“Why do we keep meeting like this?” I ask her, recalling the time in Rial Resort Town when she overexerted herself and I had to carry her. “You’re powerful,” I tell her as I crouch before her, “but you already knew that.”
Wolf sits on his haunches and bends forward, pressing his cold nose against Deathdale’s gray hair.
“Careful,” I tell him as he nudges her. “My guess is she’ll be out for a while, recharging. Apparently, the game treats this the same way it treats an injury – so she can’t logout.”
This gets me thinking about what she’s doing right now, or what I was doing, for that matter, when I was beaten to an inch of my life. If I exist completely in a neuronally constructed fantasy world, and I pass out, what happens to my mind? Where does it go? Is this yet another example of a poor misappropriation of Schrodinger's cat, or is it simply a form of digital inertia?
I shake my head at the question as the fire flickers not too far away from us.
Not now. Get to safety.
“Let’s find somewhere to camp,” I say as I bend forward and lift Deathdale, fire flickering all around us. “Anywhere but here.”
I don’t need to look at the gruesome scene of flaming dead bodies to come to the conclusion that there are better places to camp. Once I have Deathdale situated on Wolf, I secure a place behind her and hold onto her waist with my arm as Wolf moves away from the campsite.
To my surprise, Deathdale’s hand comes alive and she squeezes my arm.
Chapter Eleven: A Giant Surprise
Cold air from the northeast swoops over the prairie land situated between the Eastern and Western Splits. After riding for a good hour, we stumble upon a communal campground, noted for its circular pattern of rocks, and take refuge in the shared safe space that doesn’t allow combat within its perimeter.
The frigid wind reminds me of where we’re going – the Rune Lands – and the change in temperature makes me regret not starting a fire. After fending off the pyro-afflicted, a burning campfire was the last thing I wanted to see.
That, and the fact that my skin is still hot from the flames an hour later, keeps me from gathering brush and equipping my fire-starter kit.
Deathdale rests next to Wolf and for all I know, she may log out in the morning as soon as she wakes. She did that once before, on Karuna Island, and if she logs out I will again be alone, my only companion a giant Tagvornin wolf and the voice in my head.
It’s not that bad, Oric.
You’re right, Eric.
“No worries,” I tell myself as I sit down with my back against one of the big rocks making up the perimeter of the camping space. I wouldn’t mind cuddling up next to Wolf, or Deathdale for that matter, but I don’t quite know how she would react to wake up next to me, and I’d rather not be boiled alive from the inside like the pyro-afflicted she killed.
I’m surprised that even worked.
I’ve dealt with the pyro-afflicted before, those damn flaming zombies, back when I was mayor of Ducat. A group of ten or so came from the Eastern Splits and we were lucky to defeat them.
You didn’t defeat them, I remind myself. Like anyone with enough money and power, I let others fight my battles for me.
“And now you are the last warrior,” I whisper half-jokingly as sleep comes over me.
Part of me wants to chastise myself for this, especially after some of my actions over the last two days, but there is nothing about the “last warrior” moniker that says I need to be moral, or just for that matter.
It simply is how the Obelisk has christened me – branded me.
As I blink my eyes shut, I’m suddenly standing in the lagoon in Hashmonean, the Obelisk before me in her stunning dragonfly-esque armor. Golden glitter is splashed across her face and her disco-ball eyes are locked onto me. As she moves towards me, four vampiric mermaids lift from the water, their naked breasts perky and their wet hair matted to their faces.
“You’ve been busy,” the Obelisk says, her voice that of a thousand hissing insects.
“Is this real?”
She rolls her head back on her shoulders. “Does it matter?”
“This is a dream.”
“Your life is a dream.”
“I am dreaming within a dream.”
“You are.”
“Why have you come here?”
“To remind you of your task.”
“I was betrayed,” I whisper, bringing things back down to the real-enough world. “Governor Talonas tricked me. He killed Sam Raid; he killed all those people. It was a false flag, a ruse. But I’m over that for now. I’m heading north.”
“Yes. To see to the Red Plague.”
