Immersion World

by Max Jager

  While it was distracted, Sophia quickly fired the enhanced arrow at it, hitting it in the back. Fate's first card, that was attached to the arrow activated. It sent out an electric pulse that paralyzed the beast. Then her second card activated while it couldn't move, and the card was immediately struck by lightning, causing the arrow and cerberus it was now attached to to also be struck.

  The cerberus lifelessly collapsed to the ground. Chloe and Matthew also dropped to their knees, and were gasping for breath.

  Fate let out a sigh of relief and was finally able to summon a second hand of cards. Five more cards dealt themselves to her, and appeared in front of her. A three of hearts, a nine of hearts, a five of clubs, a two of hearts, and a two of clubs.

  Fate sighed. "Three out of five cards I drew were hearts… The suit that has all the healing spells. Yet I only drew one healing spell, and the slowest one at that. That's my luck." She murmured under her breath. Although she immediately used the two of hearts on herself and her wounds started to very slowly heal.

  On the other side of the battlefield, Carley took a step towards the last cerberus. It was pretty badly wounded, with the arrow in its back and slash wound across its side it was struggling to stand. Once it saw Carley approaching it turned to see if the others in its pack could come assist, but they were gone. So the cerberus bolted and tried to run away. However, after taking just a couple steps its body gave out and it collapsed to the ground. It started struggling to try and stand, but appeared to be in too much pain to stand any longer.

  When he saw the beast struggling on the ground and whimpering in pain Carley stopped. He put his sword back in the sheath on his hip and paused for a moment to think.

  "Carley! Are you okay?"" Jess called out as she ran over to him.

  "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks to Fate I think. I'm not sure what happened there." Carley replied.

  Jess turned to the cerberus. "It looks just like a hurt dog." She murmured.

  Carley nodded. "I don't think I can hurt it again."

  "What do we do?" Brooke questioned as her and Elliott joined them. "I don't want to hurt it either, but we can't leave it like this."

  Carley took a deep breath. "I agree, we can't just leave it." He replied, then hesitated a little before he started walking over to it. As soon as Carley moved towards the creature it began to panic and started spitting fireballs at him. Carley walked through the fireballs, cringing in pain as each one burnt him a little more.

  "Carley, don't!" Jess called out, but he didn't stop walking towards the cerberus. "Damnit Carley!" She hesitated, but made herself rush over to assist. She stood beside Carley, in such a way that mostly kept Carley between her and the flames, keeping her safely behind him. But she held her shield in front of him to try and shield him from the fire. It sort of worked, the shield was keeping most of the flames off Carley, although his legs were still being badly burnt. Jess herself was only being hit a little bit by the ones that weren't blocked by the shield or Carley's body. Her arm and shoulder were getting a little burnt.

  Brooke and Elliott watched, they wanted to help but didn't know what they could do. They weren't even sure what the two of them were trying to do. Surely if Carley wanted to put it down, he could've just used his bow from a safe distance.

  Once the two of them got closer to the cerberus, Jess turned to Carley. "What can I do?" She asked, now that it had stopped trying to burn them she pulled her arm back and was visibly in a lot of pain. She had first degree burns on her arm and shoulder, and looked to be struggling to move a little. "You're saving it, right? I'm assuming you have a plan."

  Carley nodded. "I need you to keep the heads away from me and hold it down so it doesn't roll over. I need to stay behind it if I want to get outta this unscratched." He was also notably having a difficult time standing, he had second degree burns over some of his body, and almost all of his legs.

  Jess's eyes widened and she fearfully took a step back. "U-Um… Something else I can do? I'm in a lot of pain already, I'm pretty badly burnt. I don't think I can do that, I'll get burnt even more."

  Carley shook his head. "I can do it on my own if it's too much. But you have armor, and you can use the shield to press the heads down. I'm sure you can do it without getting hurt."

  Jess hesitated, but she didn't move any closer. "I-I can't. That's… There has to be another way. This isn't like any other dog Carley, it's dangerous."

  "There isn't another way." Carley quietly replied, then he briefly hugged her to try and help her relax. "Thanks for the help, I'll take it from here." He said, then let her go and turned back to the cerberus.

  Jess lowered her head. "I want to help."

  Carley shook his head "You helped, and I really appreciate that. I know how hard it was, I'm not going to make you do this." And with that he walked over to the cerberus and knelt down beside it. The creature was exhausted, and was barely holding on at this point. It was growling at them and whimpering quietly to itself. As soon as Carley moved closer it started to struggle again, but it still couldn't stand.

  Carley reached out a hand to try and touch the cerberus, but it immediately tried to bite him. Carley was able to pull his hand away to avoid the bite, but the cerberus followed it up by clawing his arm and spitting another fireball at him that badly burnt his chest. Carley took a deep breath to try and push through the pain, and reached out again. This time gently petting the creature for a very brief moment before it was able to attack him again, adding another slash to his arm. He would repeat the process another three times, gently petting it then getting clawed, fireballed, or both immediately after. Carley was starting to visibly falter, despite his high pain tolerance, his movements were slowing and he was having a harder time keeping a stoic expression when the cerberus hit him.

  "She's… She's trying to save it." Elliott sighed, then started running towards Carley.

  "Well, I kinda want to save it too I just don't know how." Brooke quickly followed him.

  "I know, me too." Elliott replied. "But she's going to get herself killed doing this. Get the shield and join us, quickly."

  "On it." Brooke replied, and she turned to run over to Jess who was standing just a short distance away, worriedly watching Carley. "Give me the shield." She quickly instructed and held out her hand.

  Jess hesitated, then shook her head. "No. I don't trust you."

  "Jess, give me the shield. I will give it back." Brooke sternly growled at her. When she saw Jess hesitate again she pointed over at Carley and Elliott. "Carley is getting hurt, and it is your fault for not helping. As her girlfriend it is your job to be by her side helping her right now. So either get your ass over there and help, or give me the shield so I can do your job for you. I'm not going to watch my friend get hurt."

  "I did help." Jess insisted.

  "You're not helping now." Brooke stood her ground.

  "I'm trying! It's just..." Jess argued.

  "There is no trying! You either are, or are not." Brooke grabbed the shield with one of her hands. "Are you going to help or are you giving me the shield?! Every second you argue with me you're just getting Carley hurt even more."

  Jess hesitated, and it looked like she was about to argue further. But she watched as Carley got clawed again and she cringed. She took off the shield and handed it to Brooke. "You're wrong… I am trying… I'm not like you..." She murmured quietly, then she averted her gaze to avoid looking Brooke in the eyes.

  Brooke didn't really understand what Jess was trying to say, or what she meant. "I'll give the shield back, I promise." She stated before taking the shield and rushing over to Carley and Elliott. Elliott was a little scratched up by the time she arrived. Carley looked up at her as if he was going to tell her that it was too dangerous, but he remembered his previous promise to stop doing things alone. "Thanks." He replied.

  Brooke quickly used the shield to keep the beast's heads away from Carley, while Carley moved around behind it and Elliott helped hold the cerberus down so it did
n't roll over. Carley quickly cut the arrow with his dagger, then removed it with Elliott's assistance. Once the arrow was gone he placed one hand on the cerberus's back and focused on his healing spell. His hand began to glow, and the beast's wounds started to heal.

  Carley used his other hand to gently stroke the creature's back, trying to calm it down. It took a while, but as it started healing it started to calm down and stopped resisting. Brooke and Elliott were able to take a step back, and it didn't try to bite Carley anymore. Carley carefully moved to pet one of its heads while he finished healing it, and after ten minutes of trying to heal it the creature was fully healed the creature stood up.

  Carley remained seated beside it, letting the three foot tall creature turn to face him.

  "Carley… You need to back away from it now." Elliott worriedly whispered. "It could be dangerous."

  But Carley didn't move. Each of the cerberus' three heads took a turn to sniff him, then the beast turned and sprinted off to the north, running out of sight pretty quickly.

  Carley flopped onto his back. "Oooow." He groaned, and watched as Brooke and Elliott walked back over to him. "I know, that was stupid. But it reminded me too much of a puppy and I had to. It was worth it."

  "If we had healing powers, we probably would have done the same thing." Elliott replied.

  "Yep." Brooke added. "The thing was kinda cute, when it wasn't trying to murder us."

  "Thanks." Jess said as she too walked over and knelt down beside Carley. She immediately handed him a healing potion.

  "I knew you wanted to save it too." Carley chuckled and took the potion.

  Brooke handed the shield back to Jess. She said nothing to Jess, but gave her a look of disappointment.

  "I tried…" Jess quietly murmured under her breath. "I did my best… I'm not like you..."

  On the other side of the battlefield Matthew, George, and Chloe had each taken one of Snipes's potions while Carley was healing the cerberus. They were grouped up, resting and chatting while they waited for everyone to recover. Once Carley had recovered, he went on to heal Jess, Brooke, and Elliott's wounds, then they rejoined the others.

  "Everyone alright?" Fate asked.

  A few people spoke up and said "Yes."

  "Thanks." Carley added.

  "Alright, then let's get going." George took the lead again.

  "Where is Inami?" Snipes spoke up.

  Everyone stopped and started to look around. Inami was gone.

  "Inami!" Fate shouted out. "It's safe now! Where are you!?"

  "Here!" Inami called out from somewhere in the grass. "I find friends! We hide in grass!"

  "You found friends?" Matthew cautiously questioned.

  Snipes immediately ran towards where he heard Inami's voice. "What did you find? Is it a dog?" He asked. He suddenly jumped backwards, as a hand flew out of the grass and nearly grabbed him. Snipes immediately spun around and ran back to the group.

  Sophia and Carley both readied their bows.

  "Who is there?!" George demanded. "Come out you coward. Or I will come drag you out."

  One by one, eleven people stood up from their hiding places in the tall grass. They had almost surrounded the group while they were distracted. Each one of them was carrying a gun. The majority of them carried pistols, two of them had assault rifles, and the man in the front who seemed to be the leader held a revolver to Inami's back. Inami seemed to be oblivious to the danger she was in.

  Carley and Brooke both immediately went to run at the man. However, Jess quickly grabbed Carley to stop him, and Elliott did the same for Brooke.

  "Good afternoon." The man with the revolver greeted. "Now, I know you people care about this… Thing." He nudged Inami with his free hand. "So if you don't want it to die you'll drop your weapons and get into a nice little line. We're going back to the ruins you guys just left."

  "Where did you get the guns? And why are you taking us to the ruins? What do you want?" George growled back.

  The man laughed. "From the elves of course, you didn't know they had guns? We found a group of elves, they tried to stop and escort us to 'safety.' When they were sleeping we just killed them and took the guns. The AI in here suck. Like really, they are dumb as bricks and even the toughest ones can just be killed in their sleep." The man laughed. "As for you all, I'm sure the people of Bele village will pay a good price to avoid the deaths of ten people."

  George just glared the man down, "We can fight this."

  "No. If we fight, even if we win, a lot of us will die. We are surrounded, and they have guns." Fate argued. "We can't fight." She slowly crouched down to put down her rapier, and made her magic cards disappear. While she was crouched down she discreetly hid her signet ring in her shoe. Using the tall grass to conceal her actions.

  George hesitated, but sighed and dropped his hammer.

  The rest of the group reluctantly followed suit and dropped their weapons.

  One of the other gunmen walked over and picked up everyone's weapons, putting them all in a bag. The bag seemed to have some magical qualities, everything he put in it shrunk to a pretty small size.

  "Good." The man with the revolver stated. "Now let's get moving, I want this deal done ASAP."

  Next Chapter: Deceiver

  Chapter 10: Deciever

  — Chapter 10: Deceiver —

  Everyone was herded back to Oline city. One of the gunmen walked in front of the group to lead the way, while the leader and the other gunmen walked along behind the group to ensure that none of them tried anything.

  The goblins were no threat to the gunmen, once a couple goblins got shot the rest ran away. The gunmen lead them to an old abandoned police station where there was a small holding cell. It clearly wasn't meant for a group of this size.

  One by one they took everyone's signet rings, and then pushed them into the cell. When Fate claimed to not have one they briefly searched her, and found hers in her shoe. They also searched Carley, but he honestly didn't have anything hidden on him. They were struggling a little with George, he was bigger then most of them and was stronger then all of them. Instead of taking his ring off, they told him to take it off himself and hand it over. George took his signet ring off and quickly swallowed it.

  They immediately began yelling at him. One of them hit him over the head with their gun before shoving him into the cell.

  "One more act of disobedience and we will start shooting." One of the gunmen threatened.

  Nobody else tried anything. They squeezed everyone in into the cell and locked the door. It was cramped, there was only a little space to move with everyone inside.

  Snipes and Inami were sitting on the floor in the back. They sat beside Carley who was sitting with his back pressed into the corner, hugging his knees to his chest. He was trembling, but was clearly trying to calm himself down. Jess sat beside him and was trying to help him relax, although she looked just as scared.

  George, Fate, Matthew, and Chloe were grouped up by the locked door, silently thinking of ways to break out.

  Sophia stood off to a side of the room, trying to put some space between herself and everyone else so she could think. Although, getting space between them was near impossible in this tiny room. She leaned back against the wall, and then something caught her attention.

  There was a really tiny, round, glowing object floating up near the ceiling. She pushed her way through everyone to get under it and looked straight up at it. She could see through it, as if it were a hole but it clearly was floating in midair. Whatever was on the other side, it looked like the dark living room to a house. And she could vaguely make out a man in spiky black armor looking through the hole.

  "We are being watched." Sophia called out. "And not by our captors."

  "What?" Elliott questioned as he and Brooke got up and pushed their way over to her, then looked up to see what she was looking at. "Who's that?"

  "Didn't we see him before?" Brooke questioned.

  "Oh yeah." Sophia spoke u
p. "Wasn't he that guy who appeared through a portal at the town meeting? He's one of the Alphas."

  "Yeah that must be him!" Brooke excitedly looked up at the portal again. "He can just open a portal to get us all out of here!"