by Vic Connor
“The rest…?” Somera begins, and Sayed nods.
“Yeah, all us immigrants,” he says. “You have a go at them and we’re all fair game. So just cool it, okay? Calm down, leave it alone. Then, we can all walk away from this okay.”
Aremos quiets. The spirit of the battle mage leaves her.
The young men swear at her a couple more times before they push through the double doors at the end of the corridor, disappearing and leaving Somera stunned.
“God, Somera,” Sayed adds once the men are gone and he sees that she has begun to deflate. “You need to chill out. You’ll get your damned head kicked in, acting crazy like that.”
With these words he slouches away, shaking his head in apparent disbelief at Somera’s behavior.
Nobody looks at her. A couple of her classmates show up nearby but they move quickly along, pointedly looking anywhere else, avoiding her gaze as they hurry away.
She feels alone and impotent. A rage fills her—a rage which she can’t put anywhere.
Nikolai sees her walking to class later that day and he stops her, frowning down at Somera with a great deal of concern in his eyes. “I heard what happened in the corridor earlier on,” he says. “Are you—”
“It was nothing,” Somera replies, blushing. She doesn’t want Nikolai to see her weakness, and she has no desire for his pity. But his pity is forthcoming, nevertheless.
“It wasn’t,” he tells her. “It’s unacceptable—it isn’t what we’ve built the academy up to represent. Anyone holding those views is not a welcome member of our community.”
Somera nods and shrugs, not knowing what to say.
“I know the boys in question,” Nikolai continues. “And I’ll be keeping an eye on them. They’re interns with the company’s AI department, they come down here for tutorials every so often. I’ve had a word with the head of AI, and with their teachers down here. If any of them does anything like that again, there will be consequences.”
Somera nods again, grateful. It’s good, it’s positive, she thinks. But I still hate this.
She hates that it’s not her who is fixing the situation, she hates that she can’t let them feel her rage up close and personal. She still feels weak and she dislikes Nikolai seeing it; she wishes he didn’t have to step in to defend her. She should have been able to handle them herself. She should have been capable, and she should have been allowed.
“It’s a stressful time, studying for a degree,” Nikolai adds. “Especially one as hard as this, though I know it comes easily enough to you. Still, I hope you have an outlet, a way to blow off steam.”
She nods. “I do,” she replies, thinking of Aremos—of Arkhart—very briefly, but lingering in her thoughts over Sanguis. “I do,” she repeats, and takes her leave. Nikolai wishes her well and bids her to come to him if she ever has any problems.
“I will,” she says.
Later on, as ever, she logs onto her rig to release some of her feelings of anger and anxiety. She completes a couple of missions in Arkhart, closing in on the demon, coming ever closer to rescuing Meredith. Then, she logs into Sanguis for the real fun.
Aremos studies the map, locating the next few levels of his quest to find Meredith’s soul. They’re all to take place on a large, mountainous island in the far west of the realm of Sanguis, surrounded by sickly waters shrouded in mist. However, scrying, using his newly updated Second Sight, he sees the magical patterns which weave themselves around the island. It’s a place of nature, as only Sanguis could portray it—savage beasts roam those lands, monsters whose power comes from the fury of the flora, of the primeval winds which whip at those shorelines.
I know how to fight such beasts, he thinks. Aremos has never faced such environments before, but he has heard of them. There are places in Arkhart where the magic takes the form of wild beasts, channeling their primal instincts and shaping the landscape in their image. Informally, the mages and shamans of Arkhart call it beast magic: Practitioners who utilize it are wild men and women who worship nature and use their power to work animalistic rites, giving themselves traits and attributes well-suited to their environments.
Aremos recognizes the beast magic in the island he must travel to. No doubt the dreadnought knows he has never used it or faced it before, preferring always to work with white magic and areas where it works at its strongest. This must be the challenge, Aremos thinks, smiling to himself ruefully and without mirth.
“Challenge accepted,” he growls in furious temper as he sets out on this new mission. The child spirit Somera rages in him today, lending him the strength of her own passion.
Before traveling to the island, Aremos stops by a wizarding enclave in the south of Sanguis, where the Deserts of the Dead roll on for hundreds of miles and every form of magic meets and mingles. Storms are common in this area as the various strands of magic clash and writhe in the skies above, warping the very heavens themselves and sending unnatural bursts of power raining down to earth. Here, amidst such chaos, a school of magic has popped up, run by Sanguis’ own AI servants, ever-committed to coding increasingly extravagant uses of magic for their masters to use. Players come here, Aremos has heard, to learn some of these forms of spellcasting, begging the scholars to show them how to harness the raw chaos that rages above to meet their own needs.
Aremos opens a portal within the school’s compound. A high, black tower stands in the middle, off limits to all but the most highly regarded of casters. However, he has no need of such arcana: he’s not here to revolutionize the way he uses his magic. He just wants a tome of power that will show him how to use beast magic, then he will be on his way.
A barracks stretches out along one side of the tower’s base, in which guardsmen and battle mages sleep and train. A library occupies the other side, fenced off to any casters below level forty. Finally, a makeshift set of stalls spirals and crowds every available space between the buildings, far scruffier than the market squares of the player outpost. This is what he has come for: A peddler of books dwells here, and Aremos knows this witch will have what he needs.
“Damnation,” he says, striding up to the wizened old witch and her table. The stall is piled with dozens of tomes and scrolls and smaller, leather-bound books laid out by type of magic, all covered in a fine layer of dust. The witch smiles at him as he approaches. “You are Damnation?” he asks her. “I have that right?”
“You do, Aremos the Usurper,” the witch replies, cackling.
“I don’t understand,” he says. “How am I a usurper?”
“I have heard rumors about you,” the witch tells him.
Her eyes flash dangerously, and she bares her teeth at him. She is an AI, the same as all the others who operate in this place, but she seems to have a genuine, very human appetite for evil, Aremos has heard. Nobody remembers why she is called Damnation, and nobody knows if she ever had any other name, but they all agree that the soubriquet suits her.
“Rumors, indeed,” she whispers, hobbling around the table to get a better look at him. He grips his staff, ready to attack her if the need arises. “Oh, don’t be so foolish,” she says, cackling once more. As she laughs, Aremos realizes how unwise it would be to fight her. She is said to be one of Sanguis’ greatest lore-keepers, equivalent to a player-led level 60+ character. No doubt she knows far more about magic than he ever could.
“Rumors, rumors…” she wheezes, her laughter dying. “Rumors that the Dreadnought Nikë has taken a shine to you, that he has taken you under his wing…”
“If you’re referring to the dreadnought who brought me to Sanguis—”
“I am, I am! Though he hasn’t even told you his name!” Damnation squeals, giggling.
“Exactly—he thinks me his plaything,” Aremos growls. “He has not taken me under his wing.”
“So you say, so you say,” the witch croons in a hideous sing-song voice. “But he knows you, he knows what you could be, and you have usurped so many who would happily bear the harshness of his tut
elage!”
“Enough of your nonsense,” Aremos snaps. “I didn’t come here to trade witless banter. I need a book, I have gold—”
“Nikë’s gold, Nikë’s gold!”
“And I wish to make a purchase—”
The witch laughs. “Oh yes, oh goodness, yes indeed.” Her eyes meet Aremos’ own and then she turns serious, deadly and quiet. “A purchase, indeed,” she whispers, as if to herself. “And what would this purchase be?”
“I have need of knowledge,” Aremos replies. “Knowledge of the magic of the beasts.”
“And it is my duty to provide you with this knowledge.” The witch bows, reciting the words as though they were learned a long time ago. She picks up a small book from her table and passes it to him. “The beginnings,” she says. “It will tell you how to channel and it will give you a few spells. Five gold coins.”
Aremos does not even consider trying to haggle. The witch’s tone brooks no argument, and he is well aware she could destroy him without a second thought. He hands over the coins and pockets the book. He feels the XP flowing from it and he sees the spells flash before him, available now that he has bought them.
“Be careful with it, though,” Damnation advises, looking deep into his eyes. “Those who tread the path of the beast, looking foolishly to tame it, often in turn become the beast themselves.” She looks as though she would like nothing better than to see this happen to Aremos. Her eyes glint and she licks her lips as she watches him.
“Thanks for the warning,” Aremos replies wryly. “But I’ve been on the path of white magic for so long, this is just a detour. I doubt it could change me all that much.”
“So you might say.” The witch sighs. “So you might say…”
He leaves her, feeling creeped out, and he’s conscious as he walks away that her eyes do not leave him. He steps into another portal and then, mid-way through, pauses himself and opens both the map and the new book. There are five new spells available to him, and the quest’s beginning is set for him to embark upon. He equips the spells and checks them out, learning their stats, what they do, and what they cost, then nods to himself, satisfied.
It’ll be a good fight, indeed. The day’s stresses weigh heavily upon his shoulders, and he needs to release some of his pent-up aggression.
A panoply of beasts will stand in Aremos’ way throughout the first few missions on this quest. He doesn’t yet know the details of each one, but the map shows warnings that giants, nightmare beasts, and worse roam these hills. He steps out of his portal at the base of the first of the foothills through which he’ll have to work his way if he wants to progress, and the words come to him, naming this stage in the adventure: “The Centaurs’ Hunt.”
He finds himself on a wide, sandy beach with the miserable sea to his back and impossibly tall mountains ahead of him, ranging as far as the eye can see. Woodland lines every hillside. The forests are dank, evil-looking places in which Aremos has no doubt the vilest of creatures reside.
And indeed, as he walks away from the sea and trudges up the first hillside, pushing through some light scrubland before emerging upon a flat summit, he hears the unmistakable sound of hoofbeats. The centaurs are coming, he thinks.
There is a mountain pass ahead into which he must travel, but it’s guarded.
The centaurs are coming.
An arrow flashes past him, then another and another, each missing him by three or four feet. They are still far off, his pursuers, but they are gaining ground. He can see five of them galloping across the hilltop toward him as another few circle around the hill’s base, surrounding him. Their arrows won’t be able to harm him—they aren’t powerful enough to penetrate his shields—but the centaurs are many and they are strong. If he allows them to get too close, they’ll gore him to death on their spears quickly enough.
The first five are a hundred feet away and closing. Aremos gets his first good look at them. They are evil, twisted things. He has met a centaur before, a player-led character in Arkhart. They are rare, a form of shifter not often seen, and in Arkhart, they’re beautiful, nobly-built creatures, their bare torsos muscled and bronzed and their proud eyes keen-sighted and warm.
These are different to the ones in Arkhart, however. Their flanks, scaly and balding, emit a listless glint of sweat and pus. Their hair gleams dark and greasy in the rays of the measly sun, slicked back from their foreheads in long, flowing locks. Their eyes are screwed up in menace and their torsos, whilst muscular and powerful, seem malformed. Some have scales lining their whole bodies, like that of a dragon’s, while others seem to be rotting. A couple even have extra limbs growing—sickly, vicious-looking things. Their hands are talons, but several seem to have scythe-like claws, instead, shaped more like a giant crab’s pincers than anything Aremos might have expected.
They come close and part, pounding around him to create a double circle while they look him over. The closest ones heft spears and shields, lowering them to enable a charge on their next pass, but Aremos is ready for them.
He had planned to take it easy, to enjoy the first level, to fight intelligently… But the child Somera is angry and it infects Aremos’ thinking. The rage wells up inside him, threatening to burst, and he draws the first couple of spells to the fore, empowering them and placing them in an effective-looking combo.
Aremos releases his spells as the nearest two centaurs charge. The first spell ripples through the ground, causing the very earth beneath their feet to growl with nature’s fury. It’s ecstatic—it feels wonderful for Aremos to release his fury in a primal bellow. He roars, and the ground roars with him. Whereas he has smitten the ground with shockwaves before, this is different. Before, he would thrust his power into the ground before standing back as cause and effect took their turns. Now, however, he feels as though he’s controlling the ground itself, bound to it, pouring his magic into it in long, rippling undulations. One of the centaurs falls, snapping its forelegs as the earth quakes. The other trips and only just manages to stand again—it turns tail and stumbles back to its herd.
The centaurs stagger, their charge broken, their morale decreased. They look about, distracted with the shockwave, and another goes down, its legs snapping as a piece of the hill thrusts upward, tripping it.
Next, Aremos reaches beneath the earth, down below the shaking, within the soil itself. He pours his anger into the sod and the loam. With his increased awareness, he feels roots and tendrils, vines and sprouts, and he calls to them. His spell awakens them, fusing them to his will and bringing them to life. As the centaurs scatter and regroup further off along the hilltop, preparing for another charge as the earthquake calms down, the tendrils begin working their way to the surface.
Four centaurs split from the group, circling once more around Aremos as the others charge toward him. However, as they draw close, the earth opens in several places, great maws of solid rock swallowing a couple of the beasts whole. Yet more centaurs are held in place by the flailing tendrils; roots pop up, tripping some, while vines lash at others. Some of the vines and tendrils act as snakes, whipping up out of the ground and coiling themselves around the centaurs’ bodies, piercing them, digging into them, squeezing the life from them. Their eyes pop and the creatures gasp, fighting back uselessly.
Only five of the centaurs survive after this, living through Aremos’ fury. One is their chieftain, larger and stronger than the others, and he bellows to his four subordinates, bolstering their morale as they waver. On his left arm is a crablike claw, and he clutches a great, hefty spear in the other. He uses them to threaten both Aremos and the final members of his hunting party, making sure they do not flee, ordering them to return to the fight.
The chieftain himself charges next, with the other four trotting along beside him. The last of the vines lash out, but he either dodges them or cuts them down with his massive claw. Aremos gathers his third and fourth spells, preparing to unleash them and end this fight in victory.
Roots explode out of the
ground, propelled by Aremos’ furious magic, as vines and tendrils grasp outward. One of the centaurs is caught and he goes down violently, one of his legs ripped from its socket. He rolls over and over before being devoured by the clinging plants. The other three of the chieftain’s underlings slow down, weaving, ducking, pushed this way and that, distracted and warded away from Aremos himself.
The chieftain, however, makes a straight line toward the mage.
The ground ripples, breaking under his hoofs as more and more roots shoot out to catch him. Nevertheless, the chieftain jumps from point to point, never faltering, as nimble as he is strong. A few vines try to grab at him, but his claw slashes and cuts all around him, clearing his path as he charges on. He uses his claw and lance as shields, buffeting the determined plants away.
He approaches within twenty yards of Aremos, then levels his spear and speeds up, aiming straight for Aremos’ heart. Unable to withstand such an assault, Aremos ducks down and dives away. The chieftain bowls over him, missing him by a few inches as Aremos rolls in the dirt. As soon as he’s distracted, Aremos’ magic breaks, the might of his anger dissipating as fear creeps into his heart. The ground grows calm, his spells end, and, looking up, he sees himself surrounded by the four remaining beasts.
He swears to himself as the chieftain turns back toward him and prepares for another charge, his spear leveled like a knight’s lance at the joust. Aremos jumps to his feet, taking stock of the situation. He has killed most of the herd: Eight bodies lie bloody and broken across the hilltop. However, it has cost him dearly—his magic bar has gone down by well over a third and his morale is shaken.
No matter though, he tells himself. He closes his eyes, going deep within himself even as that thunderous charge comes toward him. “Somera, Somera, where are you?” he calls out.