by Vic Connor
Aremos approaches and climbs a steep staircase toward the wall surrounding the tower until he reaches the wall’s gateway. The sorcerer himself is sitting there as Aremos enters, a weeping, broken, and aged AI. “My daughter, my beautiful daughter…” he moans to himself, rocking on the spot. “My poor, beloved daughter, will nobody help me…?”
“Good sir,” Aremos says. The sorcerer is a mod, a creation of the Makers rather than a spirit child of the world beyond worlds like the girl Somera. Even so, he has stats like a spirit child’s creation: He has a level and spells and a capacity for magic like any other. Aremos sees that he’s a level 60—the highest Aremos has ever seen. His magic bar is immense: At full power, the sorcerer would be able to level whole armies with ease. However, the bar is currently depleted, at one percent, and his health bar is down to twenty percent. He has no morale, and none of his spells are showing as useable. To all intents and purposes, the man sitting before him is as useless as a level one mage, a beginner barely able to defend himself.
“Good sir,” Aremos repeats himself, and the sorcerer looks up. “I am Aremos. And it’s an honor to meet you.”
“And I am Alatar,” the sorcerer replies, mumbling over his words.
“Perhaps I may be of service,” Aremos tells him. “I saw your plea for help, and I have answered it. Allow me to go and find your daughter.”
“Yes, yes … please do…” the sorcerer mumbles, the faintest glimmer of hope appearing in his eyes.
“Tell me, Alatar,” Aremos says. “What happened here?”
“A great and terrible demon came for my daughter, Meredith…” the sorcerer explains, his voice shaking. “I was away at court, advising the baron, as he requires. Then, the town bells began to ring and I hurried back, sailing at great speed on the wind. I arrived to this…” he says, gesturing to the ruins of his tower. “I saw the demon and his followers in the distance, flying away. I used my Second Sight and saw they had my daughter, but before I could do anything, a great curse fell upon the whole island, robbing me of my powers.
“Find her for me, bring her back,” the sorcerer begs. “I offer you a thousand pieces of gold and more. My vaults are large, they contain many rare weapons and artefacts. You may take your pick of them once you return. My oath on it.”
“Which direction did the demons go?” Aremos asks.
“To the west, out to sea.” The sorcerer points Aremos in the right direction. “Their trail is still fresh, especially to one such as you, with your powers. I have a boat if you need it, tied down at the harbor, though it may be hard to sail without a warband to help you.”
“I don’t require a boat,” Aremos tells him. “Just a position on the map, which I shall find easily enough. Can you tell me what is out there? What settlements, what magics, what forces?”
The sorcerer shakes his head. “Only a few islands, much like this one. The demonic horde must have their camp on one of them.”
“Very well.” Aremos nods, staring out to the west. “I will find them, and I will kill them, and I will bring your daughter back to you. This, I swear.”
As he speaks, he sees the second level of the quest opening up. It’s the first chase: He is to seek out some of the demon’s minions as they sail across the sea. He is to glean information from them to further his mission.
Leaving the sorcerer, Aremos walks to the edge of the island and opens up the map, equipping his own Second Sight. There, not three miles away, he sees the minions’ ship sailing the current. He looks closer and sees that they are all spirits of long dead, fallen pirates, awoken by the demonic powers to serve them once more.
“Very well, then,” Aremos says, returning to himself. He opens a portal to their ship, steps through, and leaves the sorcerer’s island behind.
The water is choppy and Aremos is glad that he didn’t have to navigate a boat out here. Instead, he opens his portal on the pirate ship’s deck, immediately cloaking himself with a couple of wards and a shield. It’s a good thing he does so, as the roar of a blackpowder gun erupts instantly as he steps onto the deck and a bullet sparks against the outermost shield, releasing a flash of light that attracts a lot of attention.
The boat is long and slim, built for speed, and every inch of it shows signs of demonic power at work. The wood is distorted on almost every surface, warped into the visages of leering, evil-looking faces. The sails up above are ragged and glow a sickly green, and the smell of dark magic lingers everywhere. Aremos reinforces his shield as a couple more shots come in. He looks around.
