence. Somehow. All of its potency, its being, the force and weight of its presence in the universe."

  Gregor furrowed his brow. "But such a thing is outside the province of all but the legends revolving around you Highlords, is it not? I'm sorry, Elise, but that sounds like psionicist superstition to me."

  Halvar chuckled softly even as Elise paled with outrage. "You say this about a coven of men and women who now control most of the colonized galaxy? Their dreadnoughts orbiting how many planets? You don't think they've somehow figured out how to catalyze the potential of all their victims, all their conquests in ways far beyond most conquerors?" The soldier shook his head. "I thought you smarter than that, Gregor, especially as you yourself were seizing, fit to die of exhaustion because of some arcane trap, and it was Val here who sensed trouble coming."

  The words washed over Val as he did his best to come to terms with the fire burning through him. The living agony, now desperate to find a way to free those souls. There must be something he could do. Some way he could grant them peace. Or at least, get them out of him.

  He blinked and shivered with desperate hope, controlling his shakes, clenching down his screams. "Captain."

  Sten, gazing at Val as gently as he had ever seen him. "Yeah, kid, what is it?"

  "We need to go back to my birthplace... the room you found me in."

  Sten's lips pursed in a hard line. "We'd be going back and forth for the third time. We're going to run out of water before we have a chance at survival at this rate."

  "Please!" Val cried, unable to keep the raw pain at bay, having pushed down the annoying prompts with the last of his grit. "It's the only way I can free them!"

  The captain frowned. "Free who?"

  "Please, Sten. Please! If you do this, I... I can save your Silbion."

  Sten blinked. "And just how would you manage that, Val?"

 
Val closed his eyes tight with the pain. "Just trust me, Captain. After all, what do you have to lose, if you can never come back for it later?"

  Sten hissed an angry curse, his gaze catching Halvar. "You carry him. He can barely stand." Their leader sighed, shaking his head. "Alright, Val. We'll do this. But this is the last time! After this we make all haste, no matter what mystic crap is or is not happening."

  Val could only whimper, trying not to drown in tides of agony as Halvar gently led the way, the time passing in a blur of soothing words and pain before Val found himself before the vat of his birth, all but crying with relief.

  He gazed at the now empty vat, terrified his idea wouldn't work, that he would be stuck with this pain forever. Or worse, give in to the pain and devour forty-two souls, many of them children.

  He turned his desperate gaze to Halvar. "Thank you. If you could all just give me a few minutes of privacy, I am going to take off my clothes and rest. I hope that in an hour I will be... stabilized. Then we can go ahead, if you will wait that long."

  Sten sighed. "Don't think that I don't know that we owe you, Val, whether you are human or homunculus. My crew and I, we honor our debts. Recalibrate yourself, commune, do whatever it is you have to do. You have one hour, Val, and if you're not able to continue..." his gaze turned sad, then hardened. "We go ahead. I'll leave you one liter of water, and we will return as soon as we can, I promise you."

  Gregor frowned. "We can't really afford to give away any water, Captain."

  Elise glared at the small little man. "We're not abandoning anyone, Gregor. Besides, you owe him."

  Gregor grimaced. "I was afraid of that." He sighed, looking at Val doing his best to keep his agony contained, desperate for them all to leave before he did what he had to, whether or not they witnessed. "Thanks, kid. If your magic knack is what saved me, well, you're alright in my book, even if you do act like an idiot more often than not."

  Val chuckled painfully. "Thanks, Gregor."

  Gregor shook his head. "You really should learn to read, once you're claimed. You're not a complete idiot, but you will be treated as one, if you can't master even basic diagrams."

  "Enough," Sten finally said, leading them all out. "You have one hour, Val. Make it count." And their voices faded, Val sensing them heading to the library.

  Trembling with pain and the desperate hope of relief he could almost taste, Val stripped off his clothes, making truth of his pretext, before leaning over the vat that had served as his birthing chamber, grateful as hell that none of them had thought to look inside, to see that it was utterly empty of tainted Silbion. Then again, considering that they had feared it was unstable and likely to explode... it was no wonder they had no interest in peering at it up close, or why they were all too happy to retreat all the way to the library to give him privacy.

  Closing his eyes, he felt himself drift through his pain, even as he tried to commune with the source of his suffering.

  Freedom.

  They could taste the word.

  Somehow, Val sensed what was needed, feeling the liquid Silbion flow out of storage and into the vessel. His body flooded with relief as the souls poured out of him and into the liquid Silbion which seem to both draw the spirits and catalyze some sort of transition for them, each and every one of them bubbling away on what Val was strangely certain were tiny golden wings upon clouds of gentle mist. Val trembled at the sight, refusing to think too deeply on it, just happy to set them free.

  When it was done, his Silbion reserves were down a full liter. But he thought it a more than a fair trade, to redeem dozens of priceless souls, each of them sticking around long enough for Val to make out the brilliant, grateful smiles of what truly were dozens of children, each tiny spirit kissing Val's forehead before departing.

  Val fell to his knees and wept.

  Congratulations! You have chosen the alternate path. Why give into sweetest darkness when you can be a hero of the light? Experience gained! +1 to charisma! A sacred blessing for a noble hero. People will react more favorably to you, and are more likely to want to be a part of the story of your life.

