by D. Rus
An empty flask was shoved into my hands.
"Th... thanks. Well, what’s up?!"
The officer swallowed nervously. "It’s Chronos! He's restless, tossing and turning in his sleep. Time jumps chaotically in both directions. The titan's nightmares erupt into reality. Commander, it's a total mess there! Can you even imagine something that can frighten a god?! I saw it... briefly. Or did I only feel it? I don't know. That was enough for me. And, you know, the Fallen One awoke! While even the chairs there have acquired the instinct for self-preservation and tried to hide in the corner! Chairs!"
The Fallen One! I squinted at the gloomy crimson arch that was wrapped in a cloud of green fog. We had to save him.
The officer misinterpreted my expression. "We can't close it! Control of the portal has been intercepted. Who or what is feeding it mana—we don't know. What should we do, commander?"
I had already made a decision. Losing interest in the officer, I turned away from him and waved at Snowie. "Follow me!"
I took a deep breath and plunged into the thick, damp, rippling green slurry.
Behind me, Bomba screamed in terror, too scared of losing Snowie again.
I’m sorry, old girl. It's not easy for me, either. So I chose the one who had the best chances of survival without going crazy.
This was the burden of the commander: having to send people to guaranteed death in order to win speed, an exchange, or a position. Five soldiers who stay behind to cover their company’s retreat. Or a platoon that walks into the night with a suicide mission that has a survival rate of one to ten.
The scorching touch of the mist filled my mind with the whisper of a myriad of faceless voices muted by the clap of the portal. Transfer!
I blinked the mist out of my eyes. The numerous lamps were practically smothered by its gray impenetrable haze. Immunity to mental effects created a flimsy block, partially shutting out the pressure of others' nightmares. My night vision of a Light Elf kicked in, engaging the reserve rods and cones.
The Fallen One!
He was crawling unnaturally slowly, trying to get to the portal while dragging the multi-ton body of Aulë behind him. Countless fanged shadows circled him like sharks, repeatedly attacking the ghostly shield put out by the Head of the Pantheon.
The suede boots of the Fallen One slipped on the stone slabs that were covered in blood and God knows what else. A bout of IBS had clearly stricken the group in the dungeon.
The Fallen One dragged Aulë with one hand while using the other to shield himself from the nightmares of Chronos thrashing around in his crystal sarcophagus.
Stumbling on various pieces of garbage and losing my balance in the bloody goo, I lunged forward. Copying the Fallen One’s gesture, I threw my hand forward, willing the greedy shadows away. I didn't have any ready-made spells against the unknown creatures. Their purple markers of uncategorized monsters pointed at the weak effectiveness of standard magic against them. So I had to resist these chimeras in an old-fashioned, crude and uneconomical way.
The darkness knew no mercy. Black sparks were whipping the ghostly silhouettes, pushing others' fears to the corners and blasting my head with storms of sharp pain. My fearful heart missed a beat. Pure reflex. This pain was far too similar to the pain I’d experienced in real life.
I grinned, mentally giving the universe the finger. Go fuck yourself! I'm no longer some weak-willed figure, but a player! A noob maybe, but I was already qualified to proceed to the first level of nightmare. No checkpoints or saves. Don’t even try to grab me with your fat hairy hand and move me to another square! In an instant you'll get a whack with a chessboard across your stupid head!
I grabbed Aulë by the collar and very nearly dislocated my arm from its joint. I felt like a tractor trying to pull a tank stuck in the mud, almost torn in half by my own terrible power.
"Fallen One, help!" I wheezed through my teeth as multicolored circles flashed in front of my eyes.
However, the Fallen One had already begun losing consciousness. It was clear that he wasn't even holding on by his will and determination, but on an exhausted supply of miracles. The god's body was trying to give its last order. His fingers crushed the stone, trying to carry the divine pair to the portal platform that was marked by black and yellow stripes.
Aulë quietly groaned, but didn't come to. A blue vein quivered insanely fast on his wide bull neck