Five pirates move around the main deck, all of them toting flintlock pistols or rifles and wearing cruel-looking cutlasses at their waists. Their bodies glow faintly, the same sickly green as the sails, and are visibly decomposed. Noses, eyes, and ears are missing; bones stick out, exposed; and flesh sloughs off with every movement. However, they show strong stats and they move fast.
Aremos locks eyes with the pirate nearest to him as the creature closes in, rushing across the deck and drawing its sword in a motion more elegant than Aremos had expected. It has twice the health and nearly twice the defense of an ordinary human, as well as an enhanced damage characteristic. A full blow from one of these would half-cripple most people.
But they are demons, and Aremos has an advantage. Without bothering to draw his sword, he throws a quick fireball at the closest one as it runs in. The white flame coalesces around the fireball as he casts it and his aim is true—it catches the demon pirate full in the chest, crumpling it to the floor as the flames spread around its body, crackling away and feeding on its demonic energy. It cries out as the flames rise high, a blinding light in the night’s darkness.
They really are fast, though, Aremos realizes. The other four have come in close. Two move toward Aremos from the front, where the first came from, while the other two circle behind him. There’s a stack of barrels in the middle of the deck and Aremos jumps up onto it. He stretches out a hand, extending his mental reach until he grasps the white flame eating away at the first demon’s chest. The demon is half dead and can only stagger about, trying to get to its feet. As it does so, it blocks the two behind it ever so slightly. They come close and run around it, but Aremos channels a little more power into the fire, blowing up the first pirate and catching the other two in its blast. One falls overboard as the other flies into a couple of crates, losing thirty percent of its health as it rolls over, stunned.
The two behind him leap in toward Aremos. Everything is happening too quickly for him to be able to cast any of his larger spells. Time Warp has to wait—it’s no good in a fast-paced skirmish like this, as he’ll be dead before he can get the incantation off. But he has a medley of lesser spells which will work perfectly.
He catches one of the pirate’s cutlasses with the Staff of Adamant, blocking it and knocking the pirate back a few paces. The other fires its pistol at point-blank range, crackling through Aremos’ shield and wounding him for a seven percent damage as the reverberations flow through his body, shivering against his Silverthread mail. The pirate takes advantage of Aremos’ loss of concentration and swings in with its sword, catching Aremos on the back as he buckles over. Aremos loses another five percent of his health.
Two more blows swing in from the second pirate and Aremos manages to dodge the worst of it, taking only a minor cut to his arm. The first pirate recovers and jumps back in, prepared for the attack, but Aremos is ready now, too. Very quickly, he casts a single lightning bolt into the second pirate, stunning it and throwing it against the deck’s railing. Next, he pours some of his energy into the Staff of Adamant, causing it to blaze with writhing, white flame. The pirate backs away as Aremos whirls the burning staff in a great arc.
Three pirates remain of the original five, but Aremos is pulling his punches. He isn’t here to destroy them—not until he has what he wants. He needs information from them, first and foremost, and he jumps down from his stack of barrels, eager to get it. The three recover from his assaults, all in variou
s states of injury, and they begin to circle him while he strides along the deck.
“I assume your captain is in his quarters,” Aremos states. “Too afraid to come out, or is he too busy?”
“We tells ya nothin’, boy,” one of the pirates rasps, the thunder of its demonic power rumbling beneath its words.
“Very well, then,” Aremos says. He points his staff at the pirate and lets loose a stream of burning light, vaporizing it on the spot. The other two back away, their morale shrinking as they begin to understand the power this strange, lone battle mage wields.
“How about either of you?” he asks. “Will you tell me where your master is, or should I kill you and ask your captain?”
They both jump in at once, aiming straight for Aremos’ head. He has fought enough demons to know how synchronized they can be, like they share some sort of hive mind. He has fought enough, too, to know how scared of their masters they usually are—though they might break and flee from a battle, they will never betray the greater demon controlling them.
