by Anthea Sharp
“An auto-hack.” He smiles. He is wearing a goggle over his left eye, using a direct neural interface to communicate with the transport's computer.
"Nice multitasking." I smile back.
"Interface connection established, sealing manifolds now. Should take about five minutes for the quantum vacuum to reenergize. Activating ship’s defense systems, turrets are a go!"
I give Farsi a quick nod of congratulations.
“Your quick thinking is going to save us,” says the other soldier.
Suddenly, the wraith stop coming.
“What happened?” Farsi asks, looking around.
“I’m not sure, they stopped attacking,” says the other soldier.
“Maybe they found another target,” I answer.
Another minute goes by before we climb aboard the transport. I hold the artifact close to my side. Before we are off the ground, one of theirs, a player killer, comes leaping out of the dust. He or she, I can’t get a close enough look, is wearing black body armor. They are covered in blood and dust, and holding some kind of curved sword.
I feel it stab me in the back. I feel the blade tear through my armor and into my skin all the way through to the bone. I feel it stop.
“Nice job, Red, is that the one you said found you?” I hear.
I start firing while trying to pull away at the same time. As quickly as they appeared they are gone. Their body turns to digital ash in the air.
+300 EXP
I fall back into the VTOL. I feel like I have a million needles running down my spine. Farsi stands over my body, taking the artifact from my dying hands before pushing me out. The top of the hangar opens and I see the Jellyfish Nebula fill in the night sky.
Bleeding -1 / second
I land in the dust and crawl away, back towards the cryo-pods, hoping that maybe I can scavenge something to stop my bleeding. No other players appear. No wraith either. I am alone again. My team has left me for dead.
I have about thirty seconds left when I learn why she had shot at me. Red. She was a player and I… I was something else.
A dead husk stares at me from the ground.
A mirror, a perfect reflection of myself and everything I am.
... everything fades to black.
Quest Failed
3:27 am.
I wake up screaming again.
They said it would feel like a dream. Others said that it was like being reborn. A war somewhere in Alpha Euthymia. A planet light years away from the hub, an echo.
A number written on the back of my hand, 1328.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen Landry is a 31 year old writer and graphic designer living in Nashville,TN with his fiancée, two rescue dogs, and cat. Much of his work is character-driven science fiction (space opera with aspects of fantasy, horror, and time travel) and LitRPG. When not writing Stephen can be found doing work for many different clients including other authors, publishing companies, independent film studios, and more recently, a few video game companies.
Battle Mage - Pauline Creeden
1
I wondered, not for the first time, why the game creators felt the need to include smells in Battle Mage. At least the smell of sewage remained faint, and I could keep my gag reflex under control. Barely.
Not everyone knew this stench. Most of the newbies stayed on the main level of the game. Where roses and pine smells ruled. Only those who knew the right movements, knew the right codes... made a deal with the devil... could get to the sub-level.
A rat ran across my path.
My hands tightened into fists in response. The only time I could feel the gloves on my hands was when I clenched them tightly. I swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise up. Even in the game, I didn't like creepy-crawly things. Didn't particularly care for keeping my balance on the foot-wide ledge next to the rounded tunnel side either, but I preferred it over walking in the knee-deep sludge to my left.
I fixed my eyes on the end of the tunnel and continued forward. The crowd ahead roared with applause and laughter. When I broke out into the open area, they roared again.
The applause wasn't for me.
In the middle of the crowd, two players stood a few feet apart in a ring with no ropes. A faint circle decorated the floor. It didn't matter much. No one cared if they were in or out of bounds. The rules of honor and integrity found on the main levels of the game weren't part of the culture in the sub-levels.
But here, players could rise in the ranks quickly. Grinding for XP became child's play. Experience points, game coins, everything was gained easier in the sub-levels, where PvP gave you twice the points and money than battling NPCs.
I found a spot at the back of the crowd and kept my back to the wall. Those in front of me turned and eyed me a moment before continuing to watch the fight. I nodded to them. Sucker-punches were commonplace in the sub. I had to watch my own back and couldn't blame others for watching theirs.
A wolfish howl rose from the ring, pulling me to my tip-toes so I could peer over the heads of the spectators in front of me. In the ring, one of the fighters proved himself a shifter. His top half sprang muscles and brown hair and teeth and claws. He moved with a speed that made it hard for his opponent to keep up. Even harder for spectators to follow.
The mage opponent stood his ground. Claws raked against the force field he'd created. In his other hand, he generated fire and waited for an opening. But the shield began to get the tiniest of cracks.
Fire flared in the mage's hand when he found an opening. But the shifter had moved back on purpose, once the shield moved to the side, he lunged forward. With heavy swipes, he shredded the mage's flesh. The bar over the mage's head dipped into the yellow. The crowd cheered wildly. Excitement grew for those who cheered on the shifter, while those who backed the mage with their bets groaned in terror at their potential lost coinage.
But when the beast pulled back again, its fur was aflame.
