The dragon.
It flapped its way towards the castle.
“There’s one thing I need to know if you can do for me,” Eric said to the Dark Figure.
“WHAT?”
Eric made his request.
“THAT I CAN DO.”
56
Daniel
Daniel’s heart thudded in his chest as the dragon flew over the forest towards the castle.
Not only did he already have some really bad memories attached to the behemoth, but it was five or six times bigger than the griffins, it could spit liquid fire, and it was already dead.
He had no idea how the hell he and Mira were going to handle it.
“Dr. Wolff,” he yelled, “is there anything you can do?”
“About the dragon? No. Now might be a good time to make your exit.”
Daniel could just imagine the thing spewing napalm down on the army of Blackstone. Thousands of men could die just from the dragon alone.
“Okay,” Daniel said. “Tell Mira we’ve got to give the army enough time to retreat, but then we’re out.”
“Why are you helping them?” Rebecca asked impatiently. “They’re NPCs.”
“You’re starting to sound like Eric,” Daniel snapped.
“Then he has a point.”
“It’s – I don’t know, maybe they’ll be important later.”
“Your goal is to get to Eric, not save a bunch of computer programs.”
“Just tell her!” Daniel shouted.
The dragon was already alighting on the wall. From this far away it looked like a giant raven settling onto a stone ledge.
Well, if the raven had a serpentine neck and a long, reptilian tail.
Daniel skimmed his griffin just ten feet above the Blackstone foot soldiers.
The men cheered as he passed – so loudly that Daniel had to scream to be heard.
“RETREAT! RETREAT NOW!”
Some of the men looked back at the castle, and their faces went blank with fear.
Daniel swooped down again, looking for the army’s leaders on horseback. There were several possibilities, but one in particular stood out: a rider clad in shining golden armor atop a white horse.
“RETREAT!” Daniel bellowed as the griffin passed over the golden warrior. “RETREAT!”
As he flew past, Daniel spied a fearsome figure in black armor on horseback. It watched him with two yellow eyes that glowed in the shadows of its horned helmet.
A shiver ran down Daniel’s spine as his griffin shot up into the air.
He glanced over his shoulder.
The dragon was taking off from the castle wall. On its scaly back was a lone figure carrying a staff with a glowing blue stone affixed to the top.
Suddenly the dragon opened its mouth, and burning liquid rained down on the Blackstone army.
Screams of agony filled the air as dozens of men stumbled about, covered in flames.
“Damn it,” Daniel snarled, and wheeled his griffin around in the air.
The dragon saw him coming. It raised its horned head and spewed a fiery cloud at him.
Daniel dodged the flames. The one advantage he had was his griffin was significantly faster and more agile than the dragon, and he evaded the creature without much of a problem.
As Daniel flew past, he saw Eric grinning up at him, his eyes black and his skin etched with ink.
Eric’s lips moved as though he was speaking –
Suddenly several bat-like creatures burst out of black smoke.
Daniel cursed as he slammed headlong into the swarm.
His sword cleaved through one, turning it back into vapor.
The griffin opened its beak and snapped the second one up like an insect.
But the third sank its teeth into the griffin’s wing.
The majestic animal screeched, a piercing hawk-like scream.
Daniel speared the bat through the head, and it disappeared in a black puff – but it left behind a bloody mass of feathers.
The griffin didn’t seem too much affected – yet. But several more wounds like that would take a toll.
“Dr. Wolff, warn Mira he’s still summoning demons,” Daniel shouted out.
“She told me to tell you to distract the dragon. Can you do that?”
Daniel raised his eyebrows. “I’ll try.”
He swooped around in a semi-circle.
The dragon was watching, its eyes black as its master’s, tracking his every movement.
Mira was coming around from behind the reptile’s tail.
Daniel decided to go under rather than over. He sent the griffin into a dive beneath the dragon, darting just feet away from the massive forelimbs with their dagger-sized talons.
As he zipped past, he could see the rotting wounds in the dragon’s belly where Eric had first used his demons to kill it. He even saw the brief flash of a few glittering coins still wedged between its scales.
The dragon twisted its neck, trying to follow Daniel. Its mouth opened wide, but Daniel shot up on the other side.
He glanced back.
Eric was following him with his eyes, too, his lips forming words. He didn’t see Mira coming at him from the rear until it was too late.
Her fingers danced in a blur on the bowstring –
And three arrows impaled Eric’s back.
57
Daniel gasped.
Eric screamed in agony.
His face went white with shock as the tattoos disappeared from his skin.
His eyes drained of black –
And so did the dragon’s. The giant orbs went from shiny obsidian to a pale milky yellow.
The giant leathery wings stopped beating the air.
There was a brief pause… and then the dragon plummeted from the sky.
As the creature’s shadow grew beneath it, Blackstone’s terrified soldiers tried to trample their way over others and get out of the way –
The massive reptilian body slammed down on top of them, crushing a hundred men.
Eric tumbled off the back of the dragon and fell twenty feet to the ground atop a pile of armored corpses. A thin thread of blood trickled from the side of his mouth.
At the top of the castle wall, a woman screamed.
In the distance, the two remaining insectoid demons disappeared in gigantic clouds of black smoke.
Daniel’s griffin fluttered down and settled onto the battleground. All fighting there had ceased; now there were only dead bodies and men running for their lives.
Daniel stared in shock at Eric’s lifeless body.
He knew that it was just a game.
He knew that Eric would rise from the dead in just a matter of hours.
But he had just watched his best friend die, and it was heartbreaking.
Mira’s griffin settled down next to his. Her yellow eyes were wide, and she looked as though she might cry.
“I didn’t… I…” she choked out.
Suddenly a blot of darkness appeared in the air next to Eric’s body. It unfurled itself like a black paper flower dropped in water, the shadows spreading until a human figure stood on the battlefield.
Except this figure was completely composed of darkness.
It had no eyes or nose or mouth or ears, just a skull seemingly molded from the nothingness betweens stars.
Its body was cloaked in flowing robes of cascading shadows that flowed like blood amongst the corpses at its feet.
It raised one black arm and extended a crooked finger –
Eric’s body twitched.
Then he lifted his head from the ground.
His eyes focused, then searched and found Daniel.
Eric grinned, his teeth stained red with blood.
Black flowed back into his eyes, and tattoos rose to the surface of his skin like flotsam rising from a shipwreck.
He staggered to his feet, supporting himself on his wizard’s staff.
He began to speak –
Mira panicked and shot ano
ther six times.
All six arrows penetrated deep into Eric’s chest. He jerked with every impact.
Thock! Thock! Thock! Thock! Thock! Thock!
But he didn’t fall. He just kept grinning that bloody smile.
Next to him stood the figure made of shadow and night.
Then Eric grabbed two of the six arrows embedded in his chest. He grasped them in one hand, grimaced, and yanked them savagely out.
“Omnix kaleptek,” he whispered, his lips bubbling with blood.
Black smoke poured from one hand into the hide of the dragon –
And suddenly the giant body stirred.
Black ink flowed into the eyes, displacing the milky yellow.
The scaly head rose up from the corpse-strewn ground.
Beyond the dragon, a horde of rotting horses thundered towards them with a horned knight in the lead.
“GET OUT OF HERE!” Daniel screamed at Mira. “GO!”
His griffin launched up into the sky and Mira followed.
They raced as fast as they could through the air.
Daniel’s heart hammered in his chest. All he could see in his mind’s eye was his friend’s face as it leered at him, blood coating his teeth and running down his chin.
Beneath them, the remnants of Blackstone’s army ran for the forest.
One of the last to leave the battlefield was a warrior clad in gold armor riding a bloody, wounded horse.
He glanced back at the hundreds of armored skeletons pursuing him, then disappeared into the trees.
58
Eric
Eric watched Daniel and Mira fly off.
He laughed, then grimaced in pain. It was agony to breathe.
“WHAT DO YOU FIND SO AMUSING?” the Dark Figure asked.
“I was thinking, ‘At least she did me the favor of not shooting me in the crotch,’” Eric wheezed.
“You’re alive!” a woman’s voice bawled from nearby.
Eric looked over. Cythera had levitated down from the castle wall and set foot just ten feet away. Tears streaked her face as she stumbled over piles of dead bodies.
“Of course I am.”
He was about to add, I just came back faster than normal, but remembered that she wouldn’t know what he was talking about.
Cythera ran up to him, her hands out to touch him, but he put up his arms to stop her. “Aaaah – just – don’t.”
She looked at the arrows protruding from his chest as though they caused her physical pain. “But – how is this possible?! I saw you die!”
“I’ve got powerful friends.” Eric looked reproachfully at the Dark Figure. “WHO, by the way, I asked to bring me back as fast as possible.”
“WHICH I DID.”
“Did you have to let the dragon fall a hundred feet out of the sky?”
“PERHAPS YOU SHOULD HAVE HAD THE FORESIGHT TO LAND IT BEFORE YOU EXPIRED.”
Eric shook his head in disgust, then yanked out another bloody arrow with a wince. “Can you help me with this?”
“Yes!” Cythera beamed.
“Not you,” Eric growled. “Him.”
The Dark Figure waved its arm. The remaining arrows dropped away from both Eric’s back and chest like his whole body had become incorporeal.
Eric clutched at his chest to make sure he wasn’t a ghost.
He wasn’t.
What was more, his wounds were completely healed. No more pain.
“Why didn’t you just do that from the beginning?” Eric snapped.
“YOU DIDN’T ASK ME TO.”
“Asshole,” Eric muttered.
Behind him the dragon lifted up to its full height, its eyes fully black once more.
The horned general Korvos came galloping up on his rotting steed. “The field is ours, as is Blackstone.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Eric said sarcastically.
“Do you wish us to pursue the last survivors?”
Eric watched the last few soldiers from Blackstone fleeing into the forest.
“No. If we don’t leave anybody alive, how are they going to bring all their friends back?”
There were disturbing shrieks from a quarter mile away as the hell spore continued to swallow up dead and dying bodies.
“Have the mages do something about that,” Eric said to Cythera.
Then he turned towards the castle, waited expectantly – and frowned as nothing happened. He turned back towards the Dark One.
“Anybody I possessed before I died, do I have to re-possess them again?”
“YES.”
“Great,” he muttered. “Omnix kaleptek, omnix kaleptek, omnix kaleptek, omnix kaleptek…”
Thirty seconds later, the drawbridge slowly lowered and the portcullis began to rise.
“Let’s go,” Eric said as he walked towards the castle gates. “I’ve still got one more item on the bucket list.”
59
Daniel
The two griffins crashed down through the tree canopy and skidded to a halt on the forest floor.
Daniel looked around warily. The woods were deserted.
Mira undid her saddle leggings and dropped to the ground. She was trembling.
“What the hell was that?!” she asked, her voice cracking. “What just happened?!”
Rebecca’s voice spoke out of thin air. “Which part are you referring to?”
“Let’s start with that weird thing made out of shadow,” Mira said. “What was that?!”
There was a brief pause.
Daniel knew that Dr. Wolff was trying to figure out how much she say, since Mira didn’t – and officially couldn’t – know about the AI.
“It was a physical manifestation of the ally Eric has in the game,” she said finally. “The ally you two are supposed to convince him to stop.”
It was kind of a nothing answer. Basically she was saying, ‘It was a player in the game,’ which was obvious.
Mira reacted with an appropriate level of confusion.
“Uh, okaaay… so how did Eric come back that quickly when I… when I shot him?” Mira asked, obviously upset.
“Technically, all that happened was the normal lock-out period when a player dies was shortened to a few minutes.”
“He can do that?”
“Apparently.”
“So why didn’t he die when I shot him again?” Mira demanded.
Daniel wasn’t sure whether she was more upset that she’d killed Eric, or that she hadn’t been able to kill him the second time.
“The… ally apparently has control over the parameters of death within the game. At least as far as your friend goes.”
“What should we do now?” Daniel asked.
“After what just happened, I’m not sure you’re going to be able to stop Eric. Not within the game itself. Perhaps the best idea is to approach him and impress upon him the dangers of what he’s doing.”
“I don’t think now’s exactly the best time.”
“Why not?”
“He just slaughtered thousands of people. I don’t think he’s going to be real open to sitting down and having a heart-to-heart.”
“Not to mention I just shot him nine times,” Mira said bitterly.
“When exactly are you planning on speaking to him, then?”
“When the opportunity arises,” Daniel said.
“And when do you think that will happen?”
“I don’t know!”
“Perhaps you should log out, then. Otherwise you’ll just be sitting there in the forest, waiting for whatever magical opportunity you think is going to come your way,” Rebecca said sarcastically.
“You’re NOT helping,” Mira snapped.
“I don’t think you don’t understand the severity of the situation.”
“No, I don’t, because you won’t tell me anything!”
“I can’t. And you agreed to enter the game under those restrictions.”
“Okay, fine,” Mira said angrily, “but here’s something maybe you don’t
understand: I just killed a good friend of mine. We watched him die, and then we watched him come back to life, and now he apparently can’t be killed anymore!”
“I think you may be experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ve often commented to the development team on the ramifications of such – ”
“Could you stop talking like this is some sort of psychology experiment?! This is REAL for us!”
“I know it may seem that way, but it’s only – ”
“I KNOW THAT!” Mira shouted. “But you’re not playing the game, so quit acting like you know what it’s like!”
“I have a perspective on what’s happening that you don’t.”
“Yeah, but you’re taking us out of the game, you’re distracting us, you’re making us doubt ourselves, you’re messing with our heads – NONE of that is going to help us stop Eric!”
“You’re the one arguing with ME.”
Mira looked up at the sky and shouted, “Maybe because I don’t appreciate all the know-it-all comments from the peanut gallery!”
Daniel looked over at Mira with real respect. She was standing up for herself like a pro.
He realized Dr. Wolff was worried about the AI and that she was just trying to solve the problem, but Mira was right: the scientist wasn’t helping.
He decided to step in and back up his friend. “Dr. Wolff – you agreed that we’re your best shot to stop Eric, right?”
“You’re one viable option.”
Okay, that kind of pissed him off.
Apparently it pissed off Mira, too. “ONE viable option? If you’ve got a better plan, then why don’t you do it? Why don’t you just get on your little microphone and talk to Eric yourself, huh? Convince him to do whatever you want!”
There was a long pause.
“…I tried. But apparently the… Eric’s ally is shutting down communication within a certain radius of him.”
“So you can’t get through to him,” Mira said.
“…no.”
“And you can’t track him, either, can you.”
Dr. Wolff sighed. “No.”
“Then I guess you need us, huh?”
Daniel could almost hear the scientist gritting her teeth. “…yes.”
Shattered Lands 2 The Fall Of Blackstone: A LitRPG Series Page 12