Landasy Reality: Angel's Escape

by Fredrick Stokely

  “I can't believe you used that spell! When my friend is done with your little dragon buddy she's going to crush you into dust!” A long stream of profanity began to flow from the crystal, calling Asura almost every bad word under the sun.

  “Calm down. I'm not going to keep you in there for long. Well, okay I will. Besides, you used dark echo on me and I know that's the demon equivalent.” Her hands navigated through the menus again before she sent out a message to her guild. “I'm going to do the same thing to you that you tried to do to us. I'm sure I can find some volunteers willing to swap you around until after the quests are done.”

  “Don't think you'll get away with this! My guild will track me down and get me out of here!” The crystal practically hummed with rage.

  “No, they won't, and you know it. You can't tell where you are while in the gem. All you can do is talk to me. But why don't I give you a chance? We wait here until our friends are done with the fights and then who knows? Maybe your friend will be the winner. Then she can kill me and take you back. Assuming she doesn't hold onto Mutt's jewel.” Asura said before the gemstone disappeared into her inventory and she put the stone on mute. With combat over, her dropped sword had reappeared in its sheath at her side.

  She nervously glanced at her minimap, though she no longer saw her friend's name. She slowly walked towards where B4hamutt had been fighting. Every snapped twig or ruffled branch made her cringe and jump. With the zero MP penalty of Rapture she could no longer use flaming hands to grant light, and now every sound made her imagine giant spiders crawling around, just waiting to pounce on her. Not to mention the little ones that walked around her feet and crawled over her flesh. She hoped she could get out of these woods soon. Without the adrenaline pumping it made it hard for her to ignore the little monsters as they crawled along her legs and body.

  She was soon running at a brisk jog as she tried to find the two, though she still couldn't see him anywhere. A message popped up in front of her, and she quickly accepted it. It was a single voice clip from B4hamutt. “Meet me outside the forest, north.”

  Asura didn't need any more incentive. She darted through the woods, trying to ignore the feeling and sensations of the things she tripped over or ran into or that nudged her. At one point she had to cleave a spider the size of a bull in half with her sword, she doubted she'd EVER forget the sensation of running into something like that. She really wasn't looking forward to logging out of the game tonight, she just KNEW she was going to have nightmares.

  By the time she was outside the woods her MP had returned and most of the rapture penalties had disappeared. She instantly lifted her hands up. “Flaming body!” she yelled before flames coated her body and vaporized all the spiders crawling on her. After a few more minutes the webbing fell from her as well, the penalty disappearing.

  She sent a message letting B4hamutt know she was out and then just waited. After a few moments she received a response letting her know he was on the way. She soon saw him, holding a red gemstone in his hand. She grinned and pulled out her own. “You still logged in?” she asked hers.

  “... I hate you. Where are we?” the spider woman growled.

  “Not telling. Your friend lost and she's in the same predicament you are,” she said before muting the stone again as B4hamutt came within speaking range. “I see you got her. Glad to see you won, was it hard?”

  “Yeah. She was a fae. Their teleporting ability is always a pain in the butt. You could have warned me they had one of those alters set up. That the spider girl?” he asked with a smirk.

  “Yep. Talking to her now,” she said before she unmuted the demon girl. “Here's the deal. We're taking both you and your friend back to our guild. If you tell us where the other two are being held, we'll go and investigate. If we get them out, we'll let both of you out to compete in this years master quests. Deal?”

  “Why on earth should I trust you? You'll just leave us in these stones to rot!” the red jewel screamed loud enough to wake the dead, at least it would have if anyone but its holder could hear it.

  Asura rolled her eyes. “It's your only chance to compete this year. I think you have just as much right to participate as we do. Well, slightly less. You worked hard to be ready for this year and I'd hate for anyone to have to miss their chance. So I give my word to release you and your friend if you help us free our friends.”

  “... I'll think about it,” the jewel said before going silent. The glow left it, so she assumed Evealie logged out.

  “What she say?” B4hamutt asked.

  “She'll think about it. Let's head back to the guild head quarters. We can hand these off and then I need to log out.”

  “What? So soon? Why?”

  “I got some things I need to deal with. Don't leave without me this time, okay? I swear if I have to go through another forest filled with spiders trying to find you, I'm going to be pissed. I should be able to have almost all day tomorrow.”

  “I promise I will wait for you this time. Let's go.” He took out a small ring and held it out towards the ground. A blue archway formed in front of them as they stepped through it, disappearing rather than coming out the other side.

  Chapter 4

  Age: 16 years, 1 month

  Asher shivered as he laid in bed. Above his head he could see a large spider, larger than his hand, slowly sliding down from the ceiling towards his face. He tried to lift his hands to block it, but he couldn't. He opened his mouth to call for help, but no sound came. He watched helplessly as the spider landed on his nose, its eight thin legs tickling him, as it slowly crawled around his face, prodding at his open mouth. Moments later, dozens of spiders spilled from his bed, crawling along his flesh while he struggled to defend himself.

  He awoke with a start, his eyes wide. He let out a soft gasp. He closed his eyes after a moment and slowly mouthed to himself. 'Just a dream. Just a horrible dream.' He soon fell asleep again, but the night was restless as the nightmare returned again and again.

  When morning came, he returned to his headset. As much as he desired to return to LRVR, he had one task to do first. After a quick search he found a game for him and his parents to play. A simple space simulation game, where the players played the role of passengers on a traveling space ship. Even though it didn't have a lot of flashy abilities and was simple enough for anyone to play, it still had plenty of nice visuals and a lot of the ships and equipment had been based on famous sci-fi series from the past. He called his parents and let them know. He planned the gaming session for the weekend, which still gave him plenty of time to save his friend. After that he was forced to disconnect from the headset in order to have breakfast. Fortunately, his nurse for the day was Amy.

  He liked Amy, she seemed to listen to what he said. She even agreed to not log him out of the game until the headset was shut off from the inside, so long as he logged off before three so he could eat something. She didn't even manually shut it down the few times he had been late, just scolding him and telling him to be more careful. She never talked down to him, like Jessica, instead treating him like an adult and even asking his opinion and thoughts when she did things for him.

  Asura appeared in a small castle room, sitting on a massive, but simple, white bed. The castle was their guild home, one of thousands of similar ones located in a special area that could be accessed either from the main cities or by special items the leaders had, such as B4hamutt's ring. The castle also allowed the users to teleport to any of the main cities and a few specific locations making it very useful for quick travel and grouping everyone together.

  The moment she finished loading in she was bombarded by messages from B4hamutt. They all said the same thing, albeit with different senses of urgency. 'Meet me in the throne room immediately.' She sent him a message before walking out. She passed under a large boar's head, a reward from a dungeon they had cleared earlier in the year. She brushed her fingers along a few tapestries that lined the halls, images of their guild members and past victor
ies. When she came to the end of the hall, she paused for a moment to glance out a window with a smile. She could see out in the lawn where a great wall surrounded them. On the right of the castle was a large lake, even from here she could see fish as they jumped out of the water. Three statues stood in the courtyard, depicting her and the other two class masters, a testament to their achievement.

  Her hands danced through the air as she walked down the halls. Her shoes disappeared and she sighed happily when she felt the thick red carpet against her soles. It was so thick and warm, she couldn't feel the cold, hard stone beneath. She took her time walking through the castle, knowing he'd be there waiting for her and she did enjoy annoying him, just a bit, while she took her time with simple pleasures.

  By the time she entered the large throne room she had re-equipped her boots and strolled inside. The throne room was mostly bare with a large red carpet, a single golden throne and a plain silver shield dangling over the fancy chair. The room was rarely used aside from as a large open meeting room since, despite being the guild leader, B4hamutt tried to not throw his position around.

  “Took your time, didn't you?” the annoyed dragon asked as he paced back and forth in the hall. “I sent a message out to the guild, but no one knows how to contact Scales outside of the game. Seems no one got his online handle. Fortunately, the demon and spider girl cracked and are currently being held in an undisclosed location by a few of our guild members.”

  “Undisclosed? Why can't you tell me? I DID help capture them.”

  “I'm not telling anyone,” B4hamutt said with a shake of his head. “Listen, we don't have time for this. I have the information, though I'm not sure if we can trust her. It's likely just another trap, so I got as many people together as I could. I even got Suportano to agree to help us. He doesn't like what they tried, either.”

  “Suportano? Really? Why did you have to invite him?” she asked with a huff.

  “Let it go. Just because he's the only other master angel doesn't mean you have to get that whiny about him. I'm sure he had to work just as hard as you did.”

  “I-I'm not whiny! I just... don't think we need him. That's all. I'm all the angel we need,” she said before she tapped her feet impatiently. “Let's just go save them, okay?”

  “Fine. Apparently they are hiding out in the Armageddon Temple. Don't know how many there are, but it's definitely going to be a hard fight,” B4hamutt said.

  “Of course.” Asura rolled her eyes. “The temple has a lot of max level monsters. It shouldn't be too hard for the demon players, since they could just shadow meld and then sneak through the area and hide. But for us it'll be a lot harder since we'll have to fight our way through and find them. This could be to our advantage though.” The angel chuckled before a small smile formed on her lips.

  “Oh? Why?”

  “The temple only has one entrance and exit at each floor. We can put up a guard unit. All we have to do then is clear it out and light the place up until they appear. If there are enough of us it shouldn't be too hard clearing the place out either. Even with the spawn rates.”

  A grin formed on his lips. “Exactly what I was thinking. We have a fairly large group so far. Way I see it, we divide into three teams. Two can go and clear the area out while one guards the entrance. Each team gets a master to lead them. You up for this?”

  “Of course! Lets go!” she said and walked towards the castle exit. “This is going to be awesome. Kicking a bunch of demon butt.”

  ------

  The temple was a massive structure, larger than some mountains, covered in black paint and demonic symbols. It towered over the land, each floor taller than most buildings, yet narrowing into a point near the top. The windows were too small to fit most birds through, and if you listened hard you could just barely hear the sounds of screams and chains.

  As the two walked towards the structure, Asura glanced to B4hamutt and chuckled nervously. “According to lore, the temple was used by a sect of the demon's before and during the war as a place to sacrifice their prisoners for rituals. Supposedly it's abandoned and filled with demons that ended up losing their minds during the final battles. Well, that and their experiments.”

  The dragon sighed. “I know. It'll be fine though. We should be able to see our teams soon. Are you sure you don't want to fly ahead? I know it must suck having to walk the roads with me.”

  “It's fine,” she said before they walked over a hill and the gateway of the temple came within view. She gasped in shock at the sheer number of players who stood outside the wall. There were at least fifty people here. She felt a warm feeling in her stomach at how seriously everyone was taking this. That was, until she saw HIM.

  Suportano, a strange, if defining, name. He was wearing master class armor like her, except instead of going a melee aggressive type he chose a more loose fitting robe. The threads seemed to glimmer like silver and it bore an angel wing symbol over the heart. The armor was designed for spells, amplifying their damage and reducing their costs. It was a strange choice, namely because it was harder to clear enemies with because the user had to constantly stay on the move and be wary of any sneak attacks. Besides, it was a lot more fun to run out and mix the magic and physical attacks together. Worst of all, healing was unaffected by the robes boosts. She couldn't imagine why anyone would fight with that.

  “Okay everyone!” B4hamutt yelled out when they joined the group. “We all know why we're here, two master class players have been captured for the intent of keeping them out of the quests this year! You're all connected to them, one way or another, so we all have reasons to help them out. We're going to break into three teams, each with a master. Two teams will spread through the temple and light it up while the last team will guard the entrance. The captains will be me, Asura and Suportano. Any questions?”

  Almost immediately the groups began to fight, yelling at each other, calling each other names, claiming they should lead because they were part of their own guild or others claiming they could solo this place and didn't need anybody. Even more began to whine that they had to come out here at all, how did they even know if the information was true? In the end they had to form four groups with eight people and one last group that held ten. Suportano led the larger group which stood guard at the entrance while the others slowly walked inside.

  Asura's group headed right. The temple was made up of dozens of rooms across eight floors, so they slowly made their way through the first room. Each player had a large supply of torches which could be used to brighten the rooms up and remove any shadow melding abilities.

  “Okay, everyone be careful and alert,” Asura said, her hand tightly gripping the hilt of her blade. It was no longer a longsword, instead a greatsword strapped to her back. “The biggest dangers here are the monsters. They are all demons and have the shadow meld ability. That means if we're not careful, they can catch us by surprise in an ambush. Stay on your toes.”

  At the first room she tossed the torch into the center. The light spread and instantly three demons appeared. Two of them were shaped like giant bipedal armadillos with massive spikes coating their body and thick armor like hides, armordillos. The last demon was a generic green skinned girl in tight leather armor and brandishing a whip. Asura was unsurprised to see its name was Armordillo mistress. The demon snapped her whip once and both the armordillos rolled into balls and sped straight at their group.

  “Scatter!” Asura yelled before she charged forward. She stepped to the left so the first one sped by her and when the second one came at her she drew her blade from her back. She gripped the blade tightly in both hands and swung. The creature's quick movements pressed it harder onto her blade and cleaved it in half in a single motion. She kept her momentum as the creature turned to red sparkles around her and headed straight at the mistress. Her left hand danced through the air until the sword shrunk in her right hand to its longsword form. The mistress swung the whip once, making the angel step to the left before slashing. The whi
p disappeared in a shower of red sparkles and the owner followed a moment later.

  She turned back to see how the rest of the group was faring. The other armordillo was already disappearing in a shower of red sparkles, which was definitely a good sign.

  “Wow. You wiped them out in a single strike, how did you do that?” one of her comrades, a leviathan, asked.

  “Easy. Armordillo's have high armor values, but not a lot of HP. The mistress was a low HP support monster. My sword tears through creatures like that, and I've fought plenty of creatures with the same mechanics before so I knew where to hit to get a critical strike.” Once again her hands danced along the air as she sheathed the longsword at her side. It increased back to the greatsword length before disappearing and then reappearing on her back.

  “I can't wait til I get my mastery,” the leviathan said. “I hope mines as powerful as yours.”

  “Probably will be. I don't actually know what the leviathans is, I never got around to asking Scales. Been too busy I guess. I'll need to start making more time.” They walked into the next room. Another torch was thrown and once again armordillos and mistresses appeared. Room by room they repeated the process, taking time to clear out each side room as they went. Some of the rooms had additional creatures, but the majority of them went as smoothly as the first, even when she wasn't able to kill the majority of the monsters by herself, most her group knew how to handle themselves and evade attacks. After almost two hours the first three floors of the building were completely cleared and the four teams met up again.

  “Well, we're a little over a third of the way done. It gets harder from here though.” B4hamutt said before he looked up the stairs. “Monsters get more powerful and sneakier now. Before we go, does anyone need to leave? I don't want us to lose people midway through.” A few of the players did leave, but the majority of them stayed and the leavers promised to return as soon as they could.