Aremos had anticipated this attack, and he finishes the job quickly. He engulfs one of the pirates fully in white flame, sending it reeling back to commit its death throes far away from the main fight. This leaves just one, and Aremos parries its attacks, grunting with the effort, before thrusting the Staff of Adamant, still burning slightly, into its chest. The demon staggers backward, drops its sword, and gasps as a great, burning hole appears in its breast bone.
Aremos stands over the creature as it falls. “Now, introduce me to your captain,” he demands. Gesturing with his hand and equipping telekinesis for the first time in a long while, Aremos causes the flames to spread over the pirate’s entire body as he uses his mind to pick it up like a rag doll. The demon burns bright, but remains silent. Aremos throws it into the captain’s cabin, where it crashes through the door before exploding in an incandescent fireball.
A great, hulking beast tumbles out of the cabin: The captain, come to defend its ship. White flames cling to the doorframe from the explosion, but the captain banishes them with a curt gesture before stomping toward Aremos. Its gait is uneven, and every other step cracks hard against the boards of the ship’s floor. The captain is shaped like a human, though twice the size of even the largest of men. A long, blue greatcoat billows out behind it and two red eyes blaze from beneath a bronze mask. The mask is in the shape of a kraken, Aremos notices, its great tentacles writhing out from the captain’s face. The captain carries a sharp billhook in one hand and a long, ornate rapier in the other. One of its legs has been replaced with a wooden peg and its whole body seems to be wreathed in a dark aura.
“Well met, fiend,” Aremos growls as the captain comes toward him, its weapons raised. It moves slowly, burdened by its great mass and its crippled leg, giving Aremos time to select and cast the Lightning Storm. The bolts gather around his outstretched hand, increasing in power second by second until he unleashes them, expecting them to course through the captain’s body and drain its health bar to a manageable level.
The captain just laughs, however, and catches the lighting with its billhook, dissipating it with ease. So, Aremos thinks, you are a fellow caster, and a strong one, too. He touches one of his charms, activating it. It draws a little of his magical reserves but bolsters his shielding against curses and magical projectiles, just in case he’s unable to dodge or dispel.
The charm comes in handy at once. As soon as the Lightning Storm fades away, the captain swirls its billhook over its head, summoning a host of glowing, green shadows which begin to spin and jump around Aremos. Looking closer as they move in to attack, Aremos sees that they are piranhas, jaws gnashing. They dart in, one by one and in a group, trying to tear him to pieces. Each fizzles and dies as it hits his shield, but his magical power dwindles a few percentage points with the effort of keeping them at bay.
The captain laughs and points its slightly tilted sword at Aremos. A green bolt launches itself from the rapier’s tip, crashing into Aremos with the deafening chime of a temple bell. His shield cracks, splintering into pieces as it finishes the last of the piranhas, and sends Aremos reeling. He has just enough time to throw up another shield before a few smaller projectiles hit him, then he has to dive behind some of the crates, hiding whilst he works out what to do next.
Come on, man, he tells himself. You have beaten worse demons than this.
He jumps out as the captain limps around the side of the crates, levels his Staff of Adamant, and lets loose a spell. The captain braces, ready for a projectile, but Aremos has outsmarted him. Rather than attacking fully, he casts Mystification, a spell with no obvious damage characteristic but which is nevertheless devastating to wizards and mages. As the dank, magical mist clouds his senses, the captain stumbles to one side, confused. He tries to dispel it but clearly cannot think straight: A few impotent sparks fly out of its billhook, a flash of light, and then nothing more.
Aremos now switches to a more obvious attack, pressing his advantage. He draws his sword and enchants it, causing it to burst into ethereal flame. Pointing his staff at the captain, he unleashes three successive bolts of lightning, which drain his magic bar but cause havoc on the demon’s health. Then, with the demon faltering, Aremos rushes in toward it, plunging his sword deep into its chest, causing it to scream and wail, sinking to its knees.
“Where is Meredith?” Aremos asks, face to face with those glowing, demonic eyes. “Where is Alatar’s daughter?”
The captain drops his weapons and holds out a map to Aremos. “Just spare me and my boat,” it pleads, hellish notes playing through its sonorous voice.
“Never,” Aremos whispers. “You’ll go back to the abyss with the rest of your kind.”
He pulls his sword from the captain’s chest and swings it around, decapitating the demon. The kraken mask bounces across the deck, and the captain’s body evaporates.
Aremos unrolls the map and finds an island marked with a red circle a few miles away, as well as a few sea lanes drawn for ships to navigate. He adds the map to his own internal map of Arkhart and soon finds the island’s exact location. He will visit it next, teleporting there straight away before saving his progress. The child Somera beckons, hungry and cold, and her needs must be tended to before he can continue this quest.
Aremos pockets the map and then raps the Staff of Adamant against the decking before he goes, igniting the wooden boards.
Let the whole lot burn, he thinks, stepping through his portal.
A strange feeling settles into the pit of his stomach. It’s emptiness, it’s joylessness. I’ve won the battle, but it brings me no joy, he thinks. How strange, how very strange…
Chapter Seven
Somera isn’t sure of what to do. The victory gives her no pleasure; she sees no point in winning without her warband there to cheer her on…
Aremos isn’t sure what he feels as he closes his eyes, ready to dematerialize and vanish for the moment as the child Somera awakens. He’s surprised at his own lack of joy in his victory, lack of desire to carry on…
Somera logs out, well aware that she has perhaps milked the last joy out of the player experience—that it’s time to move on, to set her sights on becoming a programmer rather than a player…
…Aremos faces oblivion, not sure when or even if he should return, ready for his fate to swallow him whole, ready to vanish from Arkhart for the last time…
Aremos doesn’t dematerialize, however. He can’t: Something has trapped him, and it holds him close. He can’t escape Arkhart, he can’t vanish. Rather, it feels as though a force pulls him into a powerful portal which feels different from the usual, instant teleportation—the traveling lasts a few seconds, as if Aremos has been drawn into a wormhole.
It leads him through to a busy market square in a town he doesn’t know. A group of knights stands near a stable as customers come and go, trading and gossiping at the various stalls. It’s already nighttime here, yet the whole place is bursting with energy and life, st
rangely enough, and Aremos wonders what the hell is going on. Just as he’s about to equip his Second Sight, however, somebody brushes past him.
It’s a pageboy, he observes, watching the young man walk hurriedly away. The pageboy wears a long cloak and a deep hood, which he pulls up before barging his way into the crowd. Aremos has just enough time to read a little about the boy. He is a level nine, a player of just a few weeks, apprenticed to a knight whom Aremos doesn’t know and whose name eludes him almost immediately.
The crowds coalesce around the boy and he vanishes. How strange, Aremos thinks. He soon finds a crumpled piece of parchment in the pocket of his robes; the pageboy must have slipped it in when he brushed past.
Pulling it out, unrumpling it and smoothing it, Aremos reads a message scrawled on the parchment in messy, red handwriting. It only says, oddly, “23.”
But I want to be out of here, he thinks, the child Somera beckons… and… and…
Without warning, Aremos falls to his knees. A great pressure in his head, hands and feet weighs him down like an anchor to this world…
…As Somera opens her eyes and reaches up to take the headset off, the cables plugged into her rig, which are meant to attach and tug and pull and immerse the player into the game by controlling the stimulus given by Arkhart’s adventures, begin to play up. They clamp down hard, fixing her in place. The handsets strapped as long gloves around her arms and fingers take on a life of their own, squeezing her, forcing the VR set back onto her head… Her heart beats fast, pounding as she wonders what is going on and how it is even possible.
She’s about to cry out to someone, anyone, for help, when the laptop screen goes blank. It goes from black to a fuzzy white and then a sentence appears, scrawled in a rough hand in what looks an awful lot like dripping, bright red blood: