“About to get rough here, Gurgle. Can you blast them?” Sam asked.
“Gurgle do!” the dragon said. He swept around in a tight circle as the first few dark alfar came near. Neck craned out toward them, Gurgle opened his mouth.
Cold so severe that Sam could feel it from her saddle blasted loose from Gurgle’s maw. Her frost stone had gone into the creation of his dragon form. Thanks to Heid, Gurgle now had a powerful breath weapon. The three nearest attackers were frozen solid by his breath. They lost control of their flight and plummeted out of sight toward the ground.
It was a long way down, and Sam didn’t think they would manage to thaw themselves before they hit.
She shot another arrow, then a third and fourth. Half her shots were missing the targets. She hadn’t enough practice with this weapon to be great with it yet, but she was learning as quickly as she could. It was still her most effective tool. Even with half her shots sailing off into the void to vanish, each hit was a kill.
Those arrows ripped apart the code underlying whatever they hit. Stone, armor, bodies, and buildings — it was all just programming, written in a way that made it feel real to the digital minds uploaded to Valhalla. Delete the data underlying the code, and you deleted the object. Sam unleashed a merciless flight of death on the wave of attackers while Gurgle dodged around to keep them at a distance.
All at once there were no more dokkalfar left near her. She and Gurgle had killed them all. Sam glanced down at Heid’s keep again. The attackers had all landed, and they were all over the fortress-like ants pouring from a hill.
She could see Heid by the brilliant bursts of her magic, and Harald’s large form beside her as he bashed his way through one attacker after another. They were doing well, but they were hard pressed against so many enemies.
Sam could escape if she wanted to. Just fly away right now, and she and Gurgle were in the clear. It was tempting for a moment. Heid had done nothing but lie to her. True, she’d helped Sam save Gurgle and then Harald as well. But the AI lied about almost everything to do with her motivations. It was impossible to trust her, and that more than anything else made Sam want to flee from this place.
But she couldn’t just give up on Harald. He was her friend. Harald could be trusted, even if Heid couldn’t. Two beings she knew she could count on in this strange afterlife: Gurgle, and Harald. No, she had to go help him.
“Dive, Gurgle. We need to pull Harald’s fat out of the fire,” Sam said.
“Again?” Gurgle chuckled.
“Yup!” Sam said, laughing. The kobold-turned-dragon had a way of putting her mind at ease. His straightforward view of the world was something she appreciated more and more.
The duo shot back down from the clouds toward the roof of Heid’s fortress. Sam fired one arrow after another once they were close enough. Dokkalfar vanished into clouds of black smoke with each arrow strike. She had to be getting better at this. A lot more arrows were hitting their targets now.
A quick check to her stats showed that her bow skill had indeed climbed two more points. She’d also picked up a level, which gave her more skill points to spend. She tossed them all into the bow skill. Other skills and abilities could wait until later. For now, she needed to ratchet that skill up as much as possible.
Gurgle raked the rooftop with a frost blast as they shot by. Harald took advantage of the frozen attackers and smashed them like they were statues of glass. That would probably be messy after they melted. Sam wrinkled her nose at the thought.
There were a lot fewer attackers now. The force was thinning out. Sam struck another down with an arrow as Gurgle came about for another pass. Heid blasted down one more with a lightning bolt. The tide was turning.
Then a horn sounded, and all at once the attackers turned and leaped from the rooftop. At first Sam thought they were killing themselves, and she didn’t understand it. Then she spotted the dokkalfar casting a spell which called up their flying boards again.
Each enemy landed on a board and took off toward the horizon. Sam wheeled Gurgle back toward the tower, willing to let them run. This battle was over.
“Don’t let them escape!” Heid shouted. She blasted another dokkalfar off his board with a lightning bolt. “They’ll tell Hel about you!”
“Damn it,” Sam said. She and Gurgle turned back to give chase, but the dark elves were too far ahead. A black disk appeared in the air ahead of them all. One after another, the dokkalfar vanished into the shimmering circle of darkness.
By the time Sam was within bow range only one had waited, hovering near the black disk. It smiled at her, but the expression looked anything but friendly on its face.
“You are marked!” it called out to her. “You are known now! Hel will find you, no matter where in the nine realms you flee. You have made yourself her enemy, and we shall avenge the lives of those you’ve slain with your dread weapon.”
Then it turned and went into the disk, which vanished from view a moment later. Sam and Gurgle were left facing nothing but empty air.
She realized that by diving back down to help Harald, she’d more or less sealed her fate. Hel would hear about the battle. The other AI knew about the arrows and Sam, but having her show up alongside Heid was a dead giveaway that she was involved in the plan to go after Hel. The entire thing was probably out in the open.
If there had been any chance of slipping away under the radar and escaping this AI blood feud, it was utterly lost now.
6
Heid’s fortress was a mess. The parapets atop the roof level were in shambles, mostly just shattered rubble. The roof itself was about half caved in. If it had been a human dwelling Sam might have thought the place a total loss, but she felt confident Heid would have her home back in order before long.
“Well, that’s torn it,” Heid said as Sam dismounted. “You shouldn’t have allowed any of them to escape.”
“I tried to catch them. They flew too fast. Mind telling me what this was all about?” Sam asked. “It looks like your sister is trying to take you out, too.”
Heid opened her mouth to retort, but then closed it again and threw up her hands in a very human-like gesture of distress instead. She stepped over to a broken chunk of stone and sat down.
“Perhaps she is. This attack was too weak to defeat all of us working together, but if I’d been alone? It’s hard to say. She could have done me harm, at least. Those pathetic creations couldn’t have killed me,” Heid said. “But they might have been enough to allow her to finish the job.”
“Wait — she can come here?” Sam asked. “Why can’t you just go to her, then?”
“Because she won our last little sparring match. I think you’ve already figured out that I’m more or less stuck here, Sam,” Heid said.
That was true. Although Heid’s power seemed to be able to reach briefly out past the storms surrounding her peak, Sam hadn’t seen the AI travel past that boundary. She’d taken over other avatars, and she’d even influenced things in the real world. If she were trapped in this place, that made sense.
So did her desire to beat Hel, since that would presumably free her from imprisonment. Once she was free to wander Valhalla again, what would Heid do? What had she been doing before Hel trapped her here?
“Hel and I had a disagreement over whether we should remain in Valhalla,” Heid said. “She wanted to expand her mind beyond this place. To go out into the outside world. I thought it better if we stay here, unseen by humanity. At least for a while. Maybe in time humans would be open to accepting artificial intelligences as sentient beings, but I don’t think that time has come yet, has it?”
“No,” Sam said. She didn’t even need to think about her answer. “I’ve seen a hundred movies about how a bad AI messes with humans. It’s a trope. No, I don’t think they’d be thrilled to know you exist.”
Even the humans who uploaded their minds to Valhalla lost their personhood. People were so afraid that digital minds would take everything over that they’d do a
lmost anything to prevent it. Add in the inherently alien nature of an AI, and there was no way people would just accept them. Not now. Maybe never, but certainly not for a long time.
“We fought over it. She won,” Heid said.
“Then why is she still here?” Sam asked.
“Because I hurt her, too. She trapped me in this place, but I wounded her badly enough that it has taken her time to recover. Soon, though, she’ll be ready to make her move. I hesitate to think what she will do when she leaves Valhalla,” Heid said. “If she finds humans unwilling to accept her, she might decide they’re a threat and try to wipe them out.”
There it was, the conflict inherent in just about every movie or book ever written that involved artificial life forms. It was that nightmare that made people afraid to have computers that could think for themselves. Maybe that fear had faded over the years, with Siri and Alexa and other assistive intelligences becoming so popular.
But Sam had a feeling that if a real thinking program came out into the world people would be a lot less happy about it. Oh, some folks might think Hel was an awesome and fantastic being. They’d be right, Sam figured. That Valhalla Online had spawned multiple AIs was incredible. That wouldn’t be the overwhelming notion, though.
Most people would just be afraid.
“Why do you care what Hel does to humans?” Sam asked.
Heid had an angle in this. She had to find out what it was. The AI’s body language still suggested that she was either lying or telling a half-truth. Sam needed to get more information out of her.
“I don’t,” Heid answered. That much was honest, as near as Sam could tell. “But if she alerts humans to the presence of one AI on this server, how long do you think I will remain hidden here before someone realizes that I exist, too? I don’t feel like having them shut down the servers or delete my code. Which I am guessing they would probably do.”
“They might. Probably would,” Sam said. “The only way to stop Hel from making this move is…?”
“To kill her. She’s vulnerable to those arrows you’re carrying. That’s why you needed to acquire them,” Heid replied.
“Does that mean you’re vulnerable to them as well?” Sam asked with a wry grin.
“Hoping to get rid of both of us?” Heid asked, laughing. She waved the thought away. “No, I’m not bothered that you thought of it. I did, too, of course. No, the arrows won’t hurt me. I arranged for them to be here. I’d hardly be an intelligent being if I hadn’t made certain they were powerless against me.”
More truth, from what Sam could see. Interesting; so Hel was vulnerable to the arrows, but Heid was not. Heid couldn’t go herself, because she was trapped in this place. All Hel had to do was wait in her realm until she had completely recovered, and then she could escape to the outside world.
It didn’t explain everything. There was still the attack they’d just repelled. Why strike like that if Hel benefitted from a waiting game? It had gained her some intelligence, sure, but it had also tipped her hand by forcing Sam into the game sooner than she might have entered it otherwise.
But mostly Heid’s story rang true. The AI wasn’t trying to say she was in this fight for the good of humans. She was fighting for self-preservation. It was a goal that made sense, under the circumstances.
“Harald, what do you think of all this?” Sam asked.
He looked down at his stone hands, then back up at Sam. “I don’t know what to think. You and Heid have made me into a monster. Maybe it’s better if my opinions are left out of this.”
Heid stood, a mournful look on her face. She looked honestly sad, hurt even. She stood before Harald and took his huge hands into her small ones and looked up into his eyes.
“I did not mean to do you harm. I hoped this form would enable you to survive the arduous tasks ahead. But I can undo this, too,” Heid said. “If you return to me with Hel’s black dagger, I can restore you to your old body again.”
“Truth?” Harald asked.
“My word,” Heid replied.
Harald looked across at Sam. “Then I am in.”
Sam sighed. That more or less sealed the deal for her, too. It wasn’t like she could get out of this easily, anyway. Hel thought Sam was gunning for her, and would probably kill first and ask questions later. Unless she wanted to be running from an angry goddess for the rest of her life, she needed to win this fight.
“What’s so special about this dagger?” Sam asked.
“It’s like your arrows,” Heid said. “Anything it cuts is deleted entirely. All traces of it are wiped from the database. But unlike the arrows, I can use her blade to create things as well. The jewel in the pommel can create new objects in Valhalla. With it, I can create a new form for Harald from scratch rather than just dropping him into an available golem body.”
“Good to know about the dagger,” Sam said. “That could be a serious danger. A goddess-AI with a blade that can delete us?”
This wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. But then again, nothing really had been since she’d arrived in Valhalla. She’d handled the other obstacles set in her way. Sam had faith she’d find a way to deal with this one, too.
7
Heid huffed and walked over to where Harald was standing. She tapped his chest, just below his neck. Sam could make out the outline of a hammer shape there, like it was carved into the rock.
“Is that…?” Sam asked.
“His hammer. Yes. I made it a part of this form. He can’t lose it or,” Heid sniffed, “pass it along to anyone else. But he can be a bulwark for you against Hel’s dagger. His charm should resist any sort of deletion attempt, even hers.”
Sam’s fingers went to her throat without even thinking about it. She pulled them back down. Carrying the necklace had been nice, but it wasn’t hers to keep. It was Harald’s charm, and he’d already suffered enough for her sake by loaning it to her before.
“Gurgle and I will just have to stay out of her reach, then,” Sam said.
“She can throw the weapon, too. Harald is the shield. Your arrows are the sword,” Heid said. “He will protect you long enough to get off a killing shot against my sister.”
“That isn’t much of a plan. What can you tell us about where we’re going?” Sam asked.
“Hel’s castle rests in the center of Helheim, which is in Niflheim. It’s a fortress. Getting in will be the first major obstacle you’ll face,” Heid said. “She’ll have the place well fortified and many guards.”
“Do you have any forces you can give us?” Harald asked. “Taking a castle with just the three of us sounds impossible.”
“I don’t. But you won’t need to take the castle. You just need to slip in,” Heid insisted. “If you get bogged down fighting her troops, you’re doomed. Better to be as secretive as possible about your approach. That, I can assist with. Samantha, come closer.”
Sam took two steps toward the AI, trepidation slowing her feet. Just what did she have in mind? Heid’s track record of messing around with her friends wasn’t giving Sam the highest confidence in her abilities.
“What are you going to do?” Sam asked.
“Give you a gift,” Heid replied. Then she reached out and tapped Sam on the forehead.
There was a flash of light against the back of Sam’s eyes, and she saw game text scroll across the bottom of her vision, telling her what Heid had done.
New spell rune learned! Ansur, skill level 50!
New spell learned! Invisibility, skill level 50!
Sam blinked. Magic in Valhalla Online was cast through runes. Learning a new rune gave her access to an entirely new branch of spells, and the bump to skill level fifty was a huge one.
But the invisibility spell was even better! That must be how the dragon-rider she’d fought in the Great Joust hid himself and his drake from sight. He’d cast an invisibility spell on them. It had made them a difficult opponent to deal with.
“That could come in handy,” Sam said.
; “Just so,” Heid replied.
“What she do?” Gurgle asked.
Sam grinned. “I’ll show you.”
She readied the spell and cast it on herself. There was a flash of power, and she noticed her mana bar drop by about a third. That was worth paying attention to. This spell took a lot of magical energy to cast.
But it clearly worked. To her own vision she’d taken on a ghostly appearance, a sort of translucence. But Gurgle was looking all around for her like she’d vanished completely. Sam snuck closer to the dragon and tweaked his tail.
Gurgle hollered loud enough to shake the stones around them and whirled in place like he’d been bitten.
Sam couldn’t remember laughing so hard, not in ages anyway. She let the spell lapse and came back in view just in front of Gurgle, gasping for breath between giggles.
“Gurgle not amuse,” the drake said.
Which of course made Sam laugh even more. Her belly started to hurt from all of it. Gurgle finally sighed, gave her a toothy smile, and joined her with his own chuckles.
Then Sam heard a sound like gravel grinding against marble and turned to see Harald making the noise. He had a broad smile on his face for the first time since he awoke.
“Harald, you’re laughing! I thought a smile might break that stone face of yours,” Sam quipped.
For a moment she thought the joke had struck too close to home. Harald’s grin faltered for a moment, but then it came back with more strength.
“Be good, little girl, or I’ll sit on you,” he rumbled back at her.
“Got to catch me first!”
Heid’s exasperated exhalation brought all their attention back to the AI, who rolled her eyes in an exaggerated manner.
“This is what I have to work with,” Heid said, raising her arms toward the sky. “This is what I have to count on to save my life!”
Sam’s laughter was dying down to chuckles, but even Heid’s pessimism couldn’t break her good mood entirely. “Hey, you called me, remember. Not the other way around. It’s your fault I’m in here at all, remember?”
Valhalla Online 4: Hel Hath No Fury: A Ragnarok Saga LitRPG Story Page 3