“I’m making a pit stop along the way.”
The Obelisk studies me for a moment, her heavy gaze boring a hole through my head. “I am aware.”
“Where is Sam? Will she return? Has she respawned?”
“She will.”
“Where is she?” I plead. “I can ride to her, tonight even!”
“She’ll join you sooner than later. Before that, a giant surprise awaits you.”
The mermaids behind her begin to hum. The Obelisk’s sharply angled helm begins to melt down her face, boiling her flesh away. She has no features, no eyes, no nose, and no mouth – just an empty stretch of skin. As her pointed helmet evanesces, so does the rest of her dragonfly armor, from her sharp epaulets to the brittle ribcage coverings.
It’s as if she wears a flawless latex bodysuit, no blemishes on her skin, no genitalia or nipples.
I take a step back, overcome by the oddity of it all.
Wolf barks and I wake.
Morning has come.
(^_^)
To my surprise, Deathdale is still logged in. She sits cross-legged facing the pink-crimson sun and Wolf sits next to her, both their backs to me.
I stand and rub the sleep out of my eyes. I try to recall the dream I’ve just had, but I can only settle on the image of the Obelisk’s expressionless face.
Hunger pangs remind me I’d better eat something soon, and seeing how all I have is jerky – jerky I’d prefer to ration – I’ll either have to do some scavenging or a bit of hunting.
Or not.
Two large rabbits approach me from outside the circle of stones, fall to their sides, and let out their last breaths.
“Who wants rabbit?” I say aloud after I’ve grabbed both fat woodland creatures by the legs.
Wolf turns to me and trots over, his tail wagging. He barks, tries for one of the rabbits, and I pull it away just in time.
Deathdale remains motionless, her gaze focused on the horizon. I walk around to her front side and smile at her.
“Where?” she asks, her eye locking on the two rabbits.
“A gift from the Obelisk. There are some things, um, I haven’t really told you yet.” I lay the dead rabbits on the ground and remind Wolf to keep away from them.
She looks up at me curiously.
“I guess this is kind of an important detail, so here it is: On our way back from Stater, Sam Raid and I were attacked by vampiric mermaids from Hashmonean. I woke up in a lagoon on Hashmonean, alone, and was visited by the Obelisk, whom you may know as Unigaea’s AI, its Neuronal Visualization Algorithmic Seed, the NVA Seed. Damn, that’s a mouthful. Are you familiar with what I’m talking about?”
She nods.
“So that’s where this came from.” I move my hair to the side and show her the bite mark. “Don’t worry, I’m not a vampire now or anything, but I can breathe underwater. Which is cool.”
“It is.”
“Anyway,” I say as I unclip my chestplate, “the Obelisk gave me five levels and this mark as well.” I take off my undershirt and show her the symbol on my chest.
Her eyebrows raise, either at my new mark or my muscles. I secretly hope it’s the latter, quickly swallow this shallow thought, and continue, “This mark allows me to rage once per day, and by rage I mean my attack power and defense doubles. I get faster too
. Long story short – and here’s the important part regarding our little arrangement – the Obelisk has our back. She wants us to ride north to see about the Red Plague.”
“Source code bomb.”
“So you know. Good. Anyway, I was visited by the Obelisk again last night, I think.” I recall her armor melting away and her complete void of a face. “Could have been a nightmare too. She said Sam is alive, and will join us. Or at least she insinuated that. She also said something about ‘a giant surprise,’ which I’m still trying to piece together.”
“Drachma Killers.”
“I have not forgotten that I promised you we’d see to the Drachma Killers. That’s our first stop; if you plan to ride north with us after, whoever ‘us’ may be at that point, that’s entirely up to you.”
She nods in a way that neither confirms nor denies this is her intention.
“Anyway, what I meant earlier is these two rabbits simply approached me and fell over and died, something I will take as a gift from the Obelisk. So, who’s hungry?”
Wolf barks excitedly; Deathdale’s expression remains the same. Her gloved hand comes up and she produces a small package of food from her list. Wrapped in a brown leaf, she places the package on her lap, removes her glove, and warms it with her bare hand.
“Microwave hands,” I tell her. “That’d be a useful skill.”
She looks up to me.
“What?” I equip a kitchen knife given to me by a family in Tangka. “It would!”
Holding the first rabbit with one hand, I slit its jugular and let the blood drain out. I do the same to the other and then remove the first one’s head, keeping it in the air long enough for the blood to completely drain out.
Wolf goes for the rabbit’s decapitated head and runs off with it.
“Don’t worry,” I tell Deathdale, “Wolf and I aren’t as animalistic as we seem. Actually, I guess we are. At least we’re not eating seagulls, not that there’s anything wrong with that.” I turn the second rabbit upside down and drain its blood. “You know how it is to be a Player Killer; no one likes you. I’m pretty sure if there were blues musicians in Unigaea instead of bards, they’d be Player Killers. Just a hunch.”
I hold the rabbit by its hind leg and gather a bunch of skin around its ankle. I twist it until it breaks and begin the process of pulling the fur off the rabbit’s body. I do the same for the other leg, and once the skin is off, I find a rock and cut off its paws.
From there, I flip the rabbit over and make a cut along its belly, through its ribcage and pelvis. After I pry open the side of the belly, I get hold of the windpipe below the rabbit’s severed neck and yank it out.
Wolf goes for it and I let him. A few minutes later and I’ve done the same to the second rabbit.
Now it’s time for the seasoning.
I throw on a little of the Tritanian lemon pepper and let them sit on my cutting board until I can find some sharp sticks, which require a bit of whittling but not enough to really work up a sweat.
The rabbits on their new skewers, I get a fire going using my fire-starter kit and a mixture of twigs and bramble. Using a makeshift rotisserie I found lying next to the fire pit – most these public camp places have items to aid in cooking – I get the rabbits over the fire and slowly roast them to perfection.
“Smells good, admit it?” I ask Deathdale.
She gives me a cold, Glomar response.
Wolf circles the fire, his eyes on the roasting rabbits. Once they’re ready, I toss him the fatter one. He snaps it out of the air and goes to town, finishing it before I can get a bite off.
I chew on mine for a moment – tastes a bit like chicken, but so does most meat I’ve encountered in Unigaea – and once I’ve had a good three fourths of the rabbit, I toss the rest to Wolf.
“He’s hungry,” Deathdale says in a soft voice as she approaches me.
“One thing I’ve learned about dogs here in Unigaea is they’re always hungry. They will literally eat themselves into a coma. Never had a dog up there. Had a cat though. He was different.”
When I say “up there” Deathdale turns away from me, ending our conversation. I guess now is not the time to ask about who she is in the real world, not that it really matters to me. It’s not like I’ve been there in a year anyhow.
Hell, for all I know, Deathdale is a seventy-year-old, retired, gender-neutral millennial living behind the hurricane barrier in Tampa, Florida.
There really is no telling.
“You ready?” I ask. She nods and I whistle for Wolf, who gets the hint we’re about to leave, relieves himself, and trots over to me. I mount up, Deathdale lifts half a foot into the air, and we take off towards Metica.
It’ll still take us another day to get there, but if we travel at a steady pace all day, we’ll be in Metica by morning.
(^_^)
There’s a noticeable chill in the air as we move further north.
With less moisture in the air comes less chance for rain, evident in the light-brown patches of grass. Prone to wildfires, the stretch of land between the Eastern and Western Splits is one of the most traversed areas of the continent.
We pass a group of men carrying heavy loads on their packs, which they have tied to their foreheads like Sherpas. Their skin brown from the constant sun and their leg muscles popping, they march past us without so much as looking in our general direction.
These carriers are paid by delivery, so it is in their best interest to quickly move past anyone who looks as if they may cause trouble. I’m not saying a Solar Mage and a Player Killer with a giant Tagvornin Wolf will cause them trouble, but if I saw our odd little trio, I’d be heading the other direction as well.
The carcass of a dead horse along the side of the road catches my eye.
It’s a Shire horse, clearly bigger than the small horses used in the south, and by the look of its skeleton, it’s been dead for quite a while. The next thing that catches my eye is an overturned wagon, the wheels of which have been stripped.
It is inadvisable to travel on this swatch of land without protection. Once, many avatars ago when I was a dark mage, I accompanied a trio of merchants from Solidus to Tael. It was a grand journey, and we were lucky one of the merchants was good with a sword.
But really, the bandits up here are different than the bandits near the southern coast. These are more ruthless, stronger, and there are more occurrences of odd conditions in this area, like pyro affliction.
Deathdale and I keep to the main road, avoiding any paths that splinter off from it.
Cloud coverage overhead blocks out most of the crimson sky, casting the rolling plains before us in a maroon and gray mashup akin to a photo viewed with a sepia filter on it.
I smile as the Solar Mage whizzes past me.
Since the day we met, there’s been something about her I can’t quite place my finger on. The desire to know more about her is hard to suppress, but I bottle it up, knowing better than to probe for answers.
Both of us skid to a halt when we see a red-haired giant seated along the roadside.
A giant surprise, huh?
Visible from half a mile away, it may be better for us to loop around the giant entirely. Then again, if he is hostile and we kill him, it will net us a ton of EXP.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“Let’s go.”
Deathdale moves along the road at a slower pace than normal.
Wolf and I follow behind her, keeping a good distance so she can use one of her more powerful solar spells if need be.
The NPC giant wears the deep-blue toga of a scholar from the Solidus University of Alchemy. He’s young, regardless of his stubbly red beard, and by the looks of it, he’s probably a recent graduate. While he may be four times my size, the fact that he’s wearing oval glasses, sandals, and is currently poring over a bit of parchment makes me a lot less scared of the towering youth.
“He’s not a hostile,” I call up to Deathdale.
Oblivious to
our approach, the scholarly giant continues reading the parchment in his hands. It is only when we are within firing range that he turns and locks eyes with me.
[Taelian Giant, Level 20]
Wolf slows and barks. He paces back and forth, not sure of what to make of the giant.
The giant glances from me and Wolf to Deathdale. He considers her for a moment as a blade of light forms on the Solar Mage’s forearm.
I hop off Wolf and approach cautiously.
“Easy,” I tell Deathdale under my breath. “He’s a scholar, not a fighter.” I chuckle. “Ever heard ‘I’m a lover, not a fighter?’ That sounded similar. Sorry, getting off track.”
I clear my throat and grin at her.
“In a previous incarnation I was a lecturer at one of the academies in Solidus, the Academy of Topographical Studies. Most of the knowledge left me when I respawned; sorry, TMI. All this to say – he’s not going to fight us.”
“I’ve only seen one other Solar Mage,” the giant says as he places his parchment on the ground. He sits on his haunches with his knees in front of him. Next to him is a crate known as a meditations box.
The Unigaean higher education system revolves around three main student classifications: pupil, post-pupil, and scholar. A meditations box, which doubles as a storage container, is something used exclusively by scholars.
The word “meditation” pluralized is not meant for meditation in a Buddhist or Eastern spirituality sense; rather, these are boxes one sits on to think deeply at night rather than sleep, allowing for total, uninterrupted concentration on a subject.
I know, I’ve done it – although like many of the lecturers, I didn’t do it very often and only kept the meditations box around to encourage others to think deeply on their subjects.
Appearance is everything.
“I’m Oric Rune. This is Wolf, and this is Deathdale.”
He takes off his glasses and uses his blue toga to clean the lens. Once he has his glasses back on, he speaks in a calm voice. “My name is Lothar Shane. Might I ask you a question?”
“Shoot,” I tell him.
“I am trying to understand the meaning of this letter I received from my … well, I don’t want to call her a girlfriend, but we were closely associated and she has been there for me over the last five years, while I was in Solidus becoming a scholar.”
The Drachma Killers (The Last Warrior of Unigaea Book 2) Page 10