Endless Online: Oblivion's Blade

by M. H. Johnson

  Val blinked, uncertain as to whether she meant as a student or as someone desperate to survive the rush and flood of cut off lives that had stormed into him with his final kill. He blinked and smiled, realizing that he was going to make it, feeling somehow stronger, more complete, than he had ever felt before in his entire life. He bowed his head in reverence for the lost souls now deathly quiet in the hallway beyond, understanding somehow that they had left. Yet the echo of their passing, the lost potential of all they could have been and done, had somehow been claimed by himself.

  It was neither a result of savagery or cruelty. It was simply how it was.

  Val closed his eyes, now the master of his dream. He couldn't help grinning as the dream of his character sheet popped up bold and beautiful before him. For all that he knew this world was real, more so, maybe, than his own, he didn't think he would ever get over how well the tools fate had gifted him with could mirror so perfectly the data he would expect to find in his favorite computer games.

  For only a moment he was dizzy with the strange symbols before him, before some part of him thought to ask for a snapshot in time, everything rounded to whole numbers as he understood them.

  ______________________________________________________________________________________

  Valor Hunter - Level 4

  Primary Attributes

  Strength 12

  Vitality 13

  Finesse 13

  Quickness 16

  Perception 17

  Scholarship 12

  Willpower 16

  Charisma 11

  Luck ?? +1

  Health 10xVit+Str = 142

  Survival (Health+(10xLevel)+Luck) = 182+?

  Stamina 10xVit+Str = 142

  Mana 133 (131 Accessible: 5.270 kg + 250.573 kg Elementium Stored)

  Psion 133 (131 Accessible: 37 L + 37.8 L Silbion Stored)

  Insight 17

  Base Appearance 10. +0 (11 charisma) +1 (athletic) = +1 to reaction rolls.

  Skills of Significance

  Shadowmind Rank 4 / Psi-Sense (Shadowmind Dependent) Rank 2 / Psionic Perception Rank 2 / Arcane Perception Rank 3 / Cypher Rank 1 / Meditation Rank 3 / Rift Mastery Rank 1 / Psionic Oathbinding Rank 1 / Stealth Rank 3 / Sword and Shield Rank 2 / Magesight Rank 1 / Mageward Rank 1 / Demolitions Rank 2 / Basic Literacy Achieved! (Limited to texts of Arcane or Psionic nature)

  Greater Skills Learned

  Greater Alchemy - Rank 2

  Meta-Magic Feat: Stabilization - Rank 2

  Personal Resonance Mastery - Rank 3

  Jordian Magical Arts Learned

  Creation - Rank 1

  Manipulation - Rank 1

  Fire - Rank 1

  Jordian Spells Learned

  Firestream Level 20 C/F - Cost 10 Mana

  Explosive Retribution Level 30 C/F (Must save against Oblivion when casting.) - Cost 70 mana.

  ______________________________________________________________________________________

  Val felt a shiver of delight and wonder course through him. He now felt more vital, more connected to the world than he ever had before. Frowning, he took a closer look at the numbers, amazed to see how many skills and Greater Potencies he seemed to be picking up just from intense observation and flashes of insight. Like pieces of a puzzle suddenly clicking together, he could sense how it all fitted together without hundreds of hours of instruction needed. He remembered gaining strength in five core areas during his very first level up, increasing his perception, charisma, luck, willpower, and scholarship. Of course he hadn't so much gained them as gotten in touch with his own true sense of self. Still, careful not to overthink it, he had grown in five areas his first level up, in addition to his Psion and Mana pools, yet in growing from the second to the fourth rank, he had increased only scholarship directly, all his efforts spent towards skill mastery instead.

  It chilled him to think it had taken three precious points just to learn the basics of reading. If this were truly a game, he would have loved to give himself a boost of quickness and grace as well as perception, to be ever more alert to danger, and even quicker to respond. But even as he said that he realized that that wasn't exactly how it worked. Whatever the cost, he had wanted to be able to understand things as natives here did, to not be a helpless illiterate in a society that he sensed was both wonderfully complex, and pitiless to those who didn't make the cut, whatever that cut happened to be. Most of all, he had been humbled and humiliated by the bemused condescension, pity, even contempt he had sensed from his companions as a result of his utter lack of comprehension when struggling with the tomes.

