by Vic Connor
Somnum Exterreri Solebat Sanguine
“What on Earth—” she begins. She has no idea what these words mean and has no way of finding out, trapped as she is inside her rig. However, as she’s about to begin thrashing at the cables and shouting for someone to come once more, a dialogue box appears in the corner of her screen. It asks her for a password, and she wonders if she’s even awake. Perhaps she has fallen into some high-tech nightmare: Rigs weren’t meant to be susceptible to malware, they couldn’t be hacked, they couldn’t act like this…
The box blinks, still asking for a password. She calms somewhat and types in her usual password, wondering if this is what it wants, but the box turns red, rejecting it before clearing the incorrect response to let her try again. As Somera thinks about what it all means, a face flickers across the screen. It stays there for less than a second, but she recognizes it: The pageboy Aremos met in the market square.
Of course, she thinks.
She types in “23”—the number from the parchment—and the dialogue box disappears. The VR kicks in hard this time, sucking her back into the rig while a new world appears, a part of Arkhart she has never seen before…
…the ground falls out from beneath Aremos’ feet and the market square vanishes from all around him. He falls, at first, before coming to a stop, disoriented and fearful. Despite his fear, however, Aremos feels excited. How was I about to throw this in? he wonders to himself, as the adrenaline kicks in. How was I going to walk away from such madness, such adventure?
He stands and dusts himself down as the world is righted once more around him.
Looking around himself, he sees a realm of shadows and darkness. It is gothic: It disturbs and terrifies him, thrilling him at the same time. Great, gushing volcanoes line the far horizon, miles away, and burn darkly red against the night sky, spewing clouds of glittering ash, choking everything in sight. Closer at hand, the landscape stretches out barren and bare in all directions, with mists and shadows moving as separate entities—as though seeking, as though hunting. A town lies up ahead, all twisted spires and ghostly, empty streets. Overhead, a blood red moon shines dull and sickly, sitting low and large in the sky like a crouching monster.
Aremos clutches the Staff of Adamant close to his breast, feeling the warmth of its magical energy pulsing into his hand, his only connection to the world of warmth and comfort that Arkhart’s kinder places offer.
I should turn back now, Aremos thinks, looking around as his heart pounds on and on. A frozen wind whips by, biting through his armor and his robes, biting down to the bone. A path lined with shattered bones lies before him, covered in a light mist, and he knows he should not take it.
But he wants to…
But he should not…
Aremos allows good sense to win out. The circumstances are too strange. The confinement of the girl Somera is too much: He turns to leave, summoning a portal to return him to where he came from. But when he opens the portal, he sees nothing behind it but darkness. He stretches out with his mind, allowing his Second Sight to pass through the portal, but it, too, finds nothing. There are no routes for him to follow.
Banishing the portal with a wave, Aremos summons the map of Arkhart. He expects to find himself in some sort of neutral zone where PvP battles are banned and the Makers stretch their creation skills, conjuring strangeness in the landscape just to entertain themselves and their inhabitants. But nothing appears. This is no neutral zone; there’s no map where it usually shows. Only emptiness surrounds him instead, just a vast blankness.
I don’t believe that I’m in Arkhart, he thinks, finally. But how is that possible?
Very well, he decides. A quest. I will find answers, and then I will find a way home.
He sets toward the ghostly town up ahead. The mist grows thicker, turning an already dark landscape even darker. Aremos whispers a quick spell and the tip of the Staff of Adamant lights up. He focuses the beam forward like a torch, cutting through the worst of the shadows.
A piercing screech rends the air from the distance, behind the point from which Aremos has just come. Spinning around, he looks up into the sky and cannot believe his eyes. A skeletal dragon is flying high in the far distance, its spindly bulk cutting through some low-hanging clouds. This is a world for adults, Aremos thinks: an adult MMORPG, designed to rattle and scare you. But Arkhart has never played host to a horror game. No necromancer is strong enough to weave a whole landscape of the dead; none is powerful enough to reanimate a dragon. It should not be possible…
And yet, he watches the skeleton on its large, leathery wings, rising up into the clouds and disappearing.
