Kingdom Come

by James Osiris Baldwin

  "Ugh... Jeez... okay..." I weakly fended off the tongue, and pulled her head down into another hug. Her smell was the most familiar thing in the world. "I'm okay."

  I sat upright. Rin and Istvan reached down. I caught their hands and let them help me up, still weak and dizzy from the info dump. As I got to my feet, I glanced over at the Dragon Gate and froze.

  Rin shook her fists, bouncing up and down with excitement. “We did it! We managed to hold the undead at the Pass! We weren't able to recruit all the Yanik, but we had enough warriors and soldiers to keep the zombies at bay. Lord Bolza was staked-"

  "Wait." I held up a hand to ward her back as I swayed from foot to foot. "Visitor.”

  "What?" Istvan turned his face in the direction I began walking. Then, to Rin, he whispered: "What is he talking about?"

  “Don’t worry, he’s not crazy. I see it too. Stay back while we go over, just in case.” Karalti rattled in her throat, inflating it and then huffing out a great gust of air as she padded along behind me.

  The Black God of the Nine was looking up at the huge shuddering door to his tomb, hands folded behind his back. Matir looked very similar to how he had the first time I'd met him, when I was glitched inside the belly of a slave ship. Tall, lean, dressed in shadowy traveler’s clothes. Trousers, boots, a hooded capelet... and when he glanced back at us, no discernible face. There was nothing but a sucking void of darkness with a single, dancing point of light at the center.

  "You came," he said. His tone was heavy with relief.

  "Yeah. Can’t say I’m not a man of my word." I cracked my neck and knuckles, drawing to a stop a healthy distance away. "You have a really strong heartbeat for a dead guy, you know that?"

  "The death of an immortal god is different to the death of a mortal human." Matir replied primly. "Our death is not of the physical self. It is the death of our agency - the removal of our power to directly act upon reality. A dead god is unreachable, inaccessible, and must act through their proxies. I was powerless to stop the plundering of my corpse. Before my ascent to the Dragon Gate, such a thing could not have happened. Now I am so weakened that the only place I can currently materialize is the antechamber to my prison.”

  Karalti snaked her muzzle forward, chirping curiously. Matir's avatar stepped forward, and raised a slender hand. His fingers twitched, as if he would touch her snout... but then he folded them into his palm and dropped it, turning away.

  “You need a more secure dungeon, my man.” I watched him with growing suspicion. “Pretty much anyone could bust in here.”

  “This isn’t the dungeon,” Matir replied. “This is just the entry to the dungeon. There is an entire complex behind each dragon gate, each different and devilishly challenging. You have to be at least Level 50 before you could cross that threshold and survive.”

  “Right.” I was actually reassured to know that. Even Lucien and Violetta weren’t that juiced up. “So… how’s it hanging in Dark Godsville?”

  “Poorly.”

  “Yeah. Same here.” I began to fidget with my broken armor. “So, going to tell us why we’re here? Because I just got strong-armed into being a vampire half-blood thanks to this quest, and I don't know how I feel about that.”

  “Is that why you smell so weird?” Karalti not-so-discreetly sniffed at my hair.

  Matir straightened, looking down at me. "You should know something about the world that the Architects created. The quest system here is dynamic. Adaptive. For normal, non-viral players, quests are generated for them, dovetailing with their needs, their desires and fantasies. Players are not controlled by their quests. Their quests are controlled by their hearts' desires. Do you understand?"

  "Just wait a second." I scowled. "You aren't supposed to know that stuff. You've never broken the fourth wall when you've spoken to me before."

  "You are correct." Matir replied. "I did not speak of it.”

  Something was plucking at my intuition. Something about the way the god's avatar stood and acted. "What's going on? What aren't you telling me? And why hasn't the Shrine quest ended? We're here, at the Thunderstones. We stopped Ashur from draining you. The Keystone's as safe as it'll ever be. Where's the wrap-up?"

  “There isn’t one.” Matir gave a very un-godly agitated sigh. "Hector, listen to me. Things have gotten out of hand here since Michael returned. Every time the Architects purged him from this world, he found some way to come back. He's malware: a virus that has embedded himself so deeply into the lore of this server that he could have come back any number of ways. He’s already warped it so intensely that we have things that were never intended to be seen in play. There were server limitations on torture, programs to detect sexual crimes beyond the scope of normal PvP... now most of that has been thrown down the drain."

  No way. My eyes widened as he continued to rant in a way that was utterly familiar to me. I took a step back from Matir, bumping into Karalti's wrist.

  A snippet of conversation from the past: "Matir is a feature of the game's mythos and storyline, but not an active character."

  And another: "What about my brother?"

  "We would like to offer our condolences. He did not successfully transfer."

  "He might have made it. You didn't know I was here. He could be alive, and we just don't know it."

  "We knew you had reached the character creation and neural duplication stage. There is no record of him ever getting that far. No psychological or neural profile was created for him..."

  My mouth worked silently for a moment. "... Steve?"

  Chapter 54

  Matir flinched slightly at the sound of my brother’s name. His long fingers curled up into loose fists.

  "Steve?" I took a numb step forward, then another.

  "Your brother... preferred his Korean name," Matir said haltingly. "He always wondered why it was that he had to use an Anglo-Saxon name to get a job, but had to learn to pronounce names like 'Kuzetznov' or 'Unbegaun' at work. Park Chi-Yul... it's not that difficult to say."

  First came anger. Then grief. Confusion. I fumbled back, searching for Karalti as I tried to figure out what the fuck was going on.

  "You always preferred your English name," Matir continued, turning to look back at the Dragon Gate again.

  "Yeah. Because I chose it for myself." My voice shook slightly as I got closer, studying him... searching for signs of my brother. "What the fuck is going on? This is impossible. Steve didn’t make it. His upload failed.”

  “Did it?” Matir tilted his head to the side.

  “Ryuko said he didn’t even reach character creation.” Another step.

  Matir gestured elegantly to his chest. “My Herald... did it occur to you that your brother might have never intended to become a Starborn character?”

  My mouth opened, then shut. Then opened again. “You mean... you mean he survived? He’s here? He told you this stuff, about the game?”

  “Not exactly.” Matir’s face was unfathomable, yet somehow, he seemed... compassionate. “He didn’t need to ‘tell’ me.”

  I stared at Matir for several long seconds. “... then you are Steve? Right?”

  The Dark God turned away from me slightly, as if ashamed. “No. I am not Steven Park.”

  “I-I don’t get it.” I couldn’t stop the stammer, and flushed. “If he’s not a character, and he’s not you, and he’s not some kind of free-floating God...?”

  "Park Chi-Yul - Steve - is dead in the way that the gods of the Solonkratsu are dead," Matir replied gently. "He is... was... one of the Architects, is he not?"

  "Yeah." I halted, struggling against the heat in my eyes. "Yeah, he was."

  "I could not have awoken of my own accord. Only an Architect could have roused me from my restless sleep. When I first stirred, I felt only one powerful imperative: the need to raise an avatar and find a Starborn soul to serve as my Herald. It was sheer coincidence that I found you struggling against the Corruption eating you from the inside out... and when we made our bargain,
I was given the option to select some character perimeters for you. I found I knew how to make you immune to Corruption, the secret property of Darkness... the point at which the Darkness element becomes the Void. For Darkness is the closest state of matter to the Void represented by the Drachan, even though it is in strong opposition to it."

  What little blood that remained in my face drained away. My fingers began to tingle.

  “If Steve didn’t incarnate as a character on purpose… then what has he become?” I stared at the god in shock.

  Matir spread his hands wide. “He joined the Overconciousness, of course.”

  The Overconsciousness? Confusion froze my tongue, until suddenly, I realized. “... He merged with OUROS. How?”

  “How do the Architects do anything?” Matir shrugged.

  My brother had been on the AI design team. And all this time, there was a backdoor into the hot seat... a door waiting just for him. My throat felt dry and scratchy as I swallowed. “That glitch... the one on the ship. Did he cause that?”

  “Perhaps. But I do not know.” Matir replied. “It is possible that this Architect, Park Chi-Yul, directed the impetus that awoke me. It is possible he compelled me to search out into the world for the first time in four thousand years and discover you. Perhaps it was he who inspired me to name you my Herald, and in the process, giving you a unique character type. One that Ororgael or the Drachan cannot corrupt with their power.”

  "That controlling, manipulative piece of shit." I whispered hoarsely.

  Matir bowed his head. "I do not know his motives. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I came to know things that had never been known by the gods in times past. I came to understand this world as the Architects understood it. This knowledge, this personality, these memories... they filtered into my mind in an insidious, persistent way. This insistence on my knowing these things can only be the product of a great and terrible will. All I know is that, between the actions of Ororgael and his manipulation of the Napathu, the Caul has been destabilized. Perhaps beyond repair. And thus I have a new quest to issue you, one which Karalti should also listen to."

  I already knew what the quest would be and why Steve had spent months setting me up for it. It was my infantry experience. It was the training that allowed me to look at Violetta's pleading eyes and feel nothing as I jammed a foot of steel through her skull and turned her brain into ice cubes. It was his assumption that I'd learned to think like a soldier. Follow orders. Complete tasks. Follow through because someone with chevrons or a brass star told me to.

  I was shaking. Not with anticipation, or excitement, but with rage. Karalti was staring at us in astonishment, her horns standing on end, her pupils contracted to pin-points. Matir said nothing. He simply bowed his head and waited.

  "Here I was, thinking that Steve bought me into Archemi because he wanted to save my life." My voice was very deep, and very dark as I stared a hole through Matir's blank face. "We were both so sick that I forgot what he was like. But I'm here now, and I'm neck-deep in this shit. So give me the fucking quest."

  Matir nodded, and raised a hand beside his head. After a few seconds, my HUD jumped to life.

  New Main Quest: The Caul of Souls

  Through circumstances beyond anyone's control, a great threat has risen in Archemi: the fallen Architect once known as Ororgael has possessed the body of a Starborn, the self-styled Emperor Baldr Hyland of Ilia. The Drachan whisper in Baldr's ears, spinning him stories of a bright and perfect future of which he is the ultimate ruler... if only he will release them from their prison by dismantling the Caul of Souls and claiming the power of the Nine for himself.

  To prevent the rebirth of the greatest enemy Archemi has ever known, the Caul of Souls must be repaired: and to do that, the Paragon - a dragon and rider couple - must rally the other paired aspects of the Triad to their banner and re-seal the gods in their Dragon Gates to render the Drachan powerless once more.

  A great burden of duty rests on your shoulders, Paragon. Will you accept the challenge?

  Rewards: Progressive (EXP, Treasure, Skills and Abilities)

  Difficulty: Variable

  I dismissed the window with a back-wave of my hand. "Nope."

  Matir hesitated for a moment. He didn't seem to quite know what to do with a player who had just dismissed what was probably the penultimate story quest of the game. "Are you... certain?"

  "Yeah. " I set my jaw. "Steve might be meshed in with the game AI, but this quest won’t stop Baldr. I'm not re-sealing the gods in the Dragon Gates. Fuck that. Ashur said something that's been stuck in my head for a couple hours now - that we could have defeated the Drachan if we'd united all the peoples of Archemi. The humans, the Meewfolk, the dragons, the Lys and the Mercurions. So that's what we're going to do."

  "Hector..." Karalti trailed off uncertainly.

  Matir regarded me in contemplative silence.

  "Walls are a shitty defense. I learned that in the jungle, and the Prezyemi Line proved it out in Archemi.” I stared daggers at him. "The best defensive wall is the one that has boots on the ground and eyes in the sky, and that has all of the villages and the guerillas and the supply line on its side. You don't have to be a fucking genius to see that the Caul is going to collapse no matter what we do, and if this was just a normal NPC storyline, then I'm sure we'd be able to make some grand dramatic turnaround at the end... but it's not. This is being driven by one of the people who created the game. Baldr knows the tropes. He knows how this story ends. The only thing the status quo will do is serve his goals. I'm not running around the world trying to put out fires: we take the fight to the Drachan. I'll make my own goddamn quest if I have to."

  A second point of light kindled to life in the void of darkness swirling beneath Matir's hood. "As you wish, my Herald. I will need to dwell on this to properly frame the parameters of the quest. Until that time, I will swear a gift to you: the greatest gift I possessed as a living god. If you return with the Artists and the Warsinger and clear the dungeon behind this gate, I shall use my power and gift you with the magic of Life. It is a power that has not been seen in Archemi for millennia, save for a handful of especially powerful monsters. With Life magic and the ability to heal people with miraculous speed, you will be able to unite the legions of the world."

  "Thanks." I pressed my lips together, and extended a hand. "Now I know you're not my brother, even if you know what he knew. He would have been like: "Now listen to me, Hector...'"

  "I leave control of others to my sister, Solnetsi." Matir enclosed my hand in his. The soft leather of his gloves was almost intangible, a sensation like cold silk. "Darkness is the element of self-mastery. Remember that, no matter how many people - or shadows - you come to command."

  "I will." The Mark of Matir buzzed pleasantly as I withdrew my hand. My gaze slid past Rin and Istvan, who were waiting for us by the Keystone Dais. “But before we restart the Drachan War, I have some unfinished business. I need to get Suri back.”

  “We understand.” The Dark God bowed from the neck. “Seek your beloved, and then return to me when you are ready. I have endured thousands of years of this place already – a few weeks will make no difference.”

  “Sure thing.” I patted Karalti on the neck, then turned and led the way back to our friends. “Come on, Tidbit: let’s join the others and head back to Krivan Pass. We need to get to Karhad and see if there’s anything left to rule.”

  Chapter 55

  2 days later.

  It was a blood-red morning when we arrived at Karhad. Karalti and I flew ahead of a great fleet of airships - three brand new Hussars, a flotilla of cruisers and small guard ships. When my dragon dipped out through the low misty clouds to reveal the spread of ruined city below, I clicked my tongue.

  "What a fucking mess. We're going to be up to our elbows in this shit for weeks." I was dressed head to toe in my freshly repaired and restored Raven Suit, with a soft half-face mask on under the helmet so that none of my skin was expos
ed to the sun. It wasn’t going to kill me, but it felt nasty. On the areas of lightest coverage, my skin prickled, as if reacting with a mild allergy. "Disease is gonna be a problem."

  "Yeah." Karalti's tone was muted. "Do you think we'll be able to save the city?"

  "We have to. We’ll figure something out.”

  The day before, Karalti and I had teleported back and forth between Litvy and Karhad, transporting a unit of fifty crack troops to retake the ghost city and clear out any remaining undead. Fifty was all we needed. Karhad was a literal ghost town: Ashur's army had collapsed with his withdrawal, with all but a few of the vampires fleeing with their master. Armed with stakes, silver swords and silver bullets, the Defense team had started with the castle and worked their way down to the city.

  We left the ships far behind, reaching Egbolt some twenty minutes ahead. Karalti circled the Lord’s Tower, trumpeting to announce our arrival. The sound drew men out of the buildings - Knights, and then Istvan. He shaded his eyes, watching Karalti touch down with the precision and strength of an experienced flyer.

  "Your Grace." He bowed from the waist as I slid to the ground, his right fist pressed over his heart. "My lady."

  When Istvan stood, I held out a hand. He accepted, then stiffened as I shook it and pulled him into a short one-armed hug. When I stepped back, I lifted my visor so he could see the top half of my face. "It’s good to see you, man. But before you give me the situation, I wanted to let you know something. Vash is okay. Between me, Lazar and Rin, he’s gonna make it."

  Relief flooded Istvan's handsome face. He swallowed and nodded. "Thank the Nine. Were you able to... do something about his arm?"

  "I don't know how to make a limb-regrowth potion. Neither does Lazar," I said. "But Rin was able to hook him up with a magitech prosthetic. As long as he has mana, he can move it around like a real limb. He cussed us the whole time it was being attached, but now he likes it. Something about piston power and being able to jack off like an oil rig. "