by Vic Connor
The strike blows its teeth apart and unhinges its jaw. The skin around the vampire’s face crackles and bursts, and his eyes swell with rage and impotence. His strength gives out and he falls, the last few traces of the net clinging to him. Lying on the ground, he whimpers. His sword drops, and his ruby ring goes dark. Aremos looks at the vampire’s HP and sees that he’s near death at only thirteen percent.
“Now, you’re finished,” he murmurs, staggering over to the beast. He raises the Staff of Adamant high over his head, channeling nearly the last of his magical power into it. It blazes, ready for the final swing.
Aremos brings it down violently, intending to crash it directly into the vampire’s heart, to break this horror completely. However, as his staff is about to make contact, the vampire disappears. It vanishes, and a cloud of black mist rises where it had just been. The Staff of Adamant sweeps through and hits the rock face below, sending sparks of power crackling around the hilltop.
A low rumble of laughter begins to sound all around him. The dreadnought’s laugh; the shades’ laugh. No, no, he thinks: I do not have the power to deal with them now. I am nearly dead… My power is almost spent.
“But have no fear, Aremos,” the dreadnought’s voice whispers, soothing, gentle. The mist at Aremos’ feet coalesces and begins to rise in a column, blending a moment later into the figure of the dreadnought himself.
Where the dreadnought’s smile is usually icy and predatory, it’s now kind. Where his eyes usually tear through Aremos, keeping him painfully aware of his weakness and his vulnerability, they now glow with a joyful warmth. Where his arms and hands always seem ready to knock Aremos about, to toy with him as though he were nothing, they’re now open in welcome.
“You are the vampire?” Aremos demands.
“He is one of my guises.” The dreadnought nods. “Though he limits me. Like any manifestation, he binds me by the normal laws of this place.”
“Why?” Aremos asks, confused. “Why did you send me after him … after you?”
“The final test, Aremos,” the dreadnought tells him. “I need a lieutenant in this world, I need a right hand. You are a candidate; though you’ve a long way yet to go.”
In his pocket, Aremos’ map of Sanguis begins to burn. The scroll glows with its own internal heat. Aremos pulls it out, stinging his hands. Yet it does him no damage, and it cools as soon as he unrolls it.
“Your quest,” says the dreadnought. “You have proven yourself worthy … for now.” His eyes regain their usual coldness, his smile disappears, and he bares his teeth once more. “Rescue the girl’s soul. Rescue her body in Arkhart and return her, whole and healthy, to the sorcerer.”
“And then? When I have done that?” Aremos asks.
The dreadnought laughs, taunting, his old cynicism returned after the briefest of shows of warmth. “You win nothing, Aremos, by success. But if you fail, I will destroy you myself. I will destroy you in such a way that you will be deleted permanently, both in Sanguis and in Arkhart.
“This,” he whispers, stepping forward. “This is the true power of the Dreadnoughts of Sanguis.” So saying, he reaches out with his hand. First the tips of his fingers, then his hand, then the arm turn to shadow, incorporeal. He plunges it into Aremos’ own body, taking ahold of his heart. The whole of Sanguis flashes before Aremos’ eyes and he feels as though his head might burst. Then Arkhart appears, as if he’s flying over it, soaring out of control. Below him, the land burns, disappears, turns to smoke… He feels his own existence waver. Not just this life, but all the lives he has stored up, and more: He feels the actual coding at the heart of his DNA begin to unravel, to corrupt beyond recognition. His soul—which until this moment Aremos had hoped was eternal—begins to fall apart until both maps vanish and he’s standing on the outside, lost and fading…
The dreadnought withdraws his hand and Aremos falls to his knees. The world returns to him and he feels whole once more. Whole, but shaken, lightheaded with the knowledge of what could happen to him, what failure might mean.
“Do you see now why I needed you to be ready?” the dreadnought asks. “I need you to have the will to survive. This is the only way to overcome in a place like Sanguis.” The dreadnought seems to grow, towering over Aremos. “It is the only way to survive me and my kin,” he whispers. He reaches into his robes and brings out a purse loaded with coin. With a gesture of contempt, he throws it at Aremos’ feet—and then, he is gone. Aremos remains alone on the hilltop, near death and with barely enough magical power to make the journey home. For a while, he stares at the purse, unsure if he should pick it up. Finally, he takes the loot.
Without magic, he’d have to travel to the Realmgates to teleport. He doesn’t have the energy for this—he needs medical attention much sooner than that if he is to survive long. So he gathers the last few wisps from his magic bar and begins the incantation, opening a series of teleports that will take him to an apothecary in one of the few human, player-led outposts in Sanguis.
He arrives in the outpost a few minutes later, having used up the dregs of his magical power to open his portals across the length of Sanguis. The settlement sits high on the edge of a mountain, near the center of the map. The whole thing is seemingly carved into the rock face itself, with miles of flat stone holding various huts and buildings and a high, basalt wall forming a ring around its perimeter.
It’s not uncommon for the dreadnoughts to unleash their monstrous creations to try to destroy the town, and Aremos has heard it has been rebuilt a few times in recent memory. Each time, they build the walls larger, they station more guards, they weave more magical defenses, and employ greater and greater weaponry. But Aremos understood the futility, the hubris, of such an endeavor as soon as he heard it.
If the dreadnoughts truly want to do something in Sanguis, he knows, there’s no power in the whole realm able to stop them.
The mountain stands scarred and bare, its entire surface pitted and torn from the dreadnoughts’ games. For this is what Aremos knows them to be: There’s no necessity, no true need, for the dreadnoughts to level the town, other than for their own amusement, or to train or test someone, or to simply prove that they can.
Aremos arrives outside the front gates. The players who built the outpost have great and knowledgeable sorcerers among their ranks who have worked hard to ward off all but the mightiest of incursions. Amongst their precautions, they have prevented any magical transportation from arriving within the walls. Any AI that isn’t a part of the town itself is turned away at the gates, and every player must present themselves at the gatehouse for inspection.
“You look terrible,” the guard says, wearily casting his eye over Aremos. He’s one of the town’s AI, built by some player-programmers, alongside the other guards. He is programmed to remain vigilant, ever watchful for the town’s enemies, but even he appears tired from the constancy of Sanguis’ harsh existence.
“It has been a long night,” Aremos replies. Indeed, he can barely stand. The effort of getting here has nearly killed him and now he clenches a tight hold on the Staff of Adamant, supporting himself on it like an old man with a walking stick.
“Well, in you go, then,” the guard offers. He gestures and the outpost’s high gates begin to screech, opening inward to permit Aremos entrance.
The bustle deafens him momentarily, mad as ever. The town’s cobbled streets, tight and winding, bustle with frantic activity. Several people recognize him and stare; a few even say hello, or comment on how bad he looks. He limps slowly, taking an age just to pass through a couple of blocks to a marketplace he knows.
There are still a few stalls open even this late at night, and traders and customers haggle and curse one another. Aremos approaches the potions master, a wicked little goblin AI named Ederick who looks at the world with sharp, mistrustful eyes and whose nose can spot a profit from a mile away.
“Oh, ho, ho, Aremos,” the little goblin says, rubbing his hands together. “My, my, don’t you look bad.
What can I get you today?”
“First, a potion to replenish my power,” Aremos requests. “All of it, all my power… I have need of my strength back.”
“How many bottles?” asks Ederick, moving across his stall to pick up a few small flasks.
“Just the one.”
“One?” The goblin seems incredulous. “Most people take a few. You don’t want to get caught short in battle, my boy. You’ll always be grateful to have a few of these to spare, just in case, you know?”
“Just one,” Aremos repeats, swaying on the spot.
Ederick grumbles to himself about cheapskates and fools, but he passes Aremos a bottle and demands an exorbitant fee for it. Aremos knows he has no energy to argue, nor the time to waste, so he pays, handing Ederick a couple of gold coins from the dreadnought’s heavy purse. Then, he unstoppers the potion and swigs it back in one go.
He gasps, choking, as the fiery liquid burns through him. His hair stands on end and his limbs seem to crackle, tingling, as his magical power bar rises from zero up to the full one hundred percent for the first time in a while. Aremos feels it pulsing through his body. His heartbeat pounds and the raw feeling of all that power taking hold of him knocks his breath away a little. The marketplace fills with smells, sights, and sounds as his dimmed feelings recover and sharpen.
“Right,” he says, gasping some more and standing up straight. He mutters a quick spell of self-healing and feels the soothing effect take hold at once. His muscles quit throbbing and his joints stop hurting so much. The dozen or so gashes across his body start to knit themselves together. His HP remains low, hovering around twenty-five percent, and he can feel the deep aching in his bones from the fight with the vampire, but he’s able to at least support himself. He’s able to stop fearing death as it moves further away.
“Now,” he says to Ederick. “I want two more potions of magical replenishment, three health potions, and one potion of full recovery.” The health potions all grant around thirty percent health, whereas the potion of full recovery does exactly what it says: no matter how beaten up someone is, it’ll give them one hundred percent health and stamina back immediately.
“Well, why did you not say so?” Ederick snaps. “You could have bought it all at once.”
Aremos grips the Staff of Adamant and imbues it with some of his new power. A nimbus of blue light flickers all around the goblin’s stall, making him stop. Ederick pauses, quivering with rage, growing defensive. “I could not haggle or bargain before, goblin,” Aremos informs him. “I was prey to your ridiculous prices. Now, I can make you give me those potions at a fair rate.”
“Rubbish, what nonsense!” Ederick cries, his eyes wide as Aremos’ magic threatens to break every glass on his stall. “Guards, guards!” he calls out. A crowd forms around them. But the guards are in no mood to help—Aremos knows they’ve seen Ederick cheat too many people out of their money, abusing their helplessness or their desperation, and they relish the chance to see the famous mage get one over on the little sneak.
“Fine,” Ederick spits. “It will be a gold coin for the lot, far under what I should be charging you—”
“A whole gold coin?” Aremos demands. “I would expect a few silvers, no gold.”
Ederick splutters, outraged, but Aremos silences him with a gesture, holding the whole stall in his grip once more. “You can have your gold, foul creature,” he says. “But for that, I’ll want something else…”
It’s all playing out exactly as he knew it would. He reaches out with his hand, and the flasks and bottles he has requested for come to him, leaping one by one into his hand as he summons them. He puts them all away and fishes out a gold coin for Ederick, holding it before him but not letting it go.
“What, what else do you want?” Ederick asks.
“That,” Aremos tells him, nodding at a small, slim bottle. It’s Nightmare Shade—a noxious concoction granting whomever drinks it almost god-like powers for a short time.
“No,” replies the goblin. “Oh no, you don’t. Not for a single measly gold coin.”
“Fine,” Aremos allows. “Two coins.” He passes the goblin two coins and holds out his hand once more.
The slim vial jumps into his palm, but he knows he has pushed Ederick too far. The goblin uses his own magical powers to leap over his stall, landing with surprising agility in front of Aremos, his eyes glowing red and a magic wand trembling with energy in his long, spindly fingers. He points the wand at Aremos, but Aremos moves fast.
Quickly slipping the bottle into his robe pocket, he holds out his staff and throws up a shield. Ederick’s curse hits the shield, dissipating, and Aremos returns fire. He channels a lightning bolt into the goblin, sending him flying across the market square. Then he is off, turning away into the crowds, losing himself quickly as Ederick struggles back to his feet and the guards try to regain order.
Aremos didn’t want to do that: He didn’t intend for the altercation to go so far. But he needs to save this gold to buy more supplies in the future … and he needs the Nightmare Shade. He has heard it spoken about in hushed tones. Very few people have the skills to brew it, and nearly as few can to drink it safely. It will kill any non-caster as soon as it touches their lips, ripping them apart from the inside. Any casters below level thirty-five risk great and possibly permanent damage to their health and abilities, so Aremos knows that he’s taking a dangerous chance.
But Sanguis is dangerous, too. The dreadnoughts are dangerous. And he needs a last resort, now that he knows they could snuff him out entirely. If the alternative is being deleted from the servers in both Arkhart and Sanguis, he’ll happily sacrifice his health and powers if it means he will have the ability to fight back, or at least to fight hard enough to enable him to flee.
He reaches the outpost’s gates and sees a few goblins ahead, friends of Ederick’s come to restrain him. But they’re not casters, only warriors and adventurers. Granted, one seems to be good with a bow, loosing three arrows in a blinding succession Aremos’ own wards struggle to deflect. But they’re nothing to him and he equips Lightning Storm, lashing the entire street before him with electricity.
The goblins run for cover, a few of them going down momentarily to his attacks as their HP suffers and their stamina is crippled. Then, Aremos dashes through the gates and disappears into the mountain paths.
He slices open a portal, sending the other end to the far side of the mountain range, and jumps through, sealing the outpost off behind him.
Chapter Ten
Since arriving in the US, Somera has suffered many minor slights. They’ve only caused her to want to further alienate herself. She has no need for such people—the guards at the airport, the people who glance sideways at her in the corridors, the few passersby on the street who have openly glared at her headscarf. Instead, she has made friends in a small way with her landlords, eating the occasional meal in the restaurant, stopping in with them for tea a couple of times. It has been easier to spend time with them than to try to get through to the people at her college who can’t seem to see past her race and her faith.
The first nakedly racist incident happens as the Christian holiday of Christmas approaches. December arrived and trees went up, fir trees with lights and glass baubles all over them. Seemingly every streetlight in San Francisco was decorated with festive-looking lights, each depicting angels or reindeer or Father Christmas, about whom she has begun to learn more and more.
“You don’t know who Santa Claus is?” some of her classmates had asked her at first, incredulous. “Man, you need to bone up on Western culture. It’s like you’re not even trying.”
But the cheerfulness is nice: It offsets the gloomy, cold nights which have begun to stretch out longer and longer as winter settles in.
One day, a few days into December, a group of young men pass her in the corridor between lessons. They’re a different year to her, she thinks, or perhaps they’re not even students at all. They look more like developers from a di
fferent floor, possibly here to take a few courses.
It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who they are or why they are here.
As they pass her, one of the young men looks at Somera and shouts out, loud enough for everybody to hear: “Hey, raghead. Hey, terrorist!” The men laugh while everyone else in the corridor looks down at their shoes, clearly embarrassed but unwilling to do anything.
“Hey, Paki,” another of the men shouts, turning as they reach the end of the corridor to look back at her. “My brother’s in the military—your douchebag raghead pals keep shooting at him.” He swears at her with his words and with his hands and the group laughs some more.
Rather than backing down as she knows she should, as she knows would be sensible, Somera instead feels anger growing deep inside her. All the passion, all the hatred, all the angst of the last few months burns brightly and she makes to walk toward them, about to give them a piece of her mind. Somera gathers her strength, focusing her will, much as Aremos would do when confronted. She can feel him within her, bright as her anger, readying for battle. She wants to demolish these stupid young men … these boys, these idiots.
But then, one of her classmates stops in front of her. His name is Sayed and he has only ever spoken to her once or twice. Now, however, he stares her down and holds his hand up. “Don’t even think about it, Somera,” he advises as the boys hoot and holler behind him from the other end of the corridor. “This is just the way it is, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And if you try to stand up to them, it makes it worse for the rest of us.”