by Dawn Chapman
I’m trying.
His voice whispered to me, a real sound I could hear. “I’ve never been this open with anyone before. I didn’t know I could be.”
“We can’t fight that alone,” I said. “Whatever we have to do now, to stem the war against those out there, for Maicreol, we will do it, but we need all of us to go through that portal.”
“I will stall it if I can, or maybe get it to you?”
Those words bothered me a lot. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, but, yes, if you think it will help.”
“You must win the fight now then, and then the one outside these walls. For this monster will not wait any longer. If it gets a grip on any more of the world around us, it’s over.”
Chapter 18
I pushed off the wall, and the image and portal vanished. When I started to run once more, there was a deeper need inside me, one I had to fulfil now more than ever.
I needed to get to my sister. To fight those things in the cave system, get the experience or Karma, wait for Maddie, Akillia, and Jessica to return, stop the war outside the caves, and then we all had to go fight the big badass monster on the other side of the portal.
Yeah, it was a fucking walk in the park. Right?
Easier said than done, totally. I really didn’t want it to be anything else. I wanted this to be as hot and hard and deadly as it could be.
This was the biggest rush I’d ever had in my life, and I felt more alive than I ever had in the real world. The fighting, the need to train, the need to be more than I was, the choice I’d made to come out and break into Mum’s lab with my sisters. It was like it had all been waiting to bring me to this point. It had been for something.
My heart pounded faster and faster in time with my legs, and more adrenaline rushed through me.
Dahlia: We’re ready, just been waiting on your sorry ass, hurry!
Me: Almost with you, we’re moving as soon as I arrive though, right? Those critters are going to be mean, and they’re going to hurt.
I laughed out loud and drew closer to them, waiting for everything to slot into place.
It was great to see them getting closer to me on the map. I needed her by my side. The one thing throughout this adventure I’d come away with more than anything else was the love of my family. They meant more to me than anything else.
Then there I was, right in the middle of their little camp, and I stopped dead, panting like an idiot, resting my hands on my knees while I caught my breath.
This was pretty cool, and Macie and Diogella approached me with their eyes on fire. “We’re protecting the Tromoal eggs?” Diogella asked. “But there hasn’t been Tromoal around here in centuries…”
I could see Macie didn’t want me to tell her the truth, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to, and I needed to do it fast.
“You’ve been away a long time. They’re not talking or telling you because there’s been a lot of death lately, and if you’ve had family around here, they’re probably not here anymore, and you know that would suck, right?”
Diogella nodded, and I could see the tears in her eyes. “I don’t know why, but I don’t want to know the date, or who or when. Just let me kill these things down here. They’re not right, and it’s not fair on anyone that they carry on—to hunt and kill the Tromoal’s eggs, or to murder the babies as they emerge from their eggs, the mystical qualities of the Tromoal can’t be compromised.”
She sucked in a breath, her emotions showing as her skin pinked up her neck. “And I mean for anything, I don’t want them to suffer, any of them!” She looked away. Her face lowered. “That’s why I was down here in the first place. They believed I was the only one capable of defeating the dungeon master, the Callan. This was my quest, and I failed because I was tricked, I was trapped. Death at the hands of being eaten by one of those things, no, they’re not going to get to the eggs.” Diogella was getting even more worked up, her face red, flushed, tears brimming. “So we have to kill every single one of these Raltols. They can’t make it past us. They need to die. Then we can go and do whatever shit we need to, and for all of you, I hope there is a home to go to afterward.”
I looked at her, and then to my sister. “We’ve another quest to do after this, one which is much more dangerous,” I said. “But we need to wait for our sister and the others to come back. We shouldn’t wait, but we must. We can’t do this without each other.”
I saw sheer concern cross her face. She knew I meant business but didn’t know the details. I tried to smile at her, to reassure her. But I couldn’t. There was nothing good about this situation.
“Come on,” I said nudging them in the right direction. “We ready for this?”
I looked around the group and didn’t see anyone who wasn’t showing determination. Pinched brows, solid eyes. Though the odds might have been stacked against us with the sheer number of what we faced now, it was exciting.
“Any idea on numbers we’re facing?” I asked.
Diogella’s eyes locked with mine. “Approximately a thousand Raltols, then their leader the Callan.”
“Do you have a plan?” I asked Abel and Dahlia together, looking to them for any kind of guidance. Abel stopped walking and waited while I walked in line with him.
“I think we had a pretty decent battle plan. I would suggest going in the same as before. The only difference is we have Diogella. And that’s possibly one of the better advantages we’ll have. She’s a very high-end DPS with her magical abilities. Even more than Macie and Noc together.”
I looked at her and managed to notice her tag. I could visually inspect her, and so I did.
This was interesting.
DIOGELLA
FIRST PRIESTESS OF THE RICHT ORDER
There was a tonne more information, but I didn’t have time to look it over. We needed to complete this mission.
The facts were that the game and the system were becoming much easier to navigate, and I could get a real decent sense of what I could become with better gear and training.
Down here, I was learning and gaining the experience of more battle, larger monsters, and kills. The darker side of me had really been woken here. I relished in this. Wanted more blood on my hands.
Diogella noticed my stare and came over to me.
“I see something in you that I don’t think you know is still there, but I don’t think you’re a bad person for it. Just maybe a little misguided.”
“I can’t help what I am thinking.”
“Maybe not.” She paused. “No, you do know it’s there. You actually like it there. We will need to fix that now,” she said. “Before we go any further. Otherwise, it will put you and this team at risk.”
“Fix it?”
“You still have the demon’s eye inside you. It’s corrupt, and no matter what you do, he will try to turn you to the darker side of life.”
I almost smacked the side of my face, how could I forget again. I mean I’d seen it earlier… It was listed in my stats. It was inside me still. That’s when the world around me took on a red tinge, and I felt nothing but anger building.
Macie was at my side, and Dahlia stepped back. I couldn’t control myself as I reached for the daggers at my side. The daggers that were hers.
Macie, however, was quick to act and struck out with a massive blast of energy which stung like a bitch. They were knocked out of my hands. I tried to reach down to grab them, but Abel was up behind me and had me pinned before I knew it.
That’s when the thing inside me started to scream, and it let me know it wasn’t staying idle inside me anymore. I had almost forgotten that it was a trapped demon living inside of me.
The expletives that came tumbling out of my mouth were nothing short of vulgar, and it seemed I wasn’t going to stop.
They just kept on coming. Then I started to shout in a language I didn’t know.
Abel picked me up like I weighed nothing, but I was sure I did. Not to him, though. He was a big man, bigger than most in
our world, and for sure part Orc or Ogre.
My legs kicked and splayed, and I tried everything to try to get him to drop me. With his arm being so close to my mouth, it was inevitable that I was going to bite him. I saw Dahlia speak to him, but I couldn’t hear her words above my own screaming.
As I bit down, he didn’t react, almost as if he didn’t feel it, but he had to have. I tasted flesh, blood… and wanted to gag. What the fuck was I doing?
I remembered the procedure that they did back in the dungeon, where Noc had looked at me with sad eyes. Now he looked at me, and I didn’t see sadness but fear. Genuine fear from me.
I didn’t like this or the thing that was in control. I tried to fight it inside me. I could see it, feel it.
Then the world around me was whisked away. I was standing, panting, sweat dripping down me as this thing formed before me.
A creature—no, a monster.
What?
Above its head were the words.
MEET EPOL - THE ALL-SEEING WATCHER OF THE DARK.
I knew I had to kill it. I had to fight it inside here now and win this battle. Or the body on the outside in the game would be lost. But how could I fight something that was purely in my mind, right? I had no magical capabilities in here.
This is your game. Tibex’s voice rang clear.
The game, yes. Dream, no. There were limits, and the thing before me must have had them too. So, no matter what, it was an even fight. Or at least, I thought it was. That’s when it lunged for me, and instead of fists, claws extended, taking a slice at me. I tried to dodge it, but it seemed like everything I did in here was slower, much slower. He had the advantage. I was calling it he because it looked masculine, but when it opened its mouth, I found out that it was indeed not male. Skinny, with no breasts, and female for sure.
“You can’t pick and choose the sides you wish to serve, child.” She was taunting me. “You chose me, so I get to make the decisions to where your loyalty lies.”
I tried to laugh, and a moan escaped my lips as her claws raked across the flesh of my arm. The claws were razor sharp and sliced to the bone. Why was it so easy to get hurt in this damned game? But this injury didn’t affect my health bar. Instead, there popped up a ‘possession’ counter, and whereas it was mostly green now, I could only think it meant I was in control. The red was etching in, and when she lunged again to take another strike, the hit did indeed knock my green bar down, and hers was growing.
So, possession… Yeah, I didn't like the sound of that, and as I dodged one of her next moves, I thought briefly to the pathogen in my blood in the real world.
“You’re not as clever as you like to think, are you?”
“Yes, I am.” I choked out. She lunged once more, and I spun around trying my best to get out of the way. “I. Won’t. Let. You. Win!”
But I also couldn’t see a way out of this. I had no weapons.
As she tried to get in close, I managed to get out of the way. She swung again, and I knocked the claws aside resulting in another slash, but this one didn’t cut me. I wondered what had managed to stop her. Then I saw it. Over my skin, there was a blue layer. I didn’t contain that much magic. it felt like it was coming from elsewhere.
It is, Tibex said to me. They’re fighting with you. You just need to focus.
I tried to focus on the fight, on this demon. I couldn’t see anything they were doing, but I could only imagine that maybe they were doing something like Noc had last time. I only hoped they weren’t draining my body of its vital fluids. I needed to be strong to fight with them against the Callan to protect the Tromoal eggs later.
“You have no way in hell of getting away from me and being able to fight them and protect those stupid beast eggs.”
“You don’t know me, and you don’t know any of them,” I said. “You think we’re just fighting one fight here all the time when we’re not. We’re together, and together, we can beat anything. No matter how strong we think things are.”
“Together.” She laughed, her voice cracked, and I wondered if I’d hit a nerve. “You don’t know together at all. They don’t know you or love you.”
“I’m right, aren’t I?” I asked her. When her face flushed, and she tried to lunge at me again, the blue glow around my skin brightened. And I laughed with it. “You can’t take me with them out there protecting me, can you?”
Her claws hit the shielding around me and bounced off. The more I laughed, the more frustrated she became. I started to love this. The shielding around my arms grew brighter. Maybe my own arms, my fists would be able to do damage to her like she’d been doing to me.
I feigned an attack and managed to slip past her as she lunged for me. Then I struck out at her once more. This was a harder blow to the side of her head, and I noticed her red was almost out. Could I get rid of her in here for good? Would getting my bar to full green wipe her out of my mind forever. I sure hoped so, because I didn’t want her to come back anytime soon, or worse, in the midst of battle while I needed to focus.
This time, I had to kill.
I focused hard.
I would do this.
But I was much weaker. I needed to keep going, but this, all this fighting inside my mind was very draining.
“You can’t get rid of me,” she taunted, and her red began to creep up once more. I didn’t know how, but I needed something else to cut her out. I tried to look around inside my mind, but what can you do in your own head? It was a thing that belonged to you, but you also couldn’t chop it off.
I needed a way to talk to Noc, Alia, anyone on the outside world.
I tried to focus on Tibex. Noc needs to bleed me. I didn’t know if the message would get out, or if they’d do it, especially with my sister there. But they had to do it.
I felt the sheer pain as my arm was cut. The red line that appeared in this inner dream world was not bleeding, but I could see that the Epol’s red health bar had started to dip again.
When she tried to lunge for me, it took everything I could muster to barely dodge out of the way. Then I pushed her. She fell this time, and as the red that represented her drew down to but a few points, there was something that darkened in her eyes.
“Kamaal won’t ever let you go, Lila. You’re of the dark side. You are his. You can’t get away.”
Her words chilled me. Kamaal was the demon lord of all, and I was terrified of him, but then I also wanted it. I wanted to be dark. It was exciting. She started to vanish from my eyes, and there was a huge blasting chill of air that rushed past me. I dropped to my knees, the pain unreal, my body starting to twitch, and the world inside my mind faded, mixing in with the real one. I could see people were crowded around me. They were all talking, but their voices didn’t make sense.
I tried to see one person, to focus on their facial features, but I struggled. It wasn’t my sister, where was Dahlia.
I croaked out, “Dahl?”
“I’m here, keep fighting. It’s not over yet. Almost. Keep pushing it!”
I could now see my pain splotch. It was back to twenty-eight and flashing.
I didn’t want to die again. We didn’t have time for me to get back to them once more. We needed to defend against the horde of things that were coming our way. There was nothing else, so I tried to move.
I couldn’t.
I had to move.
Now.
That thing needed to get out of me.
I forced my hand up. I pushed myself to the full limit of everything I was, and I cried when I saw black blood escaping my open veins. It had to get out.
I screamed at it. “Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
Chapter 19
Was there something inside of me that still needed to go? I was sure my blood leaving my body… all of it couldn’t be that terrible a thing. I would just die again, right? Respawn? But Alia had better control of it back then, I was sure of it, and Maddie…
I was done for. I would be dead in seconds. And the cycle would continue.
>
Dahlia leaned over. I felt her hands on me, then my health dropped a few points. I would be okay.
“Let us, Lila. You’ll be okay.” Then I felt a hand on mine, and I could look up into Noc’s face, his gentle eyes and smile radiating through, and I saw Dahlia next to him, their faces growing in focus, and I could see why. Diogella near them was in full concentration, her hand on a shoulder each as if she were lending them the energy to be able to do what they wanted. They were all trying to heal me. All of them.
I tried to smile, to say that if I died this time, it would be okay, that they could fight the Raltols, and it would work out.
But Dahlia’s voice came in, and I heard how worried she really was. “We’re trying to get rid of it completely.”
I didn’t know what that meant, and I tried not to worry about it, but I did. That was the whole thing. They weren’t trying to get rid of it just in this world but in the real one. I could feel it, like the lifeblood inside me was draining so the difference in my bloodstream was real. What the hell was going on in this world, both worlds? What was the connection and how? If there was this real aspect to Puatera, my mum and the team couldn’t switch it off. They just couldn’t.
My splotch hitched up a little more to twenty-nine, and I gagged, feeling the pull and the lure of just giving in.
“Fight it!” Dahlia shouted at me, her face fuzzy once more. I couldn’t see any of them. “If you don’t fight this now, we’ve got no chance!”
I heard the words no chance and knew I couldn’t give up. But the pain levels were through the roof.
My back arched, and my fists clamped.
Nails digging into my own flesh.
Whoever put this into a game world was an idiot. Pain hurt! Hurt more than I was sure it was supposed to, like really more.
“GET THE FUCK OUT!” I screamed.
Then there was a ping.
YOU HAVE KILLED EPOL’S EYE
YOU RETAIN A PORTION OF HER POWERS.