  Whatever the personal cost, he had burned with the desire to be able to pick up a book and understand the secrets that lay within. Even now, with so much of his potential invested, he knew he would only feel the shifting flow of patterns and meanings in tomes dealing with the Arcane or Psionic disciplines. As if his odd gifts alone would let him sense the shifts in tense and interpretation, substituting for whatever cognitive centers these metahumans had that he lacked.

  He looked to his greater skills, sensing that they were among the most potent of his gifts, for all that he thought Shadowmind his most vital skill, tactically. Still, he was beginning to think that despite his shortcomings, perhaps he had talents that did not come so easily to everyone else. He had the feeling that the ability to separate or combine Elementium and Silbion was beyond rare, and here he was, developing his Greater Alchemy skill based on nothing but flashes of insight and active practice, for all that it had been in the deadliest of crucibles, a desperate struggle for his own survival. Yet his Personal Resonance Mastery skill had taken six points to raise to level three. He frowned at the increasing cost, sensing that greater skills were perhaps the most difficult of all talents to level up.

  But the gift of literacy, even limited, and the ability to use his gifts with a little less chance of frying his companion's blasters, or god forbid their spaceship, was priceless. He wondered how much less radiation he emitted now than he had before. Could he safely cast spells closer to his companions than before? If it was half the radius with each rank, he was safe up to 1.25 yards, which made fighting beside a working mage a much more realistic proposition for a tech-based ally. Val resolved to test it with his friends, only then recalling just how precarious their situation had been before the hideous abomination had died, ripped apart and buried under tons of rubble. He didn't even know if his friends were safe or in desperate peril, and he resolved at that instant to force himself awake, only to slip into the deepest of slumbers.

  16

  "Is he awake yet?"

  "Humph. I don't know why you treat that simulacrum as a boy. It's clearly anything but."

  Val frowned, feeling the cynical words wash over him. His heart skipped a beat as he forgot for a moment where, or even who he was, letting their words wash over him as he fought to get a sense of himself once more.

  "That's hardly fair, Gregor. If it weren't for him, we'd probably all be dead."

  "Of course you'd say that, Elise. You've imprinted him like a long-lost little brother since the first foolhardy time he nearly blew himself up."

  "That's right," the firm, powerful voice of Halvar. "He rushed to Elise's aid without a thought for himself. Foolhardy, but I'd far rather a foolhardy recruit who I know puts the team first than a coward in it only for himself."

  "Fine," Gregor sighed. "He's more a loyal puppy than a simulacrum. Not quite human, but endearing in his own way, I suppose. Happy?"

  "How is he?" Sten's voice, filled with a strange intensity.

  "Still asleep," Elise said, and Val could almost taste her frown. "Though I think he's beginning to stir." Her voice turned bemused. "You can open your eyes, Val. I know you're waking up."

  Val felt himself blush as he blinked open gummy eyes. How did he manage to embarrass himself so easily, even doing nothing?

  A ragged cough ripped from his lungs. But strangely enough, nothing else hurt, for all that he recal
led being slammed into jagged rocks at least once by concussive forces that could easily have resulted in head trauma from the shockwaves slamming through fragile brain tissue. He took a deep breath and forced himself to sit upright, slowly shaking his head, feeling no dizziness, nausea, disorientation or pain. In fact, save for the gazes burning into his suddenly sheepish form, he felt fine.

  He swallowed his parched throat, grateful as Halvar wordlessly passed him a flask.

  "I guess I'm awake," he said, after taking a refreshing drink, careful not to take too much.

  Elise nodded, beautiful features solemn, a hint of something in her soft violet gaze. "How are you feeling, Val?"

  Val smiled. "Would you believe I've never felt better?" He chuckled ruefully. "I think leveling up replenishes our health."

  Four pairs of eyes gave him the strangest stares.

  "What?"