  Val blinked, already feeling different somehow, even as he dressed in his limited wardrobe once more, grateful Halvar's thin protective robe was as much armor as clothing and covered him so well, once secured. He was glad to see that the captain's saber had been recovered and was cleaned and sheathed once more, tentatively heading out of the room in time to see Elise coming his way.

  She stopped, blinked, and tilted her head with the strangest of smiles. "Valor, is that you?"

  Val smiled back. "Of course. Who else would I be?"

  Her eyes twinkled with amusement. "Good point. It's just that you look... different, somehow. Certainly happier. I take it your communing worked?"

  Val dipped his head. "I feel much better. Thanks."

  Elise nodded, violet eyes gazing at him thoughtfully before favoring him with an indulgent chuckle, gentle fingers touching his cheeks. "You are a sweet one, Val. Thanks for taking point with me back there. If we hadn't worked together..."

  Val shrugged. "It worked. We both know how important it is to fight as a unit, if fighting is what's called for. I didn't mind striking all out. I knew you had my back, and when push came to shove, well, you ran him through, killing him even as I collapsed."

  She nodded. "His swings were devastating. If you hadn't harried him, somehow sneaking up in plain sight and blasting him even as he toyed with us, savoring our fear... that story could have had a far uglier outcome. And if that isn't evidence of Shadowmind at its finest, I don't know what is. Not many Psionists have that talent, Val. I'm glad you have a knack for it."

  Val blinked. "You don't know it?"

  She shook her head. "Not many do. The mindset is alien to the fierce sense of self that is the cornerstone of most Highlord disciplines. Perhaps when we manage to get out of here, we will have a chance to properly train you."

  Val grinned. "I would love to learn whatever you can teach me. How is everyone else?"

  Elise flashed a rueful grin. "Our blasters have blown out again. We had no choice but to act as we did, of course, but you used your magics too close to our gear, to say nothing of background mana radiation. The area was absolutely saturated with it." She sighed, squeezing his shoulder. "Gregor did give you a very good piece of advice. Learn to read, Val. With all your potential, it would be sad to see you cleaning sewage or doing endlessly repetitive assembly line work in environments too dangerous for machines to take your place."

  Val shuddered at the thought of the ultimate drudge work. Pretty much anything would be better than that.

  "Don't worry, Val," Elise soothed. "You're young, intelligent, and talented. And we can always use more people who understand both the advantages of modern life and the potential that magic offers. I am sure allowances will be made to give you extra time to, well, adjust."

  Val grimaced. "Before I'm assigned a lifetime of drudge work in a high mana hotspot or such, probably within a mine just like this one, am I right?"

  Elise smiled. "Well, you're talented in magic and you have a fair head for tactics so you might make a fair amount of coin working security detail. But honestly, Val, I think you'll get the hang of things if you just give it time. Besides, you have allies now."

  Val blinked. "I would love to have allies. Genuine friends would be even better. But I thought I was just sort of a partner of convenience?"

  Elise tilted her head, gazing at Val thoughtfully. "Let's just see how it all plays out, Val. Now if you're ready, I think it's high time we left this place."

  Val took a deep breath as she led them back to the library, dipping his head to curious brows raised, the captain and Halvar both smiling at seeing an upright Val.

  "Good to have you with us again, kid."

  "Thanks, Captain."

  Sten nodded, turning to Gregor. "Give him the tome."

  Gregor frowned but did just that, handing Val the volume he recognized as the one de
aling with internal magic resonance. "Every night when we make camp, and every day you are with us once we escape from here, however long or short a time that is, you are to study that tome. Elise has also agreed to help you as best she can to understand the diagrams' inner meanings. Her gift to you for having our backs during this journey, just as the borrowing of this tome is a gift from us as a whole."

  Val solemnly dipped his head. "Thank you, Captain." He flashed a grin. "I get the feeling uncontrolled magics wouldn't exactly be welcome above."

  Sten shook his head. "You'd be death on any ship, casting spells in space if you risk blowing out life support, and as you can no doubt tell by my title, I own a ship." He flashed a mirthless smile. "You're damn right I will want your oath to cast nothing while on a ship with me, and instead to spend your every waking hour learning how to read, studying that tome." His gaze turned thoughtful. "If you could master it, you'd be a valuable addition to any corporate or government entity, able to use magics without damaging priceless hardware while doing so. And a life as a well-paid corporate troubleshooter is a hell of a lot better than one maintaining an Elementium mine, digging in the trenches."

  Halvar nodded. "Our ability to refine Elementium has grown leaps and bounds. No need to use the poor souls of children. But actually pulling the ore from the ground? Still done with shovel and pickaxe. Even to this day. No machinery will work with all the background arcane radiation. Thank goodness high mana levels aren't inimical to organic life, sentience seemingly linked to magic in its own way, if you believe the would-be druids out there."

  Val nodded, realizing that they had all planned this in advance. Far from being offended, it meant a lot that they even cared enough to bother. "Thanks, Captain, all your support means a lot to me." He grinned. "But do they really still mine with shovel and pickaxe in an era of lasers and battleships flying across the heavens?"

  Halvar grinned. "They have wizards in the south. Down there they skirt by a lot of the problems with wizards by using steam technology, mostly. But even so, steam drill water tanks tend to rupture when used in Elementium mines, which may or may not kill everyone working around them."