Lightningbreaker

by L. T. Thornhill

  “You talk again and the next bullet goes into your body,” said Boran, his voice cold and spoken from between clenched teeth. He took a few steps back. “Now get up.”

  Pushing himself to trembling legs, Matteo pressed his hands to his knees, waiting for his head to stop spinning. After gaining a semblance of control, he looked up at Boran. The boy had his Silversky raised to shoulder height. The Minotaur Horn was attached to a clip on a belt around his waist.

  Standing up straight, or as straight as he could manage, Matteo looked at Emiri, who seemed to be looking at him warily. He thought about trying to bring her and her brother’s guard down, but decided against it. Not only would it not do any good, but he hoped that he could use their emotions against them.

  After walking for a tenth of the time it took them to reach the point where Matteo received a club to the head, the group saw rays of light cutting between the trees. They would soon reach a clearing. That meant only one thing.

  The trio had reached Valhalla.

  When they broke through the trees, they entered a wide swath of grass that extended as far as the eye could see. It inclined downward and, when Matteo’s eyes ran along the slope, he realized that it curved in either direction. The slope began at the tree line and extended all the way down to a cluster of buildings.

  From where he was standing, Matteo could make out hundreds of tents dotting the outer perimeter of a small town. He could only see one side of the settlement, but he assumed that the tents surrounded it on all sides.

  There was something odd about the tents and, for that matter, the town itself. Matteo couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the place seemed vastly different from the way he had experienced the video game version of Valhalla.

  A quick shove from behind forced Matteo to resume walking. He bit back a comment that conveyed his frustration and instead focused on trying to remember information about objects and places. His mind traveled to the Minotaur Horn.

  Minotaur Horns. Artifacts that allow the wielder to gain the agility of the fabled beast. One can leap great distances and use their newfound dexterity to their advantage. To make use of the artifact, the wielder has to simply shatter the crystal in their hands.

  It would definitely be an advantage to someone like Boran or Emiri, who could easily use it to find a higher vantage for sniping at opponents. If someone were to find their hiding spot, they could easily move to another location before their opponents realized they had gone.

  The grassy slope was sparsely populated with trees—not enough to hinder the view of the town, but just enough to give the ground an uneven look. Matteo knew from experience that the sloping field surrounded the town, giving the impression of a large bowl, with buildings at its center, where the ground leveled off.

  The town. Tents of different shapes and colors, where one might display an off-gray color while other looked like a circus setup, boldly displaying gaudy designs and vibrant hues. It all felt like a backdrop to a play on stage.

  Then it hit Matteo. If the tents and the town were backdrops, where were the actors?

  Shielding his eyes against the sun, Matteo looked around for human traffic and spotted a sprinkling of people. As he observed their movements, however, he realized that most of them were fixed to a spot—sitting in front of a tent or on a platform, sleeping on the grass, standing idly, or moving around in a small space. It felt like their movements were restricted. Controlled.

  A few people seemed to walk freely. Their movements felt threatening. Hostile. They reminded him of something. It was like watching guards in a prison keeping their eyes on the prisoners. Perhaps he might be mistaken, but something about the way those few people with freedom walked sent his heart racing.

  Matteo focused on bringing his breathing to a gentle rhythm. He didn’t achieve much; Boran’s voice broke through his concentration.

  “Welcome to Valhalla, Matteo.”

  When they reached the first tent, Matteo spotted a skinny man sporting frameless, round-lensed spectacles. He stood behind a small table set up before his tent. A basket filled with a few loaves of bread that were already beginning to harden and another basket loaded with a bunch of strawberries were all the table held. Matteo wondered when the last time someone had attended to the dust that had settled on the table’s surface. The skinny man met Matteo’s eyes and quickly averted his gaze. Still, Matteo could spot the fear in his eyes.

  “NPC,” said Boran. Did Matteo hear sadness in his voice?

  NPCs, or Non-Playable Characters, are programs that perform a specific task. Whether they are to provide new items to the player, guide the player to another task, or even wander around with a set of preprogrammed instructions just to populate the world, NPCs never perform a task outside their coding. Their speech is limited to whatever lines the programmer had provided them. Their reactions and emotions, if they have any, are robotic. Almost non-human. One could make them emote as realistically as possible, but there was always a sense of a programmable quality to them. The information buzzed through Matteo’s mind. He knew how artificial NPCs looked.

  Not the skinny man, though. His fear felt real. Human.

  Matteo was about to voice his thoughts when Emiri grabbed a loaf of bread and tossed it over her shoulder. He heard Boran catch the loaf. After taking another loaf and a bunch of strawberries, Emiri dug into the pocket of her jeans and withdrew a few silver coins. She began counting, stopped, and looked up at the skinny man, who was still staring at the ground, and eventually placed all the coins on the table with a smack.

  The skinny man bowed low, his head almost colliding with the table.

  “Thank you,” said the man, in a voice that a servant would use to communicate with a frightening master.

  Matteo caught the flash of sympathy in Emiri’s eyes. Behind him, Boran uttered a jovial “Thank you, my good man,” but to Matteo’s ears, the appreciation sounded forced.

  “Now what in the name of a Goblin’s green ass do we have here?” a gruff voice broke in, shattering the moment.

  Turning toward the voice, Matteo spotted a tall young man with hair the color of sunflower. In his hands, he held a weapon that had the body and stock of an assault rifle, but the muzzle was replaced by a small crossbow. The weapon was pointed at Matteo.

  Crossbolt. A weapon awarded to members of class Zeus who have reached Rank 2. Reaching Rank 2 means members have achieved a strength of Level 6 to Level 15.

  “What you have here,” said Boran, sounding like he was just a few feet behind Matteo, “is our prisoner.”

  Sunflower Hair smiled. “Is he an Agri?”

  “He hasn’t been initiated yet.”

  “How do you know?”

  There was a pause of a few seconds, during which time Matteo heard a click behind him, like something had been unlocked.

  “It’s because I saved his newbie ass from a Minotaur.”

  Matteo’s head shot around, surprise masking his face. He didn’t care about the consequences of his actions. All he wanted was an explanation. Boran didn’t seem to notice Matteo’s defiance of his rules. The brother was already walking past his prisoner, holding the Minotaur Horn in his hand like he was displaying a trophy for a large crowd to admire.

  The smile faded from Sunflower Hair’s face. It was like watching a light slowly dim out of existence. “Bloody hell,” was all he could manage to say.

  “Yeah,” said Boran, tossing the Minotaur Horn once in the air and catching it. “It was a bloody fight, all right. I knew that the Minotaur was weak to fire, so all I had to do was find an opening, put this rifle deep into its roaring mouth, and pull the trigger. Wasn’t easy.”

  “Is that so?” said Sunflower Hair, his eyes following the journey of the Minotaur Horn. Matteo could see a primal emotion flash in the man’s eyes.

  Envy.

  “Guess it’s time for you to hand it over so I can take it to the prince,” said Sunflower Eyes, the Crossbolt moving an inch in Boran’s direction.

/>   “Ah ah ah,” said Boran, doing his metronome finger-wagging using the same hand that held the Minotaur Horn. “You don’t get the prize that I rightfully won.”

  “You won nothing, Boran,” countered Matteo, finally finding his voice. It was bad enough that he had been held prisoner against his will. He wasn’t about to lose his victory to a half-baked lie. “You had to literally—”

  No one saw the shot coming. Sunflower Hair’s hand met Matteo’s cheek. The slap was not hard enough to knock Matteo down, but it had enough force to send a metallic taste oozing into his mouth. When he gingerly touched his lips, he found red stains inking his fingers.

  “You don’t have the right to speak, mongrel,” said Sunflower Hair.

  Matteo closed his eyes to quell the heat bubbling within him. He didn’t trust himself to look at Sunflower Hair, afraid that he might just leap at the other man and inflict violence on him.

  When he eventually opened his eyes, he saw Sunflower Hair bent forward, his nose almost touching Boran’s. “And you. Know your rank, boy.” He turned his attention to Emiri, his eyes running down her body in a way that held no good intentions, and returning to her face. “The same goes for your sister.”

  Matteo saw Boran’s hand move toward his Silversky. The brother’s face was clouded in a look of darkness that promised great violence upon a victim. With all that had happened, Matteo owed no loyalty or kindness to Boran. Yet he had to admire the young man’s love for his sister. Besides, Sunflower Hair seemed like trouble. The slap that Matteo received had come out of nowhere. It was too fast. There was no doubt that the brightly-colored hair man could serve some real damage, if he wanted to.

  Bringing his hand to his mouth, Matteo feigned coughing. Sunflower Hair glared at him, and Boran moved his hand away from his Silversky in surprise. Emiri shared a look with Matteo. There was no compassion there, but there was respect for what he had done.

  Bringing his mock coughing to a stop, Matteo stood upright, holding one hand to his belly to keep the act as genuine as possible. Sunflower Hair walked toward the table with the bread and strawberries. “Let’s not keep the prince waiting, shall we?”

  The skinny man was still bowing. Matteo could see him visibly trembling, as though he was freezing and he couldn’t keep the cold away.

  Boran’s back stiffened. It seemed he knew what was coming. “Then let’s get moving, Lysander,” he said, moving toward the town in order to coax everyone into following him.

  He stopped after a few paces. Sunflower Hair, or Lysander, was staring at the skinny man with a smirk on his face. There was a childlike delight in his eyes that Matteo found more disturbing than innocent. It was not the delight children had when they were exploring something new or playing with a favorite toy. Rather, it was the one they possessed when they were ripping off the wings of a fly or tearing the limbs of an action figure.

  “One bread,” said Lysander, the smirk transforming into a grotesque grin. “And don’t you dare make a mistake.”

  Matteo realized what this was. Boran had stood up to him, and that was a direct attack on Lysander’s pride. For some reason, the brother was not harmed. There must be an agreement within the class regarding the brother’s position. What that was, Matteo had no idea.

  To regain his pride, Lysander wanted to inflict dominance. He wanted to show that he was still the boss and people obeyed him.

  The skinny man shot a quick, “Yes master,” and reached for the bread basket. In his attempt to overcome his fear long enough to grab a loaf of bread, he touched the basket with the back of his hand, knocking it off the table. Basket and bread fell to the ground, one of the loaves bouncing off Lysander’s trousers.

  Boran was the first to speak. “Let’s not waste time.”

  Lysander raised his weapon and shot a bolt of lightning toward the skinny man.

  With a loud cracking noise, the bolt left the weapon and entered the man’s face faster than the blink of an eye. The man’s head snapped back and the force of it threw him backwards. His body struck the tentpole, bringing the tent down on top of him.

  Matteo and the siblings watched the scene in silent shock. Lysander lowered his weapon, tilting his head sideways as though he wanted to get a better view. “Pity,” he said, turning away from the scene as though he had just watched a puppy walk past him and not someone lose his life.

  Lysander began walking toward the town, speaking over his shoulder. “Chop chop, people.”

  Matteo tore his attention from the scene and, making sure that Lysander was far enough not to hear him, spoke in a hushed tone. His whisper could not hide the fury in his voice. “Tell me that was not a real person.”

  Boran did not answer. He was still staring at the wreckage of the tent, a look of resignation taking over his expression.

  “You told me he was an NPC,” continued Matteo, his voice rising slightly in volume. It seemed to bring Boran back to his senses.

  Putting on a determined face, as though he was trying to defy something, Boran locked eyes with Matteo. “He was an NPC.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Matteo. But he did understand. The answer had clawed its way from deep within his subconscious, breaking through into his rational mind. He just wanted to hear it. “Tell me what this means.”

  Boran walked toward Matteo, his face displaying anger and frustration in equal measure. “Start moving,” he hissed, his hand slicing down in a physical exclamation mark, “before you end up as an NPC, too.”

  The words made Matteo look at other nearby ‘NPCs.’ He saw them withdrawing into their tents as Lysander walked past them, their faces looking like they were watching Death himself moving before them. In a way, that idea was not too far from the truth.

  Matteo’s eyes traveled to the figures lying on the ground. Before entering the town, he had assumed that they were sleeping. After the recent revelation, the truth showed itself to him as a deformed beast.

  “Did they tell you that you would be an NPC, too? asked Matteo, louder than he intended.

  Lysander turned around, curious about the commotion. Boran lifted his rifle and pointed it at Matteo.

  “The next words that come out of your mouth had better be worth a bullet in your head,” threatened Boran, his finger depressing the trigger of his weapon slightly.

  The two young men stared at each other, Matteo leaving the question hanging, not willing to make a move without receiving an answer. Boran, on the other hand, seemed to be daring the newcomer to speak again.

  “If you are not willing to talk, then I am willing to wait here and see how much worse things can really get,” said Matteo.

  “This is interesting,” shouted Lysander, walking toward them.

  “I’ve got this under control,” Boran shouted back.

  “I’m certain that you do.”

  Boran pointed his rifle at the ground and spoke under his breath, “Get on the ground, Matteo.”

  There was a slight desperation in Boran’s eyes, and Matteo could see that the younger man was trying his best to hide it. Emiri stepped up beside her brother, raising her weapon and blocking Lysander’s view.

  For his part, Matteo simply looked from brother to sister. He wanted them to think he was unpredictable. That they had to always be wary of him. He wanted them on their toes, ready to attack him next time at a moment’s notice. Matteo wasn’t yet certain what he was going to accomplish with that, since he didn’t have a plan. All he knew was that he didn’t want the siblings focused.

  More importantly, he wasn’t about to be someone’s captive. He may not be an NPC, but he sure as hell felt like one.

  “Get,” said Boran, giving a pause to show his teeth in frustration, “down.”

  Matteo watched as Lysander neared the siblings, a curious smile on his face.

  Emiri stepped forward and, using the butt of her gun, delivered a blow to Matteo’s midsection, causing him to double over. A throbbing cramp-like pain exploded in his abdominal area. He stood, bent o
ver, with one hand on his knees and the other clutching his stomach.

  “Don’t get up,” warned Boran, his voice nearly pleading.

  Matteo looked up at Emiri to see the worry in her eyes, but he knew it was directed at her younger brother, concerned about what could happen to him. When Matteo noticed Lysander standing next to Boran, he suddenly stood up straight, both fists clenched.

  Emiri stepped back, looking like she wanted to deliver another blow. In the end, she trained her weapon on Matteo. Boran’s mouth opened to say something, but he quickly closed it and forced as much calm as possible into his expression. He had to show that the situation was playing out as he’d intended.

  “I thought he was your prisoner, Boran,” said Lysander, a smirk slowly playing his lips.

  Matteo caught Boran quietly taking a deep breath. “He is. Guy’s fear just took over.”

  Lysander made a show of leaning forward, his hands on his hips like he was examining something closely. “Doesn’t look like he’s scared.” He returned to his upright position. “Looks like defiance to me. You’re not that tough, are you, Boran?”

  The brother’s grip on the situation was slipping, and Matteo could see that. Boran was too proud to admit defeat. If he could lie to gain a better position, he would not undo his actions so easily.

  Lysander’s face broke out into his monstrous-looking grin. His hands readied his weapon, and he took a few steps in Matteo’s direction.

  Emotions raged across Boran’s face, from anger to frustration to downright hostility toward Matteo. He knew that Matteo wanted answers, but he still hadn’t decided whether he would give up information and, by extension, hand over some of the leverage he might possibly hold.

  “He’ll get down, if he wants to get anything out of this situation,” said Boran, conceding defeat in a voice that sounded like he was swallowing nails.

  Lysander, without missing a beat, raised his weapon and shot a bolt of lightning at Matteo’s face.

  “What are you doing?” yelled Boran, the shock bursting out of his voice like a dam that could no longer hold back all the water and broke its foundations to release the pressure.