  Sten's brows furrowed. "What the hell do you mean, leveling up?"

  Val blinked, shaking his head. "Our kills. Our accomplishments. How did Solena put it? The wonders we forge help us to blossom, as do the passions and dreams of all those to fall before us. We can make strides of growth that should take years in but moments, as we harness the potentials and potencies of all the souls to fall to our blasters and blades."

  For some reason his words caused his teammates to frown and look away.

  He grimaced, wondering if he had put his foot in his mouth once more.

  "I'm not saying you're wrong, Val, but the idea that the flashes of insight we gain during times of battle might be due to our psyche devouring the souls of our kills is something most mundanes are loath even to contemplate, let alone speak of so... animatedly," Elise explained.

  Gregor shook his head, grey dust with flecks of shimmering crystal fell from his wild curls like flakes in a snow globe. "He sounds like a damned Darklord. No offense, Elise." His brows furrowed with accusation. "Are you sure he's not the puppet of one of their Houses?"

  Elise frowned at that, but it was Sten whose gaze froze Val where he sat. "Tell me true, Val. Do you serve a Highlord's House?"

  A breathless pause, Val taking in his dust-covered companion's measuring stares, all of them resting in one of the side passageways just past the massive cavern that might or might not have completely collapsed under the force of the catalyzed mixtures Val had used to kill the horror that had patrolled this area for so long. Somehow Val knew that he dare not slip in the coldness of his mind as Elise gazed intently at him. Nothing was more important at that moment than assuring his allies of his integrity, his honor.

  "The only Highlord I ever met was named Solena Petrova. She was a vicious monster whose only goal was to capture those of us that she thought had potential. Psions to harvest, is what I think she meant, gathering us all together under false pretexts to kidnap us as a group."

  His words hardened. "If there is a reason for my being here, it is to find Solena and the citizens she seized, and bring them back home."

  Sten frowned, shaking his head.

  "He speaks the truth, Sten," Elise said. "For him I think it's personal."

  "How so?" Sten asked.

  She gazed almost apologetically at Val. "When he speaks of saving Solena's victims, the face of one girl in particular blazes brightly in his mind."

  Val flushed and lowered his gaze.

  "By the gods," Gregor moaned. "It's bad enough this kid's an illiterate wildcard, now we have to worry about him trying to beard the lion in his den, trying to rescue his true love from the dreadnought flying over all our heads?" He shook his head, rubbing his temples. "This is not going to end well. I knew we should have left that second sarcophagus alone!"

  Val shook his head. "It's not like that. Do I want to rescue Julia? Yes. Absolutely. But it is a brother's love I feel for her. A protector's love. She's still a child, and I'm anything but." He sighed and shook his head. "I guess you could say she's my redemption. Once upon a time, there was someone else very precious to me who I let down, too stupid to understand what needed to be done. I can never change what happened. But I refuse to let cruel folly take away yet another person that I care about."

  Sten caught his gaze once more. "No mad heroics that would get us all killed, Val."

  Val swallowed. "I'm not intending such, sir. I know I'm not the soldier Halvar is, but even I know the importance of reconnaissance and planning."

  Halvar grinned at that, even as Gregor groaned anew.

  "Ancestor's mercy, he really is planning on taking on a dreadnought. Madness. Absolute madness."

  Val tuned out Gregor's words, focusing instead on Halvar, having seen something in his gaze. "Halvar?"

  "Yes, Val?"

  He swallowed, looking for the words to say. "You're a soldier. I'm sure you've had to take your enemy's life, from time to time. Is that not so?"

  Halvar's once more functioning cybernetic eye hummed softly, his brown human one hardening. "I've seen action dozens of times. I think you can imagine the end result."

  Val swallowed and nodded. "I... I saw the way my comment made the others uncomfortable. But even if the words I used, leveling up, made no real sense to you, I get the feeling you sort of know what I mean."

  The larger man sighed and looked up towards the roof, Val as well, somehow soothed by the gold-green glow of the Elementium infused crystals overhead, too faint to bathe them in any light more than the crimson radiance Halvar emitted, but comforting enough.

