Kingdom Come

by James Osiris Baldwin

  “Fuck off!” Lucien struggled out of the last of his bondage. Even though he was terrified, he was dodging each strike without any real effort, and as soon as he remembered that he was still seventeen levels above me…

  I activated Mantle of Night with a low bass pulse of power, spun the spear around in a blur of fire and built into a sprint. He bought his swords up to block. I Jumped and landed behind him, and as he spun, slammed the crackling haft of the spear into his back like a golf club. Shattering Darkness froze his armor solid, crazing the metal and knocking his damage reduction down enough that I had a chance of actually hitting him. I only got in the one hit: he dodged the next swipes of my weapon, dancing awkwardly along Vesper's bucking back and nearly going to one knee as he veered and gravity pushed down on us. My well-trained footing was secure, but for all his Dex, Lucien hadn't been training the skills required to make best use of it.

  "Why are you always so fucking SMUG!" he spat. “You can’t lay a scratch on me, and you know it.”

  I fixed him with a steely glare down the length of my polearm. "I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Qaeda, AND I have over three hundred confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I was the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target."

  He bared his teeth, not getting the joke. "You think you're some kind of tough guy?"

  "I will beat you the heck up with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this playground, mark my words. You think you can get away with saying that baloney to me on top of this wingy-dang-dang? Think again, doodie-head. This one’s for Suri." I switched to a more age-appropriate version of my favorite vintage meme before I shot forward, boosting myself with Mantle of Night again. For ten seconds, I was almost fast as Lucien.

  He sneered, and his body ghosted out and blinked away. He shot behind me, but I was ready - with Umbra Burst. The attack barely scratched Lucien's health, but it pushed him back and gave me room to Jump as he lunged forward in a whirling, slashing attack that dripped with violet poison. I soared up in a backflip, watching the dragon's back slide from underneath me, and landed right at the base of his tail. The huge, heavy saddle was strapped down there. I tore the Spear through the leather. The broken ties began to flap in the wind.

  "You're pathetic, Hector!" Lucien snarled. "My armor has magic that stabilizes me on Vesper's back. What do you have?"

  "Practice." I sprung up again, and as Lucien lunged to meet my Jump attack, hit Master of Blades, then Rain of Glass. He screamed as the bolts struck him, as did his dragon: the attack was powerful enough to do fractional damage. I dashed on the landing and struck the cinch strap. It passed through a hole in the dragon's wing and wrapped around his belly. The band snapped, and I dashed a second time as Lucien snarled and threw his swords at me. They spun like glowing boomerangs and slashed through my immaterial form, ripping out the other side and sending me staggering forward with pain. Shadow Dance reduced damage by 90% now, but still:

  [You have taken 439 reduced damage!]

  "Die!" Lucien darted forward again, blades glowing with feral violet energy. This time, I wasn't fast enough to dodge: I blocked him with the Spear, relying on my reflexes, my training, the flash of firelight on his blades, the advantage of distance the polearm gave me. It was desperate, breathless fighting, violet light clashing with scarlet and black. Then Vesper tilted sharply to the left, and the loosened saddle slid beneath our feet. Lucien yelped with fright, the second I needed to dash in and scoot underneath him. I caught onto the saddle grips, looked up to see the rogue flying over me, eyes wide, teeth bared in an insane leer, and let go to skid and tumble toward Vesper's neck. Just in time. Lucien's blades bit deep into the thick leather, shredding it. I cut the chest strap on the way past.

  "Come on, Hector! Stop running and fight me! I'm only Level 35, right?" He leered at me as he stumbled and slipped across the unstable saddle.

  “This whole Baldr cosplay thing is weirding me out, man.” I dug the cleats of my boot down into the dragon’s back as I took a defensive stance, waiting him out. “I admit you’ve got the creepy smile down, though. And the haircut.”

  "I know what you're trying to do, Hector. You really think cutting the saddle loose will stop me?" He taunted, edging forward to keep his balance. "I already healed up from your most powerful attack. And that WAS your most powerful attack, wasn't it?"

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” I raised the spear and slashed the second-to-last strap, the one around the base of Vesper's neck. As Lucien rushed toward me, I put a boot under the edge of the saddle and kicked it up.

  It was heavy, but at the speed we were traveling, I only needed half a foot of gap for the whole thing to catch like a hang-glider canopy and lift. Lucien swore as it peeled up under his feet, and I lost sight of him as the huge flat expanse of leather and metal flapped up and to one side, caught by the one strap I hadn’t cut: the one under Vesper’s already injured arm. Suddenly, the dragon found himself having to fly with massive drag on that side, and his rhythm faltered.

  But Lucien was gone.

  He’s a Rogue class. My breath caught. Not gone as in dead. Gone as in-

  The knives took me in both shoulders, puncturing the heavy leather and metal of my armor and sliding in behind my collarbones. I Shadow Danced away just in time, and when I reappeared, I went to hands and knees, coughing blood.

  [You take 1003 reduced backstab damage!]

  [You are Bleeding!]

  [You have Tetanus! You are Paralyzed!]

  "It's useless, Hector. I always poison my weapons." Lucien drawled as he carefully half-walked, half-crawled over to me. He was hanging on with a death grip, and only his level and raw Dexterity was keeping him on the dragon's back. He stood over me, confident in the duration of the debuffs, and pushed me over with one foot. "Rictus Venom. Causes Paralysis that can only be removed with a Cure Disease potion. Most people try and cure it with an Antidote."

  My jaws were clenched, my muscles rigid and immobile. I began to slide helplessly across the dragon's back, halted when Lucien caught me by the foot, dragged me back, and sat on me. "Remember what I said in Cham Garai? You can't Brer Rabbit your way out of this one. Something like that. Well, you did, but I was weak, then. I'm stronger now."

  I burbled some foam from the corners of my mouth.

  He raised the sword over my head, just like he had the last time. But now, there was no weak grip, no hesitation in his dog-red eyes. Just cruelty.

  "I fucking love PvP," he laughed, and bought the blade down.

  Chapter 48

  [Purify has cured your disease!]

  [You activated Mortal Grudge!]

  Lucien struck for my heart. The blade connected just as my body turned to pure shadow, blowing apart like smoke around his weapon - the Heartstrike that he drove into his own dragon's spine.

  [Speed increased by 25% for 60 seconds. 2.5x Adrenaline Point regen for 60 seconds]

  [You have been struck with a Death Sentence! Countdown: 60 seconds.]

  Vesper shrieked, his back bowing, wings seizing as his Bonded dealt him a critical hit with a poisoned weapon. The dragon was twenty levels higher and had five figure HP, so he didn't die - but he bucked furiously, shaking and rolling in his agony.

  "What the FUUUCCCCK!!?" Lucien was flung off into the air by the force of it as I rose, a pillar of shadow and fierce, feral energy that wound through my flesh like thorns: thorns that pumped a cocktail of endorphins and adrenaline straight into my lizard brain. I felt strangely dissociated as I shot forward into the air after Lucien, the Spear raised like a javelin. The first bolt of Aether slammed into him, knocking him flying end over end, and then four others split from me and lanced at him from multiple directions, shredding armor and organs and spraying blood like ink into the air. My mind seemed to work at twice its normal speed: I Jumped, then hit Master of Blades, Rain of Glass, and th
en dashed forward. More shards of energy smashed into the stunned assassin, picking at his HP and knocking his weapons from his hands.

  Below us, Vesper struggled, striving to recover his altitude. We'd flown high, very high, at least five thousand feet off the ground. Disarmed, experiencing uncontrolled freefall for the first time, Lucien screamed, red-faced, as the wind ripped at his everything.

  "What’s the matter, man?" I briefly struck a pose in the air beside him. “Never felt the wind in your hair before?”

  "Vesper!" He shrieked as I moved around him in three dimensions: dashing, jumping, rending him a death by a thousand cuts as my timer ticked down to 42 seconds. Lucien was down to 2/3rds HP by the time his dragon's shadow passed over us. I used most of my remaining AP to angle my weapon down and, as Vesper snatched Lucien in one hand, hit Umbra Blast. It boosted me up, and I caught onto Vesper's longer, thicker hindleg with Spider Climb.

  "Kill him! KILL HIM, you stupid piece of shit!" Lucien banged his dragon's palm as I crawled up the huge limb as fast as I could, watching my enhanced regen battle with the expense of the ability. "What are you doing, Vesper!?"

  "Suffering every minute of every day because he has to live with you." I stabbed Vesper in the soft join between his thigh and his groin, regenerating just enough AP to keep hanging on as he bucked and groaned. I levered myself up with the Spear and kept climbing... all the way up to his back, where I broke into a desperate sprint. Lucien's curses drifted up from the dragon's hand as I ran, soaking every sharp turn, every jerk and roll. The dragon was about a hundred and twenty feet long. With enhanced speed, it took thirteen seconds to reach his head, then five more to hold onto his eye ridge, brace my foot on one twisted horn, and plunge the Spear of Nine Spheres into Vesper's eye.

  The dragon threw his head to the side with a squealing roar, and Lucien's curses turned to shrieks. "You stupid fucking dragon! Stop! STOP SQUEEZING!"

  "Don't worry! I'm not a high enough level to kill him, but damn if this doesn't feel GREAT!" I snarled as I rammed the Spear in again, deeper, and burned my last AP on one final Umbra Burst. There was a garbling scream from below - and then a satisfying wet squelching sound as Vesper's feet and hands clenched and he squashed Lucien like a grape, plunging into a desperate barrel roll.

  [You have defeated player Lucien Hart!]

  [You gain 2000 EXP!]

  [The Demon's Legions are in retreat! You have won your first Mass Combat Campaign!]

  [You gain 3500 EXP!]

  [Congratulations! You are Level 20!]

  [Congratulations! You are Level 21!]

  [You earned a new Badge: Like a Grape]

  [Quest Updated: Unto Death]

  "Yippee kay yay, motherfucker!" I had to hold on with just my strength now, my arms and legs wrapped around one of the dragon's horns as he careened over the remains of the wall. He couldn't shake me off, and was either too stupid to remember he had magic or didn't have any left to use... and so I waited out the last five seconds of my timer, bracing to die. But just as the timer reached 2, Vesper snarled the words of a teleportation spell. I let go just in time as he vanished, flinging my arms and legs out like a skydiver over the floodwaters below.

  [Your Death Sentence has been removed!]

  "No! Dammit." I scowled into the tearing wind. My fall was subjectively dilated by three seconds, giving me way too much time to notice how many corpses were swirling through the water. "This is annoying. I just wanted to die like 'bleh!' not fucking crash-land into the river of bullshit!"

  "Allow me to assist you."

  The voice that lanced through my head was sharp, painful and... wrong. I winced, then froze as a cold shadow fell over me. Literally froze. My eyes widened as I realized that not only was I no longer falling, but I couldn't move.

  Tempest glided out to my right, then dipped down beside me, hovering like a kestrel. Violetta was crouched near the tip of his wing, her spellglove subsumed in a pure black radiance. It made her hand look like a glove-shaped hole cut out of reality - just like her eyes. They were fathomless. It was not the cool, pressing darkness of nature, but a true void that slid away to be replaced by her milky blue irises as she struck a tall, straight-spined pose.

  "What the hell happened to you, Violetta?" I couldn't move my lips to speak, so I tried just thinking to her. Not via PM - I had her blocked, like everyone else I'd met at the Eyrie other than Kira and Owen, the peasant healers. "What did Baldr DO to you?"

  The sorceress did not reply. She twitched her fingers, and then walked back up her dragon's wing as securely as a cat on a fence. I floated after her, tethered by a faint flickering leash of magic. Her dragon was abnormally still. Frozen in time, like a snapshot... one which Violetta could manipulate and move through at will.

  An awful hunch crawled up my spine. "Look, I have nothing against you, Vi. We never did anything to each other before this. The War's over. We won. You don't gain anything by taking me to the Eyrie."

  "We’re not going to the Eyrie." The slim sorceress turned to me once we were back on her dragon's saddle. With a gesture, she spun me around until I was facing her. Still floating.

  I swallowed. "Then... uhh... where are we going?"

  Violetta never smiled. She had no expression at all as she conjured a swelling ball of water from the air, and let it drift toward me. It was about the size of a basketball - just big enough to cover someone's head.

  "Karhad. You, me and Ashur are going to kill a god," she grated, just before the water enveloped my face. "Your god."

  Chapter 49

  I dreamed of drowning. Of a crushing weight on my chest, pushing me down under filthy water. I flailed, trying to surface, but every time I found purchase, something grabbed me and pulled me deeper. Bodies bobbed past me in the grimy depths. Some of them were zombies, restless dead reaching for me with grasping hands. Some of them were UNAC soldiers in uniform, bleeding out from gutshot or missing their faces or limbs. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't swim. In desperation, I began to kick at something trapping my legs, and when I looked down, I saw Suri's eyes glowing angrily through the silty water. She was pale and putrid, her rich brown skin tinged with green.

  Her lips moved, slowly sounding out two words. 'Find me'.

  I woke with a rattling gasp, coughing water. My lungs were burning, chest thick with fluid. It was dark, and I was lying on a stretcher. Faint moans carried on a damp, fetid wind, and for one horrified moment, I thought I was back at Fort Richard in San Francisco, dying of HEX in a quarantine tent. It was enough to drive me up off the bed and onto my feet.

  Bare feet. No shoes. No gear, no weapons. I wore a pair of ragged trousers, and heavy steel wrist and ankle cuffs engraved with runes. I couldn't see the runes, but I could feel them when I ran my thumb over the one on my left wrist.

  "Fuck." I hissed under my breath. Even speaking one word bought on a rumbling, phlegmy cough. Lightheaded, I sat back down on the bed, and stared off into the dark.

  I was gonna be okay. This wasn't my first rodeo as a prisoner. It seemed every big quest I undertook in Archemi led to me seeing the inside of a cell at some point. If I kept my cool, I'd find a way out. There was always a way.

  The first thing I did was remember how to breathe. I coughed until I retched. I had vague memories of Violetta choking me out with a floating ball of water. Fucked up, but effective. Once bodily functions were back online and my brainstem stopped screaming at me, I pushed the flimsy cot up against the wall and went into my HUD. I had a look over Karalti's character sheet, relieved to see that she had about three-quarters of her HP and a normal status.

  "Karalti? Can you hear me?" I thought out to her.

  [You are incarcerated. Private messages are currently disabled.]

  Shit. Clearing my throat, I went to check my Friend's List. Rin was online, but I couldn't contact her. Suri's name had vanished from the list, as had our PM history. My pulse quickened anxiously. She had to have respawned in Al'Asad. Like me, she would have the Incarcerated statu
s, meaning she was uncontactable.

  I checked the Mass Combat menu next to review who we'd lost. Admiral Gehlan and his brother were both dead. Vash Dorha was not. Bittersweet relief flooded me, tamping down the anxiety over Suri. For one thing, I liked Vash, and I wanted to get to know the guy better. For another, if Vash was alive, then Karalti had made it to safety for sure. For now, at least, they were okay.

  I checked the map to try and work out my location, but it was blank. After that, I had a look at my own character sheet.

  "Damn. Two levels? First time that’s ever happened," I muttered, opening the leveling screen.

  [You have 6 unassigned ability points!]

  [You have unlocked new combat abilities.]

  [You have unused skill points.]

  [You may select one Mark of Matir ability]

  I glanced to my right. My eyes were adjusting to the darkness now, and I could make out the contours of the cell. There was a torch flickering outside a barred oak and iron door, but no sounds of life or unlife outside.

  Quickly, I went to the abilities menu to see what was available. I'd unlocked four abilities this time, but one of them immediately caught my eye.

  Black Lotus I

  You manifest a terrifying garrote of shadow that wraps around your target's neck and crushes the life out of them. The garrote has a range of 40ft, inflicts 35 damage per second, has a 30 second duration, and causes the Suffocation debuff. Range, damage and duration increase by leveling this ability.

  That sounded good, because I didn’t have much in the way of ranged attacks. I selected it and leveled it up to Black Lotus II, then spread the other four points between Master of Blades, Rain of Glass, Jump and Shadow Dance. I froze as a bang echoed up and down the corridor outside.

  Quickly, I surfed to the Mark of Matir selection screen to see what was on offer there: