The Heart of a Necromancer

by Eddie Patin

"So what?" Riley replied with a smirk. "What else am I gonna do?"

  "Exactly!" Jason snapped back, reeling as he tried to wrap his mind around the absurdity of it all. He didn't know what to say—ideas were still trying to take shape—and he hoped that his brain wouldn't let him down. Jason could figure this out. "But what can you do?" he asked. "You're just ignoring it. Jason 1241 couldn't handle it. He fucking killed himself!"

  "Well I'm not gonna do that."

  "Why not?! Why do you live on, Riley? If existence is totally meaningless because of the infinity that we deal with—if nothing you do matters—then why don't you just kill yourself like Jason 1241 did?"

  Riley narrowed his eyes. "Are you trying to convince me to kill myself, Jason?"

  "No!" Jason replied with a scoff and a sigh. "But there's something else to this I think. Why do you do this monster hunting stuff? Why do you bother making money?"

  The soldier smirked. "Well, I reckon that as long as I'm still living, I've gotta make a living."

  If everything's meaningless, Jason thought, then why does anything mean anything to us? Why not just lie down and die?

  "It's us," Jason said.

  "What?"

  "We make our own meaning. You don't want to just be a bum or lie down in the street until you kick the bucket, right?" Jason said.

  "Kick the bucket?" Riley replied with a smirk.

  "It's a figure of speech. Listen: If everything is infinite and all of our choices don't mean anything—because everything that can happen is already happening or will happen somewhere on some universe—and nothing matters because of that, then all that matters is what matters to us. We create our own meaning! What do you love about monster hunting?"

  "Eh ... the adventure. The glory. Gold. Seeing weird and cool shet."

  "That's meaning, Riley. And you know what? Morgana—this Morgana—matters to me."

  "But she won't know if you just rift to another world and pick up another one of her."

  "No, she won't," Jason said. "But I'll know. I want to do what's right. I'll remember."

  "But what's right and wrong when we can just go somewhere else if we fruk up?" Riley asked. "Right doesn't mean shet."

  "It does to me," Jason said. "If I abandon Morgana now to some horrible, gruesome fate when she really needs us, I'll carry that with me forever. That means something to me. I want to do the right thing."

  Riley sighed and rolled his eyes. Jason wasn't sure if he'd really gotten through to the soldier at all, but he figured that he, himself, now understood that soup of ideas that had been forming in his head ever since Jason 1241 started getting drunk and nihilistic. In a meaningless omniverse, Jason would make his own meaning. He'd face the pointlessness of existence head-on and go his own way, and he'd try to enjoy himself as he did it.

  "Eh, fine," the soldier said with a groan. "You gonna save this village of brainwashed assholes too?"

  "No," Jason said. "I'm just going to save her. I like her, Riley. I want her to join us ... if she wants to."

  "Fruk," he muttered. "This is stupid, but whatever."

  "Besides," Jason added with a smile. "We've got to find the necromancer's tower now. If we can kill the bastard, we'll have a whole tower full of magical items to explore!"

  Riley reached up and stroked his dark beard, looking into the sky and smirking again.

  "Well, okay," the soldier said, suddenly smiling and clapping Jason on one shoulder. "You're learning, Jason. You can always try to appeal to my greed for magic shet."

  Now, all they had to do was figure out how to protect themselves from lightning, apparently.

  "Let's go," Jason said, popping his rifle back into safe. He slung the weapon and pulled up his OCS, looking up the bookmark for the tree line at the base of Mt. Ellis...

  Chapter 27

  Jason stared through the rift as Riley fired off two more shots from his Marlin lever gun. The .45-70 Government rounds had a tremendous amount of powder inside and boomed like cannon-fire next to him. It was a damned good thing he'd replaced his eardrums.

  "Hurry up, Jason!" Riley exclaimed, cycling his action again with a click-click. "We may as well keep heading up the mountain!" The soldier shoved more rounds into the mag tube. "There goes another one!"

  "It's hard to tell anything with the mist."

