Mark 2.0: Book 4: Love

by Prax Venter

  Klax tried to recount the chaos that descended on Starglade the moment they’d separated, and Maliah had broadcast her systemwide message. Their own truth seers knew immediately that the face was lying, but that didn’t stop everyone else from turning the great tree inside out to find them. After the end of the first day, and after the Centaur stronghold went dark, most Kalorplast wanted to help her anyway, lie or no. With how bizarre Mark and his team was, it was easy to believe they’d stolen the orb for themselves while having the audacity to come hand over the useless door code as well. That little deceit did not work in their favor.

  “We did feel bad about it,” Mark said with a shrug as he let Jayna free of his energy prison. She clenched her wooden jaw as she stood, but stayed focused though the nightmare spinning in her mind. Mark didn’t know what giving birth was like, but it felt as if she were experiencing it constantly. Safely planting her seed was priority number one and everything was a threat to be bitten… And had been this way for her for way too long.

  Mark moved close to the powerful nature spirit, keeping his hands up to show that he wasn’t going to hurt her. Then he slowly extended his pure white energy from his fingertips to her fingertips, her wrists, and when she sighed with the relief its touch brought her, he settled his liquid power as a barrier around her bulging stomach.

  The psychological effect of having a strong magical barrier around her womb magnified its practical effect, and her growing aggression became more manageable.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I choose to not believe you are our enemy.”

  “Great choice,” Mark said and then used his other hand to pull open his four-hour “intra” dimensional doorway. Thomellia’s mountain top throne room was no longer in any form of disrepair and what was once uncomfortably cold was warm and inviting.

  Other than a stream of people going in and out of the Wrongside portal there weren’t many people around. He held the magical door open while everyone came through and then started leading them to the Lagos portal when a familiar cream-colored Vulpath stepped in front of him.

  “Mark!” Audra said, “I’m glad to finally find you. There are several supplicants- some who’ve been held as combatants- who claim to know you. I think you should-”

  He held up a hand. “Supplicant combatants? I’m kind of busy right now. Maybe soon?”

  Her sharp eyes darted from his to the pregnant tree woman bound to him by a shell of Salivis energy before she sighed.

  “Trust me. Come back soon.”

  He nodded as she spun away.

  “This way,” Mark said, ushering his strange party forward. The very first thing Klax saw when he approached the permanent doorway between worlds was the golden radiance of the Orb of Legend siting on its pedestal and Princess Verrelle bent over on magic legs, inspecting it closely with a block of black metal.

  He pushed past Mark through the threshold, but the short plant mage stalled when he came close.

  “Please,” he whispered and the legless princess standing on pure goddess energy flinched when she noticed him standing there. The smaller pumpkin man turned to gaze up into her eyes. “Please, I beg you to tell me what you are doing.”

  The heavenly dragon tilted her head at him and then cast her eyes to Mark.

  “This is the Princess Verrelle,” he began as everyone else joined them in the orb chamber. “She is the head of research here at Orb Hub. Verrelle, this is Klax and Jayna. They are Kalorplast from Starglade. Go ahead and give us an update, if you have news.”

  The princess smiled wide. “Oh? This is great news! I’ll need to hear more- but uh. So, I was just collecting some data from the orb after successfully decoding that SkyLance function we discovered a few days ago.”

  “Great job,” Jezebel said, stepping forward. “Was it a weapon?”

  Verrelle nodded. “Indeed, it is! Many weapons, apparently. Distant machines above the clouds will rain down fiery death over a large area or singe a single blade of Garda grass. Lagos now has teeth. If I could even begin to understand how they did this one thing, I could die fulfilled.”

  “Y-yes,” Klax muttered, mesmerized by both the intriguing Princess and the Orb of his dreams.

  “Excellent news,” Mark said.

  “The impossible blue sun above is so potent,” Jayna said as she reached her arm branches toward the gaping hole that remained in the ceiling. There was now a bullshit magic forcefield over it that let in fresh air, and he watched in wonder as hungry green leaves started unfurling from all over her body. Mark still had his energy wrapped around her core and could feel the sprit become saturated in-

  “What is going on here?” Learis demanded, and Mark turned to see her, Amina, and Prince Isskeld emerging from the Wrongside portal.

  “Survivors,” Mark said swiftly. “They managed to save Starglade. It’s here with them now and they need a space to rebuild. Nowhere on the Thomellia side is safe, so I was thinking Amina-”

  “How many livestock in Paradise did they save?” Learis shouted over him, her eyes darkening in a way Mark had rarely seen from her. He was missing something here- some intel about the great tree city’s ruins she already knew about.

  “There was no time,” Jayna said with a swipe of a branch. Metaphysical daggers tore into the tree woman’s insides from being forced to contain countless individual lives in magical suspension.

  “You mean not a priority!” Learis yelled.

  “Of course they were not!” Jayna screeched back, and Sasha’s tail snapped once to punctuate her presence in the room as she moved into better offensive position.

  Klax hung his head, helpless on many levels, and Learis began quivering with rage.

  “You think you arrogant sacks of fucking sap are infesting one speck of dirt in my home with your rotting filth-”

  “My love,” Amina said as she reached out to grab her Enthralled. The leader of the Lagomorph spun to face the Avatar of the Awysai and there was an internal argument that not many in the room could perceive.

  “Kalorplast,” Amina said finally, her white eyes snapping up over Learis’s shoulder. “You will come with us Awysai refugees to our new home. There is more land and sun than anyone knows what to do with, and there is need of a great sowing of life. However, I must defer to the Blazar for final approval.”

  The ruby-armored Blazar Prince held out his hand to Jayna with a posture that suggested he was not about to make a request.

  “Come with me to stand before the Lord and Sovereign of the Blazar.”

  “This was going to be my suggestion,” Mark jumped back in. “I highly recommend you take Amina up on her offer.”

  Through sheer force of titanic will, the wooden woman let the new leaves she’d sprouted wither, then fought against his protective energy. It was more about spite and showing strength at this point. With everything she’d seen recently, Jayna was smart enough not to think she could overpower those around her and resigned to bargaining for the future of her people.

  Mark gave Amina a sharp nod that she returned before the Kalorplast were led through yet another doorway to the Wrongside.

  “I’m going with,” Sasha said, her tail snapping repeatedly as she followed close to Learis.

  “Great,” Mark said, waving at her backside then turned to the others. “So, apparently I have people that want to meet with me back in Thomellia, and by what I felt from Audra, I should probably check it out while the Blazar and the Kalorplast talk this out. Can you please join me, Jez? I feel like I am missing a lot of intel and might need to use your smarts.”

  “Then use me,” she said with a warm smile.

  “Princess Verrelle,” Abby said to get her attention just before she merged with Angel in front of her.

  “What?! How-”

  “We will assist you in collecting data,” they said in unison. “Please direct us to the distant sky weapons so we may locate and scan them.”

  Mark and Jezebel left them to it as they passed back through the Thomell
ia doorway and entered the throne room. After asking a few people where Audra was, they found her walking down one of the renovated castle hallways.

  “Oh,” she said, her ears perking up when she saw them. “Greetings, you two. That was soon. Have time to meet with some insistent groups of people? One group just came in today, and I’m sure you’ll want to see them.”

  “Sure,” Mark said to the aspiring legendary artist. “So, stuff working out for you here in Castle Thomellia? You happy?”

  Her tail started wagging. “I’m officially a Princess and known throughout the land as one of the most influential Vulpath here. I could paint a canvas with my eyes closed using only feces, and it would still garner absurd amounts of praise. I am delirious, Mark.”

  “Poetry,” he said, wrinkling his nose.

  “Perhaps I should stick to the visual medium,” she said, holding up a hand to her snout to cover a haughty laugh.