He shakes his head and swallows hard, feeling a chill travel down his spine, thoroughly freaked out now, and approaches the town. The walls have mostly tumbled down and the gates lie twisted and open. He walks through them, the mist swirling around his feet. A couple of alleyways lead off the main street and he fancies that he can sense something within them. He equips his Second Sight once more, ready to see what is really going on, but as he does so the world flashes red. He gets knocked back, stumbling and nearly falling, as his Second Sight fails him.
“No peeking, pesky wizard,” a voice says with a heavy sigh.
Other voices begin to laugh—ghostly, ethereal sounds, echoes in the darkness. The shadows within the alleyways grow thick, and shades appear. Three of them creep out of the darkness, silently gliding toward him. Four more shades coalesce around him from behind. They all laugh, taunting him.
“What the hell is going on here?” he asks, but the shades don’t answer. They just laugh harder, wailing, choking.
“Oh, silly wizard,” the voice says. It sounds as though it comes from all around him, vibrating through the very air he breathes. As if the town itself speaks to him.
One of the shades comes forward a little, and Aremos gets a better look. It is hidden beneath the deep folds of its cloak, the ends of which dissipate in gentle eddies of smoke. Aremos grips his staff but the shade reaches out, revealing a slender hand. It waves impatiently and the light at the Staff of Adamant’s tip disappears, plunging everything into half-light, crimson as the moon above.
“Foolish wizard…” the shade wheezes. “So impressed with yourself just because you beat the wyvern … childish, amateur…” It draws a long, slim sword from thin air while the other six shades around them laugh, forming a circle.
“Perhaps you should prove yourself against a real opponent,” the shade whispers.
“Happily,” Aremos replies. Without waiting, he flings a fireball at his tormentor.
The fireball blasts straight through the shade, hitting the wall of a building opposite and exploding safely out of harm’s way. The shade laughs once more, prompting the other six surrounding them to begin jeering and taunting Aremos again, whispering darkly, chuckling in demonic voices.
What are you? Aremos wonders.
The shade darts forward, deceptively fast, but Aremos doesn’t worry. His wards are in place and no sword can pierce them so soon in the fight, no matter the nature of its wielder. But, of course, he is wrong, and he discovers it immediately. The shade’s sword slices straight through his shields, catching Aremos in the stomach in an underhand cut, winding him and knocking him off his feet.
The shade laughs some more, circling Aremos like a predator toying with its prey. It flickers in and out a couple more times. Every time it comes in, it delivers a thrust or a slice which each take at least fifteen percent apiece from Aremos’ health bar—an absurd amount. It leaves him barely able to stand, barely able to think, barely able to do anything.
He just misses a blow to the chin by the shade’s unarmed hand. It sends him reeling backward, only taking two percent of his life but stunning him, throwing him off his feet to roll in the dirt. He tries to stand but finds himself at the edge of the alley and the shades keep him in, shoving him back toward his attacker. His attacker grasps him by a lapel of his robes and tosses him in the air, effortlessly, l
aughing as it does so. Aremos flies five feet upward before falling with a crash. He feels a couple of ribs break; a crack to the head threatens to knock him unconscious entirely.
Before he can recover, the shade comes back, this time skewering the sword through Aremos’ right thigh, robbing him of speed and mobility and bringing his health down even further.
At twenty percent, Aremos grows desperate. He doesn’t know what will happen if he dies here. He has lives aplenty left to take over for him, allowing him to go on… But that would be in normal circumstances, in the usual Arkhart. So many rules don’t seem to apply in this place that he fears the end might well be permanent. Scared, frantic with despair, he throws all of his power into an incoherent spell, channeling a full twenty percent of his magic at once and allowing it to cascade outward from the tip of his wand. He sits on his backside, scrabbling in the dirt, but he manages to hold the Staff of Adamant aloft. White flame spreads everywhere, setting alight the roofs of the nearest few buildings, even catching a couple of shades’ robes.
But Aremos’ attacker manages to deflect the flames, whirling its sword above his head to gather the magic harmlessly. It then points the sword at Aremos and a great explosion flings Aremos a full ten feet down the street, with the shades all flying after him, even those set alight by his spell.
“Ha! You fool, with your puny tricks,” his attacker whispers as it lands before him. It clicks its fingers and the fires die out, darkness returning immediately. It has no usual movement patterns, Aremos realizes. It has no embedded moves, it has no predictable combat styles. This is no player, nor even a conventional AI, he thinks. This is something altogether more advanced.
“If you’re going to kill me, get it over with,” Aremos moans, in pain and with only five percent of his original HP left. He is bloody and broken and twisted out of shape.
“Kill you?” the shade growls. “Oh no, this is not an attack.”
“Then what is it?” Aremos asks. It feels very much like an attack to him.
“A lesson, Aremos the Great,” the shade says. “Things are different down here. Your powers are nothing compared to what can happen in this realm. And our masters would have you know this, before you continue. They would have you feel vulnerable, weak, like you always have been. Arkhart pretends, it allows you to feel powerful, to feel invincible.
“Down here, we are more honest,” the shade continues. Its sword disappears, as do its six companions. “Down here, we show you how weak you are before we send you on a quest.” It reaches down and rips Aremos’ cloak from his back. It rips the Silverthread shirt apart with ease, as though it were made of mere paper. Aremos has a couple of pouches and a couple of flasks hanging on his belt and the shade takes these, too. Aremos himself feels too weak and injured to put up any resistance.
“You have a mission,” the shade tells Aremos as it helps itself to Aremos’ belongings. “Up ahead is Crookbeak Lane, a formidable place, a place of darkness. Go there, find the charnel house—the answers you seek will be inside, as will my master, waiting to teach you about the real world.”
Finally, the shade pulls Aremos’ scabbard from his belt, complete with his sword. With almost all of his possessions in its arms, it laughs and its form begins to change. “Remember,” the shade’s voice says, disembodied now as its robes turn to shadow. The shadow billows outward, engulfing the bundle of Aremos’ things. They turn to smoke before Aremos’ eyes, metamorphosed, and as they trail away the shadow fades, leaving Aremos alone and dying.
“Crookbeak Lane… Go to Crookbeak Lane…”
The only items he has left are the Staff of Adamant and a health potion.
He swigs the potion. There should be enough to give him twenty percent or so of his HP back. Enough at least to allow him to stand and try to find a way out of here. However, the potion hits him hard, making him gasp, almost knocking him out with its potency.
His HP soars back to full. The wound in his leg heals over and the blood disappears. His broken bones knit back together, uncomfortable for a brief moment but soon as good as new. His shattered skull mends through a few seconds of blinding pain, and his eyesight clears and the myriad little nicks and cuts the shade dealt him vanish.
He staggers to his feet, dazed by how good he feels all of a sudden.
“What in Arkhart…” he begins, staring at the empty bottle. He stretches his arms above his head and begins to feel everywhere around his body, making sure he is indeed fine. “How…”
“We need you in good shape, now that your lesson is hopefully learned,” a voice calls to him from a doorway at the end of the street. A woman stands alone, watching him, wrapped in deep robes exactly like the shades had been wearing. “Now, come with me please, Aremos,” she instructs. She extends a crooked finger, beckoning, and he feels as though there is a rope attached to his chest. He flies toward her, dropping his staff, pulled from his feet. She reaches out another hand as he comes to a stop, sprawling at her feet, and the Staff of Adamant snaps into it.
“Go,” she orders. “The master is waiting, remember,” she adds, dropping the staff. Then she fades into the darkness, and he’s once more alone, wondering for the millionth time what the heck is going on.
They were right, though, he thinks. I feel more vulnerable than I ever have before…
Robed figures line the street as he turns into Crookbeak Lane. Without a sound, they watch him pass with distant, sullen eyes.
Aremos approaches the nearest figure. “What is this place?” He asks.