  Squinting in the face of the blazing, roaring portal, Jason peered down from a high altitude at the mountains around them via a horizontal destination rift far up in the sky. If Jason was to step through that rift, he'd plummet thousands of feet to his death. But travel wasn't this rift's purpose. He was using a super-high rift to scan the surrounding area from above for any signs of the necromancer's tower. Through the window of the portal, Jason could see their position and the origin rift as a small and bright orange fireball in a clearing. He looked down over himself and the surrounding mountain range searching for some kind of light—fires, torches, anything...

  "I say we just keep going up," Riley said, reloading his bandoleer from a box of ammo in a coat pocket.

  There was something. It might have been an area of bald rocky mountainside with stone spires, but it could be the tower. It was hard to tell. There was no light. With an eagle eye view from above, Jason mostly saw nothing but endless dark wilderness basked in fog, and he couldn't use his night vision to see a few thousand feet through darkness and mist.

  "This should help!" Jason exclaimed, squinting into the dark 'satellite view' of the mountain from up in the sky. "But there's no light. Either the necromancer's tower is on the other side of Mount Ellis, or it's all dark."

  "Let's just head up," Riley said. "If we get to the top of the little peak, I can probably see the place from there if it's on our side of the big peak."

  "Fine," Jason said, releasing the rift. The dazzling orange mass swirling in front of him collapsed into nothing with a pop. The destination side of the portal—a few thousand feet above them—winked out of the night sky.

  There was silence again, interrupted by the sounds of sweeping wind and the trees creaking in its gusts.

  "Come on," the soldier said, leading the way up the slope.

  Jason groaned. He turned his night vision back on. During the day, he could eyeball an area far away, guestimate its coordinates, then adjust until he made a good rift for teleporting over there. But now—with the darkness and the mist—he couldn't see far enough to 'fast travel' and he had to turn his image intensifier off every time he wanted to rift else he'd be too blinded by the light to see. Rifting or night vision, but not both. It was a conundrum.

  Following Riley and Gliath up the shale-covered slope through the pine trees and the thick, grey fog, Jason felt a burning in his thighs and ass that reminded him that he had a lot of work to do to get in shape—at least if he wanted to keep up with these guys. He took a desperate drink from his CamelBak bite valve.

  Morgana, he thought. Save Morgana...

  Imagining the girl's beautiful face and delicious hips made it easier. He had to save her. Was it stupid to think that he might love her a little bit?

  Yeah, he thought. It's only been a few days. It's just stupid infatuation.

  "Still," he muttered to himself. She was awesome. He wanted to take her out of this terrible life. Jason could imagine her at his side, a fourth member of the new Reality Rifters.

  Riley and Gliath both glanced back at Jason when he spoke, likely figuring that he was just talking to himself, then turned forward again. They hiked up the damned mountain without effort. Their long guns were planted in their shoulders, ready to snap up and aim at a moment's notice.

  The leopardwere suddenly raised his shotgun and aimed at the mist. Then Gliath opened fire on a single gargoyle swooping in at them. His Versa Max boomed three times and the gargoyle was knocked off course, swerving and crashing into a pine tree with a splintering smash.

  Casually aiming at the beast with his Marlin, Riley blew its head off before cycling the action and moving on.

  Stumbling up an
d on with heaving breaths, Jason slipped and stomped through the shale until going up a granite rise through a copse of trees. He scanned their surroundings and tried to listen for approaching monsters, but his heartbeat was loud in his ears. Jason tried to synchronize his breathing with his steps like he used to years ago when he hiked a lot before the accident. He gripped his rifle firmly to remind himself of the constant, present danger. These were the necromancer's woods. So far, they'd been attacked by a handful of random gargoyles, but Jason saw others flying in the distance whenever they had moments where the mountain wind cleared the fog overhead. Jason wondered if the gargoyles were having just as hard a time seeing him through the mist. Probably not, he thought. Then again, they'd traveled most of the way to Mt. Ellis's smaller summit, known on Jason's u934 map as 'Little Ellis'.

  His heart was racing. Jason tried to time his steps to its frantic beat, striving to keep his breathing under control. Here they were mountain-climbing again.

  Despite the exertion, Jason was jazzed. He couldn't keep the idea out of his head that they were hiking up through gargoyle-infested woods to rescue a literal damsel in distress from a freaking necromancer's tower! Yeah, so Morgana wasn't exactly a helpless princess, but she would probably die horribly if Jason couldn't save her! He was being a hero, wasn't he? It sure looked like he was being a hero!

  "Can you...?" Jason gasped, smiling, trying to keep up with Riley and Gliath. "Can you ... see the top?"

  Riley looked back and smirked. "Yep," he replied. "With UV, I can see through the fog a little better. There's an area where the trees lighten up ahead."

  Jason gasped for breath. "Well that ... that could be anything..."

  "Something new coming," Gliath rumbled. Jason looked up at the leopardwere—sweating, heart pounding—and followed the beast-man's eyes to see a green glow approaching from up the mountain.

  "Shit!" Jason exclaimed, trying to catch his breath. "What's that?"

  "Spread out," Riley said, suddenly dashing off to the left.

  Jason took two exhausted steps to the right and raised his rifle just in time to see a small, flying object surrounded by a wreath of blazing, green flames appear through the mist. The green fire was the size of a basketball. A moment later, Jason realized that it was a skull.

  "A flying skull..." he said between breaths, putting his front sight on the thing.

  In response, the skull faced him. It hovered ten feet off of the ground around twenty yards away—just about at the edge of Jason's vision through the mist—and he could suddenly see its eyes flaring like tiny points of fire, brilliant in his night vision. His mind immediately flashed back to the days of playing Doom on his computer in the 90's—except this flying skull didn't have demon horns, and it was covered in green fire instead of orange and red.

  The skull opened its bony jaws and released a wind-like howl that sent a cold shiver up Jason's spine. Jason found himself instinctively dodging to one side as three glowing darts burst from the creature's green flames and streaked at him through the misty air! His dodging didn't do a damned bit of good. As Jason fell to the gravelly ground on his right, he watched with rising terror as the three brilliant darts changed course and followed him through the air like guided missiles. When his shoulder crashed into the ground, the three darts hit him—two on his body and one on his left arm—splashing into him with a pain like boiling water on his skin and buzzing numbness at the same time.

  Jason managed to avoid crying out and aimed from the ground as best he could.

  An instant before Jason shot his AK-47, there was a loud boom from where Riley was and the flying skull exploded into a burst of bone shards and quickly-dissipating green sparks.

  Jason heard a click-click from somewhere in the mist on his left.

  They all paused for a moment as Jason felt the stinging pain flare like a second-degree burn. Despite the burning, he twisted into a prone form on his belly and kept his front sight forward. Was that what being hit by the DnD spell Magic Missile felt like?

  After a few seconds of nothing else happening, all three Reality Rifters started moving again. Jason stood, grunting and groaning from the pain. Riley and Gliath appeared from the mist.

  "Are you okay?" Riley asked.

  "I dunno," Jason replied, looking at his arm where he'd been hit. He was wearing his minotaur-hide jacket and his Merc armor under that, but there were no scorch marks. Still, he felt like he'd been burned. "It burned me. Through my armor."

  "Wanna keep going?" Riley asked.

  Jason scoffed. Of course they had to keep going. "Come on," he said, leading the way.

  The three Reality Rifters didn't make it more than ten yards or so before the mist showed another colorful glow approaching. This time it was orange—bright orange like a rift, but small—clearly another fireball just like the green one.

  "Here comes more," Riley said, quickly switching long guns and shouldering his Gauss rifle. "Take cover, Jason."

  Just as he said it, Jason saw a third glow—a purple one.

  "Shit!"

  Scrambling toward thicker woods, Jason's legs suddenly didn't hurt as bad anymore. His heartbeat pounded rapidly in his ears and neck and he braced himself and his gun up against a pine tree, aiming up.

  The orange skull appeared first. It was a freaking flying, flaming skull—not something that Jason would have ever imagined himself seeing outside of a video game. It didn't have horns like the flying skulls in Doom, but its empty eye sockets burned with malice and with its jaw was set into a permanent grimace. It floated into the clearing, scanning for victims. Another skull appeared right behind it, shrouded in a burning purple nimbus just as fiery as the others.

  Riley fired first, quick as a snake. His Gauss rifle launched three hypersonic tungsten bolts with a trio of loud cracks so close together they almost sounded as one. It appeared that the soldier had fired at the orange one, because—instead of exploding—the three projectiles seemed to impact an invisible field around it that rippled with a pale blue light.

  The orange skull turned to the soldier and opened its mouth with a breathy shriek, spitting out a trio of small fireballs that streaked through the air followed by oily smoke.

  By the light of the oncoming fire attack, Jason saw Riley shield his face behind one arm and the cowl of his hellhound duster jacket, and all three bolts of flame burst onto the soldier's coat, scattering bits of sparks and splattering, lingering cinders around his feet.

  The purple skull suddenly went out of focus; its fiery and bony form stretching through the mist from left to right. Jason immediately squinted against the effect—it felt like he was looking at it underwater even though the rest of the dark mountainside was clear through his image intensifier.

  "What the fuck?"

  He aimed at the purple skull just as Riley fired at the orange one again. This time, the soldier's three rounds penetrated whatever sort of 'shields' the creature had, and he burst its cranium above its furious, blazing eye sockets. The orange fire evaporated into the night and the lower half of the flying skull fell to the scrabbly ground.

  Then there was a loud swoosh and a crash as a heavy, dark shape pounded the ground below the blurry, purple skull.

  "Gliath!" Riley shouted, launching into a sideways run as the purple skull seemed to target him with its barely-visible, glowing eyes, "Kill the gargoyle!"

  The leopardwere's shotgun immediately started booming. Jason also aimed at the stone newcomer surrounded by dust, determined to help. He squeezed his trigger carefully three times, aiming at the monster's center of mass. With his AK's muzzle flash washing out his night vision, Jason hoped that he was doing some damage. Through the mist and dust and from within the trees, it was hard to tell.

  When the gargoyle turned and started galloping toward Gliath—pulling its wings into its back as it prepared to pounce—Jason saw a blue-white flash behind the beast. The purple skull had shot at Riley with something: either a flash of lightning or a beam of some kind.

/>   Jason stepped out from the trees, following the gargoyle with his front sight, then shot it three more times. The monster stumbled and crashed into the slope. Seeing the black form of Gliath rush up to the gargoyle's writhing form, Jason held his fire. Gliath shot it in the head with his shotgun twice, then aimed up at the purple skull.

  Likewise aiming up with his AK, Jason had a ridiculous time following the blurry, half-invisible form of the purple flaming skull with his front sight.

  "It's all blurry!" he shouted.

  "No shet!" Riley exclaimed, then fired another burst. The three quick cracks of his Gauss rifle rounds split the night sky and one of them seemed to nick the skull, throwing it violently to one side. A burst of purple flame flew in the same direction and Jason saw a piece of bone appear, flying away into the mist.

  The purple skull righted itself, shimmering and violently blurring to all sides, then it stared at Riley while letting out a chilling howl.

  Riley calmly aimed and shot it, blowing it into pieces with a three-round burst and letting the purple fire fade into the darkness.

  "We must be getting close!" Jason said. "Let's keep going!" His heart was pounding, but he felt wired! Flaming skulls—amazing! Were those some sort of mage skulls or something? "Hey, was that magic?" Jason asked. "Real magic?"

  "Yeah," Riley replied, removing his magazine, looking at it, then putting it back in. "Real fruking magic."

  "I should have scanned those things!"

  "Come on!"

  "Are you hurt?" Jason asked, scrambling up the hill to catch up to Riley. Gliath was pushing more shotgun shells into his Remington. "Those fireballs—the jacket stopped em, I take it?"

  "Yeah."

  "What about the bright white thing? Was that lightning?"

  "I reckon so," Riley said. "Didn't hurt me. This Merc armor—mine and yours—is made with a graphene weave and aramid fiber among other shet. It's somewhat resistant to electrical hazards."

  Jason scoffed. "Well that's good. The necromancer was apparently shooting lightning bolts!"

  "It's a little resistant," Riley amended, switching back to his lever action.