  "All you have to do is study the charts, examine the data, and see for yourself that there are... discrepancies."

  Val gazed curiously at Halvar as Gregor snorted, mumbling about inconsistencies and wild speculation. "I'm not sure I understand," he said.

  Halvar's gaze grew thoughtful. "Tell me, Val, in your world, are soldiers who see active combat better or worse off than soldiers who spend years training, but see no live combat?"

  "Honestly, Halvar, in my world, nothing beats live combat for preparing a soldier to endure and survive future battles. But that being said, if we are looking strictly at the quality of life and the potential of the soldier... statistically, the more combat seen, the higher the rate of PTSD and serious lasting physical injury. There is also the stress and strain of battle. It takes a toll on most men."

  Halvar nodded. "Exactly. Exactly what the charts suggest. Assuming one doesn't perish in battle, if that factor is removed, then there should still be a correlation between decreased utility and battles endured."

  "Of course that's what the data shows," Gregor grumbled. "It would be madness to assume otherwise, quirks in data aside."

  Halvar frowned at the smaller man. "What the actual data shows, to a degree of confidence far beyond pure chance, is that the more military engagements a soldier survives, the greater his resultant utility."

  Val blinked at that.

  Halvar shrugged. "I can't explain it, it makes no sense. But soldiers who endure repeated conflicts tend to excel at their chosen pursuits, advance their skill sets faster even than soldiers embracing royal training regimens, with a longer life expectancy and a higher rate of success in fields external to soldiering when their service has ended. And to this day, not even our savviest scientists can explain it by any phenomenon other than the quasi-religious ones favored by Highlords."

  "But we all know that's idiocy," Gregor grumbled. "Theories of balance aside, there is no way any of our destinies should blossom simply because we took away the futures of others. That is so twisted as to defy any concept of decency!"

  "There is nothing decent about war, Gregor. It's not about fairness, it's about survival."

  Val swallowed as soon as he said the words, hating to offend Gregor once more, only to find himself gazing in the same open-mouthed surprise Gregor was, before turning to a bemused Halvar.

  The echo he had heard had not been in his head. They had both said the same words simultaneously.

  Halvar grinned. "I knew you had a soldier's mind, kid. Now let's pretend Gregor isn't here. Can you
honestly say that surviving whatever the hell it was we faced today has helped you to blossom somehow?"

  Val nodded. The excitement he had felt minutes ago had faded to a tight knot of anxiety in his stomach. He turned to Elise. "I could say anything. I think it's best, well, if I try to prove it. Elise? Can you hand me that tome on Personal Resonance Magic?"

  Wordlessly, she did.

  For the briefest of moments, Val feared that maybe it had all been a deluded dream when he cracked open the covers, beholding and losing himself in the first diagram. Then, haltingly, he did his best to explain to the others what he was sensing from the text. In other words, he read to them aloud.

  The silence when he paused was deafening.

  Gregor scowled. "Elise, I thought you said he was utterly helpless? Like one of those throwbacks, the pre-evolved I still think we should sterilize, lest fools actually try to breed with them?"

  Elise's brows furrowed. "He didn't understand a single linkage the day before, Gregor, and I never counseled for anyone's sterilization, no matter how flawed they are."

  Sten shook his head. "You're an odd one, Val." He turned to Elise. "You were studying with him for over an hour. You didn't pick up any sense of deception or contrivance?"

  Elise frowned. "Of course not, Sten. And I was more than trying to trap him up. If he had been able to read at all, he would have stolen that kiss, I have no doubt."

  Val's eyes widened even as Elise teased him with her smile. "It was a test, Val. And you didn't have a clue. Which means you passed. Which means you've been honest with us. I thank you for that."

  Val lowered his head, heart racing, feeling more confused than ever.

  "Now he's going to think you're flirting with him," grumbled their shortest member.

  "I'm not a complete idiot, Gregor, whatever you may think," Val snapped.

  Gregor's brows widened with outrage. "What your tongue! You have no right to speak to me that way, whatever the hell you are."

  "Stop it," Sten said, voice curt. "Prodding at Val serves no end."