The figure shows no sign of having heard him. Its bloodshot eyes drill into Aremos—heavy, aggressive, hostile.
“Where is this place in relation to Arkhart?” Aremos asks another creature, and receives the same spiteful silence in response.
“Who is your master?” he asks the third creature.
The creature moves ever so slightly and focuses its disturbed, reddish eyes on Aremos. For a heartbeat, it watches him intensely, and a wave of sticky, cold horror washes over him. He can’t remember when he has faced this much barely controlled power and he feels defenseless, painfully aware of his weaknesses. With a fluid movement, the creature unsheathes its sword and holds its point toward Aremos, threatening him without speaking.
He scurries away, tripping over the hem of his torn robes. As he runs, Aremos thinks, I’m pumped, I love this; this is the most exhilarating challenge I’ve felt in such a long time… And just to think how bored and overpowered I felt but a short while ago!
He pushes these thoughts to the side, focusing once more on where he places his feet. I really need to get out of here, he tells himself, hoping he can convince himself to at least try to get away.
But look around, he thinks. It’s magnificent.
The charnel house occupies the far end. A high, vaulted gateway leads into its grounds. The grounds themselves lie wide and open with obelisks and tomb scattered throughout—a true, sprawling city of the dead. Aremos approaches the gates and they open for him, permitting him entry. He walks the long path toward the house, looking about himself at the veritable necropolis. The occasional crypt stands open, a sickly green light glowing pale and wan inside. The odd mausoleum sits bulky and grand amongst the rest, each gathering dank shadows to themselves, and as he walks among them Aremos has the unmistakable feeling that the shadows are watching him, laughing as the shades had back in the town.
But these are all minor distractions, and he knows it. He is here for the charnel house itself, sitting in the middle of all of these tombs. It’s as grand as any of them, but so much bigger—the size of a large manor house—and open, its roof raised high on fluted columns, with gargoyles of hideous natures staring down, leering, their eyes flashing as he passes beneath them. The whole building is open, supported by those columns, with high windows unshuttered, unglazed, empty.
A house of the dead, truly, he thinks as he pushes through the large, double doors into the main building. Inside, all the doors stand open, with rows of shelves
lining every wall and a deep pit gaping in the middle of the construct. Each shelf bears countless skeletons, all of them limp and dusty, falling to pieces as age and evil magic wither them. They are intertwined, and it is impossible to know where one body ends and another begins.
Large torches burn from sconces set into the walls, bright flame whipping and churning as a cold wind blows among the columns and shelves. Bones litter the floor haphazardly, long since lost from their original bodies. Aremos shuffles forward, his boots crunching through them and kicking up clouds of gray dust with each step. A couple of skulls lie absently, their blank eye sockets truly dead to the world. He approaches the pit and peers down into the shadows.
He can see nothing in the darkness, so he lights his staff once more and focuses its rays down the abyss. It’s like a well, only larger—and it’s formed of the stuff of nightmares. A hundred bodies must lie in there, he thinks. Possibly more … probably more … all jumbled together, dumped without ceremony.
“What the hell kind of place is this…?” he mutters.
As he speaks, the wind picks up, whistling through the columns. The whistle takes form, he thinks. It’s subtle at first, a trick of the senses, perhaps. But it grows and grows until he’s sure that, like everything else in this awful place, it’s laughing at him. In time, it becomes a wheezy chuckle which grows ever clearer.
“You answer you own question…” a weary voice whispers through the breeze. As Aremos steps back from the pit, the wind picks up and coalesces a few meters in front of him. Dust and broken bone fragments whirl in a miniature tornado, spinning on the spot until they, too, take shape.
The wind dies suddenly, so completely that the world goes silent, and a man stands where the tornado had spun. “Hell, indeed…” The man chuckles, smiling up at Aremos.
Reflexively, based on years of fighting and conditioning, Aremos summons a projectile to launch at this new creature. He holds up his staff and it flashes out—a beam of light magic designed to scythe through any such creatures of darkness as this man must be.