  She led them into a torch-lit meeting room with four massive Vulpath guards covered head to toe with enchanted plate armor and holding powerful spears imbued with some type of legendary wind magic.

  “Just in case,” Audra said, nodding to the guards. “You are a valuable asset.”

  Mark quickly played out all the witty ways he could respond to that, but the fact that all these people, and everything they experienced, and every single one of their ancestors- everything, it all existed to create a believable world for his human mind to use as training wheels.

  He just nodded and sat down in the red-cushioned chair with gold trim.

  Jezebel’s hand found his under the table as she sat next to him and instantly felt a weight lift from his mind.

  “It was that,” she whispered, “but we both know that was also the starting event that allowed all of this unimaginable wonder to exist. Looking back at the… consciousness I was when I bargained for your mind and then set up this living dollhouse, it is as if I really were just a child with powerful toys.”

  “Mark!” Loa shouted as she ran into the room followed by her mate Nalo. The guards in the room snapped to attention at the Skeema’s swift approach, but Mark turned to the closest solider to give a nod, and they all responded by returning to a more relaxed stance.

  Both sides had tales of adventure to share, and he sat rapt as the two went through their escape of the city into the undead passages after Maliah’s message. Then, their retreat back to Thomellia once the system admin started collapsing the tombs as she stomped above them. The terror in their eyes was tangible.

  Now, they were hoping to see him and the others before they applied to go to Lagos and hide away in the middle of nowhere for a while. Neither of the pair were really the warrior type and Mark could tell surviving a close encounter with Lady Maliah had rocked them to the core. Especially since Loa’s people had gone as far as attempting Awysai genocide.

  When they finished up, Mark made sure everyone important knew Loa and Nalo were to be treated as VIPs with immediate access granted to the Lagos portal.

  There were two more groups to see him and he had no idea what else to expect, but when the elephant warrior and the tiny pixie came walking through the door, Mark stood up and the guards stood at attention once more. This time, he did not give them a nod.

  “Torf,” Jezebel said, clasping her hands to her chest. “Gwenthwip, we cannot say enough how truly sorry we about the death of your Collector. That explosion was an accident.”

  “We aren’t here to throw our lives away in a foolish attack,” the enormous woman with the five-foot trunk said softly and Mark could feel her restrained rage as if her iron armor were really an industrial oven. “We just want some answers.”

  “Where is the electric Succubus?” the tiny woman said in her tiny voice. “The one called Sasha. And the Horror. Are they dead?”

  “They are off doing their own thing.” Mark said and Gwenthwip frowned. “And that which we can answer, we will do so truthfully.”

  “Do the gods truly stand by your side?” Torf said, her small eyes flaring with intensity.

  “Some do,” Mark said, coating one hand with white Salivis energy and the other with a black sparking tornado granted by He Who Judges. “Some don’t.”

  He could tell they didn’t really have much of a plan here. A surface-level scan showed a pair of former Enthralled who had no chance of getting revenge on the people they hated. They partially hoped Mark, or the people in the castle would be evil, or that he would try and attack them. But none of their easy-out fantasies were coming true.

  “You’re here,” he said, “I’m here. So, I will tell you my side if you want to hear it.”

  The two drastically different-sized creatures shared a glance before Torf said, “Speak, then.”

  “Iona was planning an ambush. I ruined her plans by fixing the battery transport, so she stepped up her plans to attack the Collectors.” Mark paused to sit down and let out a slow sigh as he remembered his cocky thought process.

  “I’m pretty sure you two don’t give a fuck but that is a day I will never forget, and it is a lesson I try to never repeat. I took Iona aside to talk her out of her ambush, and I should have just warned everyone around me about the danger. I risked Bann’s life on my ability to convince someone- who was about to commit murder- that, aw shucks, ma’am. It would be awesome if you didn’t try and kill everyone.”

  “You smashed her fucking chin through her chest!” Gwenthwip screamed, buzzing forward.

  The guards all took a step forward, and Mark held out his hand for them to stand down. As one, the guards stepped back into their neutral position.

  “She was a Hexer,” Jezebel said. “Two Enthralled.”

  Mark let out a noise that was a half laugh, half disgust as he formed an intricately detailed sledgehammer in his fist. He let it slam into the ancient wooden table. The impact gouged out a huge divot, and he made sure everyone saw it before he unsummoned his hammer and reached out for Jezebel’s hand.

  Through her, he prepped for a quick deep-dive into the static.mesh.obj labeled castle_asset.088(furniture). Mark reset the recently shattered code, and since this table was ancient, there was nothing but data regarding its previous state. He reached out and smoothed over the surface with his hand back at the base runtime of the universe, and he heard one of the guards shift uncomfortably nearby.

  “I’m a Lover. I shouldn’t be able to do any of this. She used an ability that forced me to use my strongest attack, expecting a silk-wearing healer with maybe a knife in his boot.”

  “Then, everyone started attacking us,” Jezebel said, jumping in for the first time.

  The pixie folded her arms before flying over to sit on Torf’s shoulder.

  “I can’t believe they’re trying to make it sound like they aren’t the evil ones who murdered our Collector. I don’t want to look at them anymore. Let’s get out of this dump.”

  Mark puffed out his cheeks as they left and braced for the final of the ‘combatant supplicants’, but all the deep breaths in the universe wouldn’t have prepared him to see a withered cabbage girl Collector and her Enthralled nut-boy.

  - 24 -

  The beat-down Kalorplast pair had simply walked into the room and all the guards shifted out their spears, ready for anything.

  “Guards,” Mark said softly, his focus lingering on the purple scar curling back the leaves across Cel Nightwater’s chest. “There is no danger. Please wait outside.”

  The Vulpath soldiers looked at each other before one of them thrust his arm at the door. The others moved immediately. Once they were all out, Mark couldn’t help but notice the burly guards that had brought them to this meeting room were still standing with their snouts “technically” outside the doorway.

  “We’ve come to help with the fight against Lady Maliah,” the small Fighter said, “but everyone treats us like the enemy even though she destroyed my people and my home.”

  “How long have you been waiting to see us?” Jezebel asked, her anger rising. Mark
knew she’d been back and forth to Thomellia daily and was already getting pissed no one had told her they were here.

  “Two days,” Dar said. “It has been a long journey to this distant mountain top.”

  Both looked miserable and from Mark’s very recent experience with plant people, he knew exactly what they’d been missing- so why were they just standing in a meeting room?

  He moved around the table and said, “Come on, let’s walk and talk.”

  Jezebel felt his intention and quickly followed, dismissing and thanking any other Vulpath guards that tried to assist.

  “Starglade isn’t gone,” Mark said once they were alone once more, and the small cabbage woman spun on him so fast she almost lost the sharpened bee stinger short swords she had holstered to her waist.

  “Is my father alive! My sister? Where are they?”

  “Hold on, it’s way more complicated than that. The good news is I think we found a great place to replant your crazy big tree in another dimension.”

  Both Kalorplast walking at his side remained quiet as they processed the drastic change in their concept of what was happening.

  “Mark,” Cel began as they walked up a flight of stairs that led to the throne room. “Jezebel, I want to thank you for taking the time to meet with us. I know you must be so busy with the gods and epic wars- and we’re not very high level yet, so I’m not sure how effective we would be, but we just didn’t want to be prisoners either. I need to help.”

  “We need to help,” Dar amended.

  “We,” she said, reaching out for his hand.

  Mark had been there when Dar became a person and he had also seen this ever-determined plant elf girl learn to fight, and their emotional bond was almost visible to him. Within it, he saw a minor note of discordance regarding her taking too many risks, and her finally learning that he was right. Her scar was a recent reminder of this lesson and Mark scratched off his intent to eventually offer healing. This was a scar she might need for a while.