by Azalea Ellis
Torliam paced back and forth and he clenched and unclenched his fists. “This room is meant to hold prisoners of significant strength. It has been modified with a barrier powered from the ritual circle in the room outside. Nothing will leave this room.”
Zed poked the wall again. “Not even air?”
“I doubt they mean to kill us. The air will refresh itself through the orb on the ceiling.” Torliam gestured, barely sparing a glance toward it. He caught my eye for a second, and seemed to notice something in my expression. He stopped pacing.
Zed narrowed his eyes, lowered his hands to hang at his sides, and poked a finger into the air surreptitiously. His finger disappeared. I felt the pinprick spot of cold seeping through the tiny rip he’d created in reality.
Outside the room, the woman in the middle of the circular diagram gasped, then hunched over. “It’s sucking too much power!”
I kept my face expressionless and pushed Wraith through the opening Zed had created, into an almost perfect replica of the room we stood in. Except, in the Other Place, there were no bed mats on the floor, and the doorway was empty of the stone door keeping us enclosed. The buzzing barrier still existed, though.
Another guard moved to the gasping woman’s side in concern. Ichi stared at her for a few moments, then strode toward our cell.
—They’re about to open the door. Act natural.—
-Eve-
As soon as the door opened, the barrier broke, in both the real world and the Other Place, and the woman straightened with a sigh of relief.
“What are you doing?” Ichi snapped, his eyes tracking over us.
Zed poked the wall again lazily, then looked up at Ichi. “Oh, hey. Since you’re here, could you get us some food? I’m thinking maybe some cheesy bread?”
“I want meat,” Jacky said slowly, enunciating the Estreyan words carefully.
Ichi glared at the two of them, looked around again, and slammed the door shut with a shuddering boom.
Zed turned to Jacky. “He didn’t acknowledge our food order. Do you think he’ll manage to get it right?”
Gregor huffed. “Maybe they’re trying to force us to resort to cannibalism.”
We passed a couple hours with talk, trying to seem as natural as possible, which meant being angry and worried while also not acting as if we planned any betrayal.
“Do you think Mom is safe?” Zed asked, propped against the lightly buzzing wall with me on my bed mat.
Sam and Chanelle both turned toward us at his words, no doubt wondering the same thing about their own parents.
My claws fumbled, dropping the puzzle band into my lap. I retracted them and clenched my left fist together to hide the extra finger from myself. “I hope so,” I said. “Even if we did try to hide our families, once NIX had us back in the system, they shouldn’t have had as much trouble as they did finding them.” I sent them a Window for the remainder of my response.
—We’ll search for them when we get back to Earth. Ironically, it’s probably best for us if NIX managed to find them after we left. Unless they’re holding them hostage.—
-Eve-
—So we’re definitely going back to Earth?—
-Zed-
—We have to.—
-Eve-
Aloud, I said, “We’ll have to talk to Queen Mardinest about it. Maybe she’ll help us find them.” I resisted the urge to put obvious sarcasm into the words, despite the ball of anger that rose up in me.
I thought back to the last time we’d gone to NIX, an Estreyan group of warriors coming along as incentive for Commander Bragg to agree to our demands. My heart thumped with sudden, sickening realization. I turned my head to stare at Zed. We’d gotten meningolycanosis and their research on it, but I’d never thought to ask for more of the nanite booster my brother needed.
“How much of the nanite paste do you have left?”
Zed didn’t answer at first, fingering the spot at his waist where he kept the vial-like containers. “A couple weeks. Maybe three, if I stretch it out and don’t mind feeling a little sick.”
I was silent. This was my fault.
He pressed his lips together. “I thought, once we were finished with the God of Knowledge, I’d have time to bring it up. Blaine could probably make more, with access to a lab. I never imagined something like this would happen.”
“Blaine can make more.” The words were just as much to reassure myself as for Zed. “We’ll make sure he gets the chance to do so.”
I meditated to pass the time till we could talk more openly, examining my body and the castle around us. Jacky played with Kris and Gregor, Blaine fiddled with a piece of his armor that kept shooting sparks despite his intense glares at it, and Adam worked on the ever more intricate, fractal tattoo growing from his wrists up to his shoulders.
Fretfully, I browsed through my VR chip’s Windows.
PLAYER NAME: EVE REDDING
TITLE: BEARER OF TESTIMONY
CHARACTERISTIC SKILL: SPIRIT OF THE HUNTRESS, TUMBLING FEATHER
LEVEL: 38
SKILLS: COMMAND, WRAITH, CHAOS, VOICE
STRENGTH: 23
LIFE: 76
AGILITY: 32
GRACE: 28
INTELLIGENCE: 32
FOCUS: 24
BEAUTY: 16
CHARISMA: 33
MANUAL DEXTERITY: 10
MENTAL ACUITY: 29
RESILIENCE: 70
STAMINA: 26
PERCEPTION: 33
My official level hadn’t changed since we broke from NIX, since it was determined by them and only noted the number of Seeds they’d awarded, not my actual Attribute levels, which could be increased through training.
CHARACTERISTIC SKILLS
TUMBLING FEATHER (KINETIC CLASS): INCREASES GRACE AND AGILITY. IMPROVES SENSE OF BALANCE AND MOTION. SKILL EFFECTS WILL EXPAND AND STRENGTHEN WITH PLAYER GROWTH.
SPIRIT OF THE HUNTRESS (SPIRIT CLASS): INCREASES GRACE, AGILITY, PERCEPTION, FOCUS, BEAUTY, AND STAMINA. NAILS EXTEND AND SHARPEN ON COMMAND, ALONG WITH PHYSICAL RESTRUCTURING OF HANDS AND FEET. FEET PERMANENTLY AUGMENTED FOR INCREASED PERFORMANCE. INCREASES CHANCE TO LAND ON FEET AFTER A FALL. AGGRESSIVE TENDENCIES INCREASE. SKILL EFFECTS WILL EXPAND AND STRENGTHEN WITH PLAYER GROWTH.
SKILLS
COMMAND (MUNDANE CLASS): ALLOWS LEADER ACCESS TO THE TEAM MANAGEMENT WINDOW. LEADER CAN COMMUNICATE WITH TEAM MEMBERS THROUGH GAME WINDOWS AND ACCESS BASIC GAME INFORMATION OF TEAM MEMBERS.
WRAITH (PROJECTION CLASS): INCREASES PERCEPTION. SENSES EXTEND BEYOND THE BODY, GIVING A COMPREHENSIVE UNDERSTANDING OF SURROUNDINGS, AND MARKING AREAS OR BEING OF POWER ACCORDING TO DEGREE. SKILL EFFECTS WILL EXPAND AND STRENGTHEN WITH PLAYER IMPROVEMENT.
CHAOS (GODLING CLASS): LATENT ASCENSION POTENTIAL. GIVES ACCESS TO THE PRIMORDIAL POWER OF THE GODDESS OF CHAOS.
VOICE (SOVEREIGN CLASS): INCREASES CHARISMA. ACTS AS A BEACON FOR BEINGS OF POWER. ALLOWS PRESENCE AND WILL TO BE IMPOSED ON SURROUNDINGS. SKILL EFFECTS WILL EXPAND AND STRENGTHEN WITH PLAYER IMPROVEMENT.
When the ceiling had been dark for several hours to match the world outside, and the screen displaying us to our guards showed nothing but darkness, I knew it was time.
Silently, we gathered in the center of the room.
Adam spilled ink on the ground, and with a silently mouthed “Animus,” it rose up around us in a protective sphere of darkness.
“We need an anti-eavesdropping buzz, if you’d be so kind,” I whispered, my words barely more than a breath on the air.
Torliam heard me without difficulty, and blue mist wafted out from him ever so faintly, setting the air around us to vibrating with pseudo white-noise.
“I’ve imbued the barrier with as much intention to block sight as I can,” Adam said. “It might help, even if one of them can otherwise see through walls.”
Blaine turned on one of the lights on his mecha suit so we could all see each other.
I raised my eyebrows, testing the ink barrier’s resistance. “Goo
d job.”
One side of Adam’s mouth quirked up into a smirk, and he gave Torliam a pointed look.
Torliam crossed his arms across his broad chest and turned away.
“So what the hell?” Jacky burst out, clenching her fists.
Blaine pushed his glasses up. “I have to agree. This is a completely unacceptable outcome, Eve. I will not give up on the search to find the cure.”
“Not only that,” Adam said, with a glance at Torliam. “But your mom’s going to kill us, the first chance she has.”
“We’ve gotta kill her first, then, no?” Jacky said.
Torliam snorted. “Did you not see the guards? Or realize that my mother is no simple pleasant face for the royal crown to frame? She is a warrior-queen, with both sword and tongue.” He looked around at the others, then uncrossed his arms, looking down at the palms of his hands. “I…did not know she would do this. If I had known…” he shook his head. “How else were we to get the forces necessary to attack the God of Knowledge? We needed her alliance. Nevertheless, Adam is right. She may be my mother, but…I cannot help but wonder how soon a horrible ‘accident’ will befall us.”
“You are merely stating the obvious,” Blaine said. “I am more interested in solutions than recriminations at this point, though recriminations are surely warranted.” He gave me a pointed look.
I met his gaze until he looked away. “We’re obviously not going to keep working with, or for, her. But we don’t have much time, and it’s not going to be easy.” I ignored Jacky’s small whoop of excitement and continued. “Tell me about this Skill for sniffing out secrets, Torliam. Did you know about it?” If he had, it was gross negligence that he’d never mentioned anything.
“I grew up knowing my mother was incredibly insightful. It was as if she could sniff guilt, but that does not mean I never escaped blame for something. I was also at times blamed for something I did not do. I have been thinking on this issue, and I believe there is a solution of sorts. She may know when a secret is being held, perhaps even be able to tell when it weighs most heavily on your heart, but I believe she may only make thoughtful deductions as to the nature of this secret. Perhaps, we could hide one secret within another?”
“A lesser rebellion to mask the greater,” I said aloud, nodding as ideas spun to life in my head. Torliam’s assessment of his mother matched the little bit she’d revealed to me about how her Skill worked. “Hide the unexpected within the anticipated.” I caught Adam’s look of irritation and everyone else’s confusion, and clarified, “I’m pretty sure she’s expecting, even hoping, for us to act out, so she can smack us back down even harder and make sure the lesson has really set in. At the least, I’m sure she doesn’t believe this situation is sustainable.”
Torliam’s eyes widened. “She did not so much as ask us to state our agreement to her terms. As sobering as this Ichi’s Skill may be, that seems…reckless. An Estreyan’s word is their bond. Perhaps she does not trust a human to hold any honor, but as it is, it seems she does indeed not expect our current arrangement to last for any length of time.”
The words put a cold weight in my stomach. If we didn’t act now, while the situation was hopefully still malleable, it might be too late. I needed to put myself in a position of strength. But how? If I denounced the queen, she would retaliate both physically and politically. With nothing to lose, there was nothing to stop her from siccing Ichi on us. Plus, denouncing her put both of us in political hot water. Once that hand was played, she would still be queen and have the power to hurt us, but our own influence—which came in part from her—would be greatly diminished.
I could try to ally with one of her enemies as a shield against retaliation, but I would need to find someone powerful enough to match her, and then try to keep the plan secret long enough to meet with them and ensure they could counter her plans. Even then, I would potentially be stepping into a situation just as treacherous as the one I’d be leaving.
We could try and kill her, but surely she’d be prepared for that. I glanced at Torliam. Would he agree to murder his mother? Even if she had betrayed us, matricide, combined with regicide, still had to be a big deal. Probably better not to bring it up, unless I could find no other workable option.
If I could just buy some time… My eyes widened. “She can’t just kill us right away because she’s already tied her name to ours so thoroughly. The public eye is on us. We can’t fight back overtly without fear of reprisal, but she can’t just remove that link, either. I just need to make sure she can’t sever it easily. So what’s her plan for our next move? What did Ichi tell you guys?”
Blaine was the first to speak. “We are to visit a monkish temple, to learn from them their method of avoiding the Sickness.”
Torliam’s jaw clenched. “The monks do not speak, and devote their entire lives to enlightenment. Out of one hundred that would usually fall to the Sickness, only ninety of their number succumb. The method, if there is any beyond mere coincidence, is unknown, and has remained that way since the temple was founded. We are not meant to learn from them. It is merely a way to remove us from the public eye for a time.”
Blaine pushed his glasses up. “It may be prudent to mention that Queen Mardinest is not entirely wrong about the danger NIX poses. However, this may in fact be a boon to us. I took some time to examine the medical reports that we took from NIX along with the meningolycanosis samples which we used against the god. There is a strong correlation between those infected with meningolycanosis and those who show physical signs of the Sickness, and at the later stages, cannibalism.”
“You’re saying the meningolycanosis is a consistent infection vector for the Sickness?” I said. “If a ‘wolf’ with the disease bites someone, they’re likely to spread it to their victim.”
“Oh, gods help us,” Torliam said when Blaine nodded. “How is this a boon?”
“As far as I know, this is the first time the vector for the spread of the Sickness is trackable. Perhaps, if we are able to research what makes the meningolycanosis such a convenient carrier, we can better understand the Sickness itself, and take a major step towards curing it.”
“That is, ironically, good news,” I decided. “But we still have to get out of here to do anything about it.” I resisted the urge to pace back and forth within the crowded sphere of darkness. “She wants to take us out of the public eye and find a way to dissociate herself from us. So we need to mix her image up with our own like ink in water, and publicize the hell out of it.”
Zed nodded “So we need a reporter or three. Shouldn’t be hard for the godkiller.”
Adam’s ink construct wavered and then disintegrated under him, and, if not for his quick reflexes in creating another, he would have dropped to the floor. “But that still only buys us time.”
I smiled toothily, uncaring that perhaps I didn’t seem as regal as the queen. “Time enough to subtly discredit her, or cast doubt on her good intentions toward us. Time enough to find some other way out from under her thumb. Time enough to maybe figure out how the Seal of Nine is actually meant to come into play, or where we might find the Champion on Earth. Time enough to figure out how to get to Earth without her stopping us or getting killed in the meantime.”
Zed gestured to Torliam. “You can find anything with your Tracker Skill, right? Could you find a missing god?”
“Given enough time, I believe my Skill will lead me to anything, as long as I understand what it is that I am looking for. Which…may be a source of difficulty. I do not know in what detail and to what depth I need to understand the thing I am searching for. I have not had the Skill long enough to experiment with it.”
“Great!” Adam scoffed, throwing his hands up.
“Don’t gotta get so worked up,” Jacky said. “We’re in a tight spot right now, but one way or another, we always manage to bust through, no?” She looked to me.
Adam followed her gaze. “No offense, Eve but we barely manage to scrape through even when we do have a
plan. And sometimes, we lose more than we win.”
I felt the significance of his words clearly. We’d been struggling against seemingly insurmountable odds from the beginning. We’d won when it should have been impossible, but along the way China had died, Zed had become a Player, the kids and Chanelle were infected with the Sickness, a powerful alien species had declared war on Earth, and we were now being blackmailed into submission. Not exactly a great track record. “I understand,” I said, trying to think, to come up with a solution that wouldn’t backfire on us. “The Oracle’s third gift might help us figure out what we need to do. But I’m not sure how quickly I’ll be able to solve it. In the meantime, we need to work on keeping the team safe—”
Torliam’s eyes widened dramatically, and he straightened, drawing our attention. “There is a way to gain information about the prophecy of the Spark, and the Seal of Nine.”
“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Adam snapped.
Torliam grimaced. “This method usually…always ends in death, and it is extremely forbidden. I did not previously consider it a viable option. But I believe we would be fine. Probably.”
I flinched as a Window flashed into being in front of my face, opaque enough to block out my view of my teammates.
THE SPIRE OF PROPHECY
TRAVEL WITH THE OTHERS BOUND BY THE SEAL OF NINE TO THE SPIRE OF PROPHECY AND ENTER PAST THE GUARDIANS.
COMPLETION REWARD: KNOWLEDGE
NON-COMPLETION PENALTY: IGNORANCE
“Err, does this method happen to involve traveling to the Spire of Prophecy?” I said.
Chapter 3