Tongues of fire licked up, and the smell of burning hair filled the small, stone space. The bar over the shifter's head sank at a steady rate. The flames grew brighter as the shifter slammed himself to the floor hard enough that the earth shook beneath our feet. He rolled on the ground trying to suffocate the flames, but magic flame didn't need oxygen to burn.
Its life bar dipped into the yellow and continued to fall. The mage breathed heavily and let his shield drop a bit.
"Bad move," one of the spectators in front of me growled just as the shifter stopped trying to put out his fire and glared at his opponent.
He jumped up and rammed the shield with a thundering crack that sounded like a boulder breaking. With a swipe of his claw over the shield, the shifter landed a blow directly on the mage's face, ripping the skin off his cheek. The power bar above the mage's head dropped to red momentarily before it winked to zero.
Slowly, the flames that had covered the shifter’s fur snuffed out, as all magic did once the user of the magic was removed. The shifter took two deep breaths then raised his snout and howled, filling the air of the stadium. And the cheers began.
A smile tugged at my lips. The wolf had shown the world the meaning of not giving up, even if the bar above his head blinked red.
Through the crowd, a familiar face drew the world around me out of focus.
I blinked, my heart jumped into high gear.
"No way." The whisper slipped through my lips.
That pink hair drawn back with a black ribbon revealed the gentle, familiar slope of her neck. And her stormy blue eyes smiled, leaving me without a doubt. That avatar could only belong to one person. It was my best friend and next-door neighbor, Skye. We used to play Battle Mage together every afternoon... until she was kidnapped.
2
It had been nearly three years since I'd last seen Skye. We were both fourteen, but it was the day before Skye’s fifteenth birthday. That day still dredged up so much guilt for me. I was supposed to walk home from the bus stop with her, like I did every day.
But on that day, I had to stay after class for a make-up quiz that I'd missed while I was sick. And that was the day she never made it home. She wasn't the kind to run away. And someone had said that they had seen her get into a black SUV but didn't have any other info.
I had helped her parents put up posters all over town. I'd cried with her mother. Her father had hugged me and cried like a baby for no reason, just because Skye and I had been so close, and it felt like hugging me brought him closer to her.
The police were all over the case for months. But no ransom note ever came. No phone call. No sign of Skye.
I hadn't seen her avatar once in Battle Mage, until today.
Was someone else playing her character?
Her avatar’s pink hair had vanished among the sea of heads, and I could hardly move. Electricity shot through my body, and I leapt forward in the direction she'd been going.
"Skye?" I called out. I pushed through the press of bodies and called her name again and again, but the crowd around me cheered, paid their bets, placed bets on the next match and drowned every syllable with their constant murmur.
I pushed my way through the crowd, until I caught sight of the last person I needed to see me in this place right now, Elias. I ducked my head and put more of the crowd between us. Elias peered my direction, and I ducked further. The tall man was leader of my clan, and he made me wonder what he was like IRL. In the game, he stood a few inches taller than most, with a big, buff, burly build and a bald head. Someone had nicknamed him "Mr. Clean." But he almost looked more like a pirate. Either way, he was more of a pushover than he looked.
Still, I didn't want to cross him.
Since he arranged the battles I fought in the sub-levels, I didn't need him setting me up with someone who would easily cream me... or make my life miserable in other ways. I didn't need Elias to take me off the roster of battles so that I lost coins and status. I needed to remain active and grow. As clan leader, he got a small percentage of my battle points, and the battle points of everyone in our clan, but he didn't need me to get things done, even if I was his best fighter.
The last thing I needed right now, though, was to be pulled into the battle ring. I knew I had a fight coming up in a few bouts, but if Elias saw me now, he might try to get me in the ring early. But if Skye was really here, or if it was someone playing an avatar that looked just like her... I needed to know. I couldn't possibly focus on a fight under these conditions. If I tried to, I'd end up worse than the mage who had just been cleaned up on by the shifter in the last bout.
I peered around the guy I hid behind and found that Elias had turned the other direction. If he had searched his menu, he knew I was on this level, but luckily the locators didn't give more info than that.
I continued in the direction I'd seen Skye go.
"Hey there, fella, do you need any items? I've got all sorts of rare items for purchase if you'd like to take a look?" A hawker grabbed me by the arm and tried to pull me toward his wares.
I frowned. Why were NPC hawkers so aggressive in the sub-levels?
I smacked his arm away. "I'm not interested."
"But these items are sponsored by..."
That was exactly it. Sponsored items ruled down in this section. I shook my head. "Not interested."
The NPC's gaze grew glassy and then it fixed its eyes on another player in the crowd. Seizing my chance, I rushed forward through an opening between two rows of spectators. The crowd swelled with a cheer again, letting me know that another battle had begun in the ring and all bets had been placed.
After I passed the hawker section, I pushed through the crowd and stumbled into a section that I hadn't been familiar with previously. But then I found the shock of pink hair and the black ribbon just past a few rows of crowd. She bounced just a little ahead of me. I could catch her and take a really close look. It could have been someone who'd just chosen the exact same hairstyle and model for their avatar as Skye. It probably wasn't her.
I didn't want to get my hopes up too high.
But when I pushed past the crowd, and saw her, my heart skipped a beat. The avatar was dressed in the same green and blue plaid that Skye had chosen. But when I focused on where she stood, my heart sank into my stomach. My best friend and next-door neighbor stood before the seat of the most notorious and dangerous clan leader in the game, and his clan symbol sat above her head.
3
Carpathian sat in a chair like a king on his throne. His trench coat draped the seat on both sides. Carpathian's clan was made up mostly of warlocks and magic users like himself. Dark magic relied on sacrifice rather than the elements to gain power. I would rather have played the game solo than get mixed up in his ilk. And I'd have thought that Skye felt the same, but as I drew closer, I saw her smiling at the clan master.
The warlock reached forward and took a cup from her hands. What? Was Skye the guy's slave now? I thought she was more of a feminist than that. I remembered how she would smack me in the side and tell me to get in the kitchen and make her a sandwich. Laughingly, I'd go make one.
Now she was fetching a cup for the clan leader. I shook my head. This didn't jive with anything I knew about Skye. It had to be someone else with a similar avatar.
She moved to the side of the throne. I stepped in front of her, searching her face for some clue. She didn't meet my eyes. But her eyes were the same stormy-seas blue that they'd always been—in the game or out of it. "Skye?" I asked her.
Still her gaze remained fixed on the clan leader, looking past me like any other non-playable character. But she had all the marks of a player; the clan symbol, the energy bar. I touched her, and her player name popped up. StealTheSkye.
It was her.
"Skye!" I yelled, grabbing her by her arms.
"JordyTime," Elias called from the crowd.
I hissed. No. I didn't need him to take me away right now. I needed more time.
This was Skye's avatar. Either someone had hacked into the system and started playing it with her password, or it was Skye. But why wasn't she acknowledging me? She had to know who I was; I'd been playing the same avatar for over five years.
"Have you come to assault my clan member, Jordy, or are you here to join my clan?" Carpathian's voice was smooth and older. He was definitely a man and not a teenager. When I turned my head, I found him standing a few feet away with a hand on his chin. His yellow-green eyes measured me from head to toe.
I swallowed but returned my gaze to Skye. I wanted to squeeze her arms harder, to shake her... heck, maybe even slap her. My cheeks grew warm at the thought. She'd have decked me good if she'd known I'd even thought about it. I let her go and my hands clenched to my sides. "I'm perfectly happy with Elias as my clan master. Who is this player?"
Carpathian released a dry laugh that sounded almost like smoker's cough. "I think you know her already. She used to be a part of your clan before she came to mine... what was it... almost three years ago?"
My stomach flipped.
I turned back toward Carpathian. Electricity sizzled in my hands and my hairs stood on end in response. I took deep breaths, trying to calm the elemental magic. "How? Why? What kind of trick is this? What have you done to her?"
He laughed again. "Done to her? No one can change clans without free will. And you wanted to be a part of my clan, didn't you, dearest Skye?"
"Yes, Clan Master," she answered in monotone, but the sound of her voice chilled me to the core. It was, without a doubt, Skye's voice.
"So, she what? Did she leave her family, her school, everything behind to join your clan? She's a minor. You'd be charged with kidnapping."
"Semantics. She made her own choices."
I ground my teeth. "Break the spell you have over her, and let's see what kind of choices she'd make then."
Another laugh. "Battle Mage is a game, dear Jordan. Do you think I'm a real warlock and practice dark magic in real life?"
My hands fisted again. I felt like I was going insane. It was crazy to th
ink that this guy put a spell on my best friend, wasn't it? How could I even feel that way? No one could control someone outside of the game like that, could they?
Carpathian looked me up and down, scratching his chin. “I’ll tell you what, Jordan. Call me the devil. After all, your friend here sold her soul to me by becoming part of my clan. But if you’d like to take her place, I’ll exchange it. She’s not much use to me here in the ring, but you could be. You can take her place if you’re willing.”
My blood boiled, and I ground my teeth to keep from jumping forward and agreeing to this crazy deal. Isn't this exactly the sort of thing that the devil did? Didn't he take something you love and could die for and dangle the carrot in front of you, so you'd sell your soul. I was sorely tempted, just because I wanted to set Skye free. But then I thought of a better plan. "How about we play for it? You let me fight for her."
He lifted a brow and cracked each of his fingers as he thought about it for a moment. Then he nodded his head and leaned forward and offered a devilish grin. "Winner take all? You win, she's free. You lose, you join my clan."
4
"Fine then," I answered, my heart beating wildly in my chest. "I’ll fight for Skye’s freedom. It's a deal."
"In twenty-four hours, then? I'll need time to reserve the ring and select a volunteer from my clan." Carpathian's lips spread even further as he offered his hand for me to shake.
If I took his hand, we'd seal the deal. It wasn't quite like signing my name in blood at the bottom of a demon contract, but I still hesitated a moment before accepting his grip. A jolt of electricity shot up my arm when I put my hand in his. I blinked a moment in awe. How had he done that? And for some reason, I couldn't let his hand go.