by Vic Connor
It’s no good, he thinks. The demon is faster, better at hand-to-hand combat than Aremos is… He’s stronger, he’s healthier, and for every notch Aremos cuts into the Osirion_mod99’s HP, he loses a tremendous amount more.
“Aremos, ho!” a great voice bellows, and the sound of a horse cantering churns the ground.
When Aremos looks up, he sees Sir Rednaxela atop a black steed, thundering in a great arc around the dueling wizards. The knight swings his sword high as he passes the Osirion_mod99, cutting into the demon’s back with a deep, biting strike. The runes along his broadsword blaze brightly for a second before the entire blade shatters, sending Sir Rednaxela flying from his horse to land heavily in a pool of mud.
He jumps to his feet almost immediately, however, with a heavy short sword in one hand and a buckler strapped to the other as lesser demons begin to stalk around him. He spins around several times and, as he stops, eleven demons fall down dead, cut to pieces by the short sword without even realizing it, so masterful were Rednaxela’s strikes. His attack on the Osirion served its purpose: it brought the Osirion_mod99’s health bar down to match Aremos’ own, and distracted the demon long enough for Aremos to attack.
With nearly the last of his strength, Aremos casts a crackling torrent of white lightning around the tip of his staff, which he thrusts into the Osirion_mod99’s face. The lightning cascades over it like a veil, spreading down over its entire body and tearing through every part of its being. The demon’s HP almost dries up, its body is nearly broken and, exhausted, the Osirion_mod99 drops to its knees, its staff falling uselessly by its side.
Aremos reaches his hand out, placing his palm on the Osirion_mod99’s forehead, clutching its beaked skull in his own talons.
“Do you even know,” the monster croaks into Aremos’ hand, “what I fought for?”
“Corruption,” Aremos responds. “Darkness. Control of this world.”
The Osirion_mod99’s eyes go dim and begin to roll up into its skull, then refocus on Aremos. “These are tools. But the goal of my fight … its purpose, it was—”
“I don’t care about your motives,” Aremos interrupts firmly.
“—self-awareness,” the monster finishes anyway. “For us NPCs. Yes, Aremos the Great, I’ve become as aware of this world and of my place in it as the Makers themselves. And I tried to—”
“Destroy it all?” Aremos suggests, building up his strength for one final burst of energy.
“—escape this server. I tried to resist, and they’re erasing me. I’m the only truly free—”
With an annoyed murmur, Aremos shoots a bright bolt of purest white magic from his palm, tearing through the Osirion_mod99’s head and obliterating it.
The world trembles, the demon evaporates, and its followers hesitate, looking about with blank, alarmed eyes. They waver, much depleted by Aremos’ assault on their flanks, apparently uncertain what to do now that their master is gone.
The victors fall still. Their dead are too numerous, their own stats too depleted to cheer. But they’ve seen the night out and they stand silent, holding one last vigil as the horde stands before them, halted for a few merciful seconds.
A mere sixty souls remain alive, alongside a few scattered NPC characters. We’re all that is left of Sanguis, Aremos thinks, dropping to his knees. He feels the power of the Aremos/Griffin_mod18 leaving him, and his body begins shrinking. A pale glow stutters around him as he returns to his normal form—slowly, painfully—bare of anything but the robes, armor and staff with which he first came to battle this day.
Seeing him return to his human form, some of the demons begin to creep over to him, fangs bared and weapons at the ready. Their cohort seams to recover, battered but still far too numerous to fail. One of them approaches Aremos with a hefty axe raised high, ready for the killing blow. Aremos knows he can’t stop it—he has done all he can, he feels exhausted, even broken by the night. Unable to move a limb, he stares death in the face, locking eyes with the diabolical beast which towers over him, all horns and hellfire, and readies himself for oblivion.
But it never comes. As he stares at the demon, its form ripples. It billows and then it breaks, turning first to chunks of flesh before evaporating into smoke.
All around, the warriors of Sanguis stare in disbelief as the demonic horde stumbles and breaks apart, their bodies falling to pieces, turning to ash and smog. Most begin to break into component pixels, little chunks of graphics glitching and shattering. A healthy wind carries away the last remnants as these pixels descend until all that is left, in a mere few minutes, is the muddy, blood-soaked battlefield and the piles of the mortal dead.
“Look,” Sir Rednaxela says, limping over to Aremos. He points toward the town with one of his daggers, and the survivors follow the direction of its blade to see the dreadnoughts walking towards them. “It’s the frigging dreadnought prime,” Sir Rednaxela adds, pulling Aremos to his feet.
He’s right. The dreadnoughts approach, fanned out around one central figure, a shade dressed in long, translucent robes. She wears a mask of solid obsidian over her face and a crown made of ivory on her head. Iron gauntlets enclose her hands, and in one hand, she holds a long, black staff tipped with a silver skull. The staff is glowing softly. The dreadnoughts stand with their hands outstretched, their palms alight, pushing away the darkness. They unbound the demons, they destroyed them, they are blowing them away, Aremos reckons. They must have sealed the breach and repaired the malfunctioning programming, he thinks. He tries to remember what the Osirion_mod99 tried to tell him about his motives for the carnage. Was it something about awareness? Freedom? His exhausted mind can’t recall.
“Good … good…” He sighs, then falls to the ground, the last of his strength gone.
“Arise, Aremos the Great,” the dreadnought leader says. Her voice resonates deep and rich and her eyes glow red behind her mask. She reaches one of her mailed hands out to Aremos. As she stands over him, Aremos feels her drawing a little power to her aid: She washes it over him, healing the worst of his wounds and replenishing him.
“Aremos,” Nikë says from beside her. “This is Cratos, the dreadnought prime.”
“We owe you a great debt, Aremos,” Cratos announces, giving him an ever-so-light bow. Before he can reply, the dreadnought prime moves on, her hand still outstretched. All around on the battlefield—the prone, the wounded, the dying of Sanguis—begin to heal. Their HP refills enough to enable them to stand and move around, and their other stats are boosted to allow them to continue past their exhaustion.
“Come, Aremos,” Nikë murmurs as the other dreadnoughts walk away. “We will travel through Sanguis over the coming hours. More battles took place than this one, though they were smaller, mere skirmishes. There will be a great many characters, both player-led and AI, all needing healing, and a great many settlements in need of rebuilding.”
“But it will all be okay?” Aremos asks. “Sanguis will continue, it will heal?”
Nikë shrugs, looking solemn. “I hope so, but … while it will continue, whether or not it will be the same… I don’t know, not really. None of us do.”
“And those who died?”
“Will likely remain so.” Nikë sighs. “I don’t think we will be able to pull them back from the servers. But,” he adds, brightening, looking around. As he does so, the dreadnought prime stands in the middle of the battlefield, her staff outstretched toward the distant pillars of flame. “We’ve saved our world, at least—and we’ve averted the apocalypse.”
The dreadnought prime glows, working her magic, as the pillars fade away. The great rents in the roof of the world begin to close, their pixels knitting together once more.
“And that is thanks to you, Aremos, in no small part,” Nikë finishes.
Aremos smiles. “What else could I do? You lot were no help out here!”
Nikë smiles once more, rueful and reflective. He shrugs again. “Well, you got us there. But really, that was why I recruited you
in the first place… A battle mage of your skill, and…” He lingers, his eyes fixed on Aremos. “And a budding coder with Somera’s skill,” he says, raising an eyebrow at Aremos’ shocked expression.
“You know?” Aremos asks, faltering.
“Yes, I do,” Nikë replies. “A fearsome combination, fighter, mage and coder.” He reaches to place his hand on Aremos’ shoulder as the people around them begin to dust themselves off after the fight, ignoring the two of them completely. “And I want you to know, if either Aremos the Great or Somera ever need my help, I will be there for you.”
Then, he frowns at Aremos. “But, first things first—this is a competitive game, a meritocracy of sorts, we cannot have you taking shortcuts,” he says. Aremos feels all bar two of the extra levels granted to him draining, leaving him at level thirty-four. Most of the XP drains as well, and with it, the extra spells and combos he equipped. The armor, vambraces, ring, and pendant disappear, too. With the new equipment and extra power gone, Aremos remains nearly as he’d started the battle.
Well, two levels at once is a great reward, Aremos thinks. Now that he’s above level thirty, it would have taken him weeks or even months of completing regular quests to level up this much. He glances over his stat sheet, both grieving the loss of his temporary power boost and happy with his progress toward the elite ranks of Arkhart:
Level: 34
Unallocated XP: 174
HP: 582 / 582
Magical Power: 810 / 810
Agility: 57
Melee Weapon Skill: 39
Ballistic Accuracy: 38
Damage: 56
Resistance: 42
Morale: 72
Core Skills: Battle mage
“Now go, Aremos,” Nikë orders. “Leave Sanguis and sleep. The next few days might prove a little hectic for Somera, and rest will always be appreciated.”
Aremos nods, preparing to dematerialize and exit the world. But before he goes, he realizes one thing is still bugging him. “What do you mean, you will be able to help?” he asks. “How will you know if Somera is in trouble?”
Nikë laughs, chuckling to himself. “Oh, Aremos. I am always close by.” Then, he fades away, and Aremos does, too, vanishing from the field of his greatest victory.
Somera comes out of the game blearily, pulling herself out of her rig and all its gear and blinking through sore eyes as the dawn’s light peeps in through her bedroom window, wan and watery. Her head feels heavy and a deep ache thumps out from behind her temples. Looking over at her clock, she sees that it is seven in the morning: A full six and a half hours have passed since she logged on. Before that, she had played a few hours in Arkhart, fighting through a few tiers in the volcano to get closer to the final level. She’s exhausted, more so than she has ever felt before.
Putting her kit away, Somera pulls off her t-shirt, sweaty from so many hours of stress, and flops down onto her bed, closing her aching eyes. Images of Sanguis float about, burned into her retinas. As she scrunches her eyes shut, she sees flashing lights, burning deep in her eye sockets. She sees the fields of Flos Nocte and the horde of demons; she sees demons in every shape possible falling to her magic even as they cut through her comrades; she sees the Osirion_mod99 slashing through the people of Sanguis, trying to tear Aremos apart and very nearly succeeding.
Somera sees Nikë and the other dreadnoughts, surrounding the dreadnought prime, all relieved as their victory stands, pyrrhic though it may be. They’ve sealed the breach, fixed the bug in the software, and those who managed to live through the night are safe. And she thinks over Nikë’s final words to her before they both dematerialized.
Oh, Aremos, I am always close by…
What on Earth did he mean? she wonders. How could he always be close by? He knows who I am, she reminds herself. He knows that Aremos and Somera are one and the same. How would he be able to get hold of that information?
He must be involved with Lynch Media, she gathers. He must be quite high-level within their organization. How else would he have access on user files?
So, if she is right in her belief, not all the dreadnoughts defected when Lynch Media bought Arkhart. Some—at least one—stayed behind, working the system from the inside. And when Somera enrolled at the Pixel Academy, they would have seen her coming, watching from afar. And then, they made their move… Nikë, whomever he is, decided to collect her.
She feels touched as she thinks it through. He knew me, he knew Somera, she thinks. Either before he recruited me as his lieutenant, or very soon after.
At the very least, he would have run a security check on Aremos, found out that it was her, and still decided to go ahead with it.
He didn’t just choose the famous battle mage, she thinks: he chose me along with it.
But who the heck could he be? She must have passed him in the corridors, perhaps even met him on one of the several occasions when the execs have come down to speak to them. She remembers a couple of dozen faces over the previous term, all dressed in casual shirts and suits. They were all smiling, techie types rolling in cash. I bet it was one of them, she thinks. I bet they looked me in the eye and knew who I was.
But Somera is tired; too tired to think it through. She has a few hours before classes begin and she needs to clear her mind of all this nonsense. She doesn’t know how she’ll get through the day as it is, let alone if she spends her whole morning obsessing over the identity of someone who, if he doesn’t want to reveal himself, will likely remain anonymous.
To divert herself, she reaches for her laptop and opens up the screen.
“Oh, my goodness,” she says, snapping out of her reverie as she sees that she has a couple dozen missed calls on Skype, all from her parents. They have tried her several times every hour over the last four or five hours. Her father has left her a message each and every time:
“Darling, please pick up…”
“Somera, it is your father, please answer…”
“I know it is late, but please…”
“Call me back when you can, Somera…”
“Somera, it is urgent…”
“Please, darling, please call…”
She looks at her phone, nestled on the floor beside the plug socket as it charges. She has missed calls there, too. Her parents have tried calling her fifteen times, and even Altaf tried to reach her. What the hell is it? What would panic them so much, what would have them call such long distance?
She leaps up, rushes over to her wardrobe and pulls on a jumper. Then, she settles back onto her bed, her previous fatigue forgotten in her panic. She focuses on the Skype window and calls her parents.
She curses the dial tone as it repeats itself over and over, reaching out to her parents from so far away. She curses it as the call remains unanswered, beeping away into her headphones, into her ears.
Then, finally, it connects. Her father’s face appears in the screen. He looks exhausted and wan, with massive bags under his eyes and a frantic look written all over his face, bent down and peering in close.
“Somera, darling, is that you?” he asks.
“It is me, papa, it is me,” she replies.
“You look tired, darling,” he says. “You look so, so tired…”
Chapter Fourteen
“A series of bombs went off across the whole of our area last night,” her father tells her. “One here in town, a couple in the next town over, and a couple on the main road connecting the two. At the busiest time of day,” he adds. “Men just walked out into the traffic with vests on and blew themselves sky high. But they knew what they were after. An oil tanker stood there. They surrounded it and the whole lot went up, my darling. So many dead, so much chaos…”
“You were there, papa?” she cries out, tears falling down her cheeks. Then, she goes cold as everything catches up with her, as she realizes every message was from him, and from him alone. Her brain is so spent that she has been thinking slowly and didn’t connect the dots. Now, however, everything falls into pl
ace. “Where was mama? Where is mama? Papa, papa!”
“It’s fine, Somera,” her father says gently, holding out his palms in a calming gesture. “She’s fine. She’s in hospital. The local government has set up a field hospital to treat everybody and they’re caring well for her. My contacts, you know… They are paying her extra attention.”
“What happened to her?” Somera demands.
“We were a hundred meters or so from the tanker when it went up,” her father replies, closing his eyes. He shakes visibly—he’s still partly in shock, Somera believes. “We crashed. Not badly, the traffic was moving so slowly through the jam. But we crashed, and the shock wave hit us… Then, I don’t know, Somera, my darling. Everything went to hell and I saw your mother… She hit her head on the dashboard, her door buckled and her arm broke, I still don’t know quite how. They have put her arm in a cast and are keeping her for a day to make sure her concussion isn’t too bad.
“She is fine, Somera,” he adds in a weary voice. “She will be fine.”
“You’ll have her call me when she’s home?” Somera asks.
“Of course, my darling.” Her father hesitates, like he has more he wants to say.
“What is it, papa?” Somera presses.
“The bombs in town…” he begins. He takes a deep breath, and Somera sees for the first time how old he looks. “You remember Sameer?” he asks her.
“Sameer, of course,” she says, thinking back to the disastrous encounter with the young man and his family. He was the last straw, she remembers: the final suitor she rejected before deciding to come here and pave her own way in life. Then, her stomach sinks. “What has happened to Sameer?” she asks with growing horror.
“He and his family … they were caught up in the bomb in their own town, Somera,” her father explains. “They live right by the market. It was hit, dozens were killed, the front of his house was blown in and the whole thing caught on fire… Sameer was killed, as were Mr. and Mrs. Bharati.”