Awaken Online: Inferno (Tarot #3)

by Travis Bagwell

  Chapter 8 - Rocky

  The sun had long since risen, its rays illuminating the mountains that now crested the horizon. Massive pyramids of stone drifted up into the sky, their caps obscured by a dense cloud cover. It felt strange to see mountains after so long in the desert: a world swept flat by sand and wind. Finn hadn’t expected to find the change so jarring. And yet here he was.

  It just emphasized how quickly he had become accustomed to this world.

  Even the sway of the beetle below him no longer had his stomach twisting into knots.

  The terrain had also changed as the group continued south. The rolling dunes had slowly receded, the sand blown away to reveal cracked earth, sun-burnt rocks, and dense, hardy vegetation – bushes designed to weather the desert sun and lack of water. That change had also slowed their passage, the beetles picking out narrow paths of sand among the rocks and shrubs where their paneled feet could get some leverage.

  Julia let out a whistle and raised an arm. The group glided to a stop at her signal, sending up a puff of sand and dirt.

  “You see something?” Finn grunted, tugging the hem of his robe down and away from his mouth. He hadn’t picked out anything unusual with his enhanced vision.

  “Not exactly,” Julia replied, letting out a sigh as she peered at the mountains in the distance. “The beetles just keep slowing down. They can’t handle hard-packed dirt. I think it might be faster at this point to dismount and continue on foot.”

  Kyyle waved at the air beside him to bring up his map. “Looks like we’ve still got twenty or thirty miles until we hit the edge of Kalisha’s waypoint zone. Though, the circle is at least fifty miles in diameter. We’re going to be hunting for this place for a while.”

  Julia hopped down from her mount, the other two following her lead. Her eyes drifted to the nearby mountains. Green trees and thick forests were already visible at the base of those peaks. “I’m guessing the terrain is going to make it hard to find this Forge. If the workshop has been in ruins for nearly a century, it’s likely to be overgrown. We’re probably going to have to pick over every square foot of that target area.”

  Finn followed her gaze, picking up on the unspoken implication of her words. This was going to take time. Time that they didn’t have. Although, perhaps his enhanced sight might offer some help, allowing him to identify the ruins amid the vegetation. If they designed magical artifacts in this abandoned workshop, maybe it would stand out brightly to his Mana Sight.

  As that thought crossed his mind, Finn shifted his vision, the overbearing blue of Short-Sighted swiftly replaced by a flowing rainbow of energy. His brow furrowed as he took in the mountains. To his eyes, they were now enormous emerald pillars of energy. But what was more unusual was the cloud cover hanging over their peaks. Finn had expected a mixture of yellow and blue – air and water mana combining to form the clouds. However, what he witnessed was a dense ocean of azure energy. It swirled and coalesced before tumbling down the mountain slopes, nearly blocking out any trace of earth or air mana.

  More importantly, it didn’t seem natural. It looked like something – or someone – was channeling a hell of a lot of water mana up there in those peaks.

  Although, that was someone else’s problem. He certainly didn’t plan to go poking around to find out whatever was capable of harnessing that sort of energy. Given his experience with water mana, his guess was that it was about to get very cold or very wet.

  Or possibly both.

  Julia let out a low clicking sound that drew Finn’s attention. He turned to see his daughter gesturing at the beetles. They responded with a few short clicks of their own, forming the sound by grinding their mandibles together. Then they all drifted toward a clear patch of sand. Their feet began to vibrate quickly, undulating waves of air mana smashing into the ground. Within only a few seconds, they had formed a shallow depression, their bulky bodies lowering into the newly formed holes.

  Julia then began spreading tarps over their black forms, the beige cloth helping the insects blend in with their surroundings. “The beetles will stay put. They can last for days without food or water,” Julia explained when she noticed Finn watching. “We’ll just set a waypoint marker so that we can find our way back here.”

  Finn nodded, shouldered his pack, and glanced back at the mountain range in the distance. “Alright, well, let’s keep moving then. The clock is ticking. We need to get back to the colony before the Khamsin and guilds kill each other.”

  Kyyle snorted. “And here I was hoping to avoid all that drama.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll encounter our fair share of problems,” Julia offered, patting the earth mage on the back. “Or were you expecting that investigating this ancient, abandoned magical workshop was going to be a cakewalk?”

  “That’s an unlikely outcome,” Daniel reported, his flaming form hovering beside Finn’s shoulder. “I estimate the risk of combat and/or deadly injury to be 97.6% based on previous group activities.”

  “That’s… oddly specific,” Kyyle grunted. “So, what you’re really saying is that I should stay and guard the beetles.”

  Finn smiled at that. “And miss out on all of the fun?”

  “Yeah, think about the notes. The notes, my man!” Julia crowed. “You will be the envy of dorks everywhere.”

  “Uh, I’m more of a nerd, thank you very much.”

  This earned him a laugh from both Finn and Julia as the trio set off toward the mountains, making a direct beeline to the circle highlighted on their map. As his companions kept up their banter, Finn’s eyes drifted back to the mountain range, watching that sapphire energy swirl and condense in thick blankets.

  All joking aside, he suspected that they would find plenty for Kyyle to write about.

  ***

  “This game is way too damn realistic,” Julia grumbled as she slumped down onto a nearby boulder, dropped her pack, and rubbed at her legs, tugging away the metal panels of her armor to reveal blistered skin. Her health regeneration swiftly healed the injuries… only for them to reform after a few more minutes of hiking. “Do we really need armor chafing?”

  “Well, we could probably reduce the friction further, but it might require another full-body scan…” Finn teased with a faint grin. Daniel flickered weakly beside Finn’s shoulder at his comment, darting behind his head to avoid Julia’s glare.

  “You can just shut it,” Julia grunted back at him.

  “Added padding beneath the metal might also help, although I’m not sure how well that would hold up when Finn enchants the metal,” Kyyle offered with a sympathetic glance. “Maybe if we could find a fire-resistant cloth…”

  Finn’s attention drifted away from his companions, taking in the area around them. They were resting in a small clearing in the dense forest that lingered at the base of the mountains. They had hiked for several hours since they’d left their mounts, the rocky terrain quickly giving way to dense foliage and trees and a steepening incline. A crisp, chill wind, carrying the faint smell of pine, drifted down from the mountains, forcing Finn and Kyyle to tug their flimsy cloth robes tighter. Their clothing was meant to breathe in the desert heat, not ward off the cold and damp that now lingered around them.

  The trees offered another problem. At least out in the desert, they could see an enemy coming from miles away. Here, amid these densely packed trees, their visibility was poor to terrible.

  With a flick of his wrist, Finn brought up his map. They were getting close to the edge of the glowing yellow ring that Kalisha had identified. Not that that narrowed down the location of this workshop much, but at least they were making progress. Finn swept the map away with a wave of his hand before rubbing at the skin around the base of his left elbow, attempting to relieve the simmering ache that lingered there.

  The pain in the ruined limb had only seemed to get worse the farther away from Lahab they traveled. Or maybe the corruption was simply spreading…

  A glance at his stump with his enhanced s
ight indicated that the latter explanation might be the case. The strange red veins of energy had grown and were expanding into the surrounding flesh like a magical infection. Finn wasn’t certain what would happen if that corrupted energy reached another Najima, but it probably wouldn’t be pleasant. Either way, it seemed they had yet another time constraint in play.

  He needed to find some way to cure whatever the hell that relic had done to his arm.

  With his Mana Sight active, Finn noticed a glimmer of energy out of the corner of his eye. It was just a faint flash nearly a dozen yards away through the tree cover, quickly covered by the ambient mana of the forest. He almost thought he’d imagined it.

  Shifting slightly, Finn kept the energy in the corner of his vision without revealing that he had noticed the flash of mana. Then he saw it again. It was just a splash of rainbow color amid an ocean of green and blue – dense vegetation with moisture clinging to the leaves. With a thought, Finn removed the earth mana from his sight.

  He was able to pick out the form more easily now. It looked like a wolf, although dramatically larger than anything Finn had ever seen before. The creature was at least eight feet long, but what was more interesting was its mana signature. There was an almost perfect parity of the six affinities coursing through the animal’s body, and the colors seemed stable, not shifting or pulsing as erratically as Finn had observed in other people.

  “What is it?” Julia asked, picking up on Finn’s expression.

  “I think we have some company,” he murmured in response.

  As Finn spoke, the wolf stepped forward deliberately, parting the vegetation and fully revealing its presence. It stared at them with uncanny intelligence. Something about it didn’t feel feral or wild. Not in a way that Finn had experienced with the wildlife in the Abyss. It seemed to be studying them and gave no outward sign of aggression – no bared fangs or growling.

  Julia’s hand moved toward her lance, and Finn noticed Kyyle clutch his staff tighter as they both eyed the animal, preparing to defend themselves in case it lunged.

  Another splash of color shifted in Finn’s peripheral vision.

  Then another.

  Finn counted at least four more shapes in the woods, encircling the group. He saw the outline of another wolf and what looked like a large cat – maybe a mountain lion? The other two were humanoid. Maybe they had tamed these beasts?

  Although, as he focused on the two humans, he could see that their bodies were cast in that same strange stable balance of color. Even more unusual, Finn noticed the unusual energy curling around one man’s hand, the trees and foliage near him twitching and moving as the rainbow of mana cascaded through the plants.

  Interesting. What school of magic is that? Finn thought to himself. It almost looks like the raw mana that the fighters use to charge their weapons.

  “We’re surrounded,” Finn whispered to Julia and Kyyle, and the pair spared him a glance. “Besides the wolf, I count at least four more in the trees. Two more animals and two humans. Possible attack from the plantlife.” Kyyle shot him an incredulous glance, and Finn just shrugged. He couldn’t explain it either.

  The wolf cocked its head, and its ears twitched as Finn spoke… as though it had understood him. Finn’s brow furrowed. What did that mean exactly?

  Stillness hovered over the clearing, neither group making any move.

  Finn wasn’t certain what he expected, but it wasn’t what happened next.

  The wolf suddenly moved forward in a blur of motion. Julia jerked her lance free – her shield immediately appearing in her hand – and emerald streamers of energy wound around Kyyle’s hand and staff.

  At the same time, thick vines coiled along the ground, lashing forward quickly and from all directions. Kyyle was ready, slamming his staff into the dirt. A ripple of earth pulsed and tossed the vines back, cracking the nearby boulders and sending soil and rock flying outward from their position.

  Through that cloud of debris, several small darts raced toward the group, only to be intercepted by the thick metal of Julia’s shield. Finn’s daughter began to charge for the trees, but Finn put a staying hand on her shoulder. He peered through the dust, dirt, and vegetation, meeting the eyes of that strange wolf.

  Finn hesitated, his fingers twitching. He should be casting Imbue Fire and preparing to defend himself and his teammates. And yet, the look in that wolf’s eyes gave him pause. It was the way the group had encircled Finn and his companions so easily. The way they glided through the forest. They could have chosen any location to attack, but they had picked this specific clearing where Finn and his group wouldn’t have any cover. That spoke of a familiarity with this terrain. Maybe even most of this mountain range.

  And, if he was right, then their attackers might be able to help them find the Forge.

  He would just need to take a risk.

  “Stop!” Finn shouted. His teammates came to a standstill, eyeing the trees around them with caution and holding their weapons at the ready.

  Finn slowly turned to face the wolf. Its body was hidden behind several layers of trees and bushes now, yet it was still visible to Finn’s enhanced sight – still staring at him. He raised his good hand, showing an empty palm. “We do not mean any harm, and we will not attack you. We would like to talk.”

  Silence met Finn’s words.

  Then the wolf moved again. Yet this time, it didn’t seek to charge them or flee.

  Instead, its body shifted. Contorted. Transformed. A rush of rainbow energy flowed through the creature’s body, its bulk disappearing and replaced with arms and legs. Hands and feet. An instant later, a human woman stepped out of the treeline. Her hair was pulled back in a single long silver braid, and a scar marred one eye. Her clothing was fashioned from heavy leather and furs, but Finn saw no weapons swinging from her waist.

  “My name is Silver,” the woman said sternly, eyeing the group without any fear or hesitation. “And you all are trespassing on our pack’s territory.”

  Chapter 9 - Shifty

  A tense stillness lingered across the clearing. Finn’s group faced off against the strange silver-haired woman. Her companions, however, waited among the trees, their bodies just barely visible to Finn’s sight behind the dense foliage. Julia clutched at her shield, her lance hovering in the air, and streamers of emerald energy wound around Kyyle’s staff. They were ready for whatever might happen next.

  For his part, Finn kept his bladed left arm lowered. Silver’s gaze skimmed him from head to toe before lingering on the bandage that rested across his eyes, but the tension never left her limbs. One small advantage of his body augmentations was that he at least looked blind and nonthreatening. Thankfully, he’d also had the foresight to disable his fiery crown for fear of drawing unwanted attention.

  Although, a part of him hoped he didn’t live to regret not reaching for one of his dark metal spheres. If this group decided to press their assault, it was going to take him several precious seconds to cast Imbue Fire.

  He somehow doubted Silver and her companions would give him such leniency.

  “We weren’t aware that this was your territory,” Finn began tentatively. “And we mean no harm to you or your people.”

  A low growl rumbled from the woman’s throat, and her eyes flashed. “Really? As though we haven’t heard that before. You travelers all make the same claims, but your kind can’t be trusted. You only know how to take.”

  Finn’s eyes widened at the acid in her tone. Clearly, other players had harmed this woman and her people. Although, he supposed that wasn’t too surprising. His time in the Mage Guild had only served to reinforce that most players were assholes. Many had little appreciation for this world or its residents, taking what they wanted and acting as they pleased. This was just a game for them, after all.

  If only Finn could say the same.

  “Then how about we don’t rely on words. I’ve personally found actions to be much more telling,” Finn offered to Silver. He gestured at his compa
nions. “Put down your weapons,” he ordered.

  Julia shot him an incredulous look, but he nodded his head slowly. They gained little by fighting this strange group. If one of them died, who knows where they would respawn. Worst case, it would be back in Lahab. Besides, time was of the essence. If this area was Silver’s “territory,” then she might know the location of the Forge’s entrance. Finn and his group could possibly save days of searching the mountain range if they could convince her to help them.

  Julia must have reached the same conclusions. Sighing, she slowly lowered her weapon, looping her lance at her waist and draping her shield across her back. Kyyle followed her lead, letting his mana dissipate, but still firmly clutching his staff and the fingers of his free hand twitching slightly. Neither Julia nor Kyyle had fully let their guard down.

  “See?” Finn said to Silver. “We don’t want to fight you. We weren’t even aware that anyone lived up here. We’re just looking for something along the edge of these mountains.”

  Silver seemed to relax slightly as she saw Finn’s teammates lower their weapons, but she tensed again at his comment. “Looking for what exactly?”

  “An old workshop – a place called the Forge. Although, it’s likely little more than ruins now. From our understanding, it hasn’t been in use for the better part of a century,” Finn explained. “We believe it’s somewhere in this general area. Here, let me show you…” He trailed off, moving to pull up his map.

  Finn saw Silver and her companions tense as he raised his hand, and he hesitated. “I’m just pulling up my map,” he offered slowly. At a nod from Silver, he swiped at the air and then rotated the map toward the silver-haired woman.

  “See? We were told it was around here,” Finn explained, gesturing at the large glowing circle that Kalisha had outlined.

  Silver’s expression was stoic as she observed the map, but Finn could see her mana fluctuate slightly within his sight, just a faint tremor among the perfectly balanced rainbow of mana. A flash of darkness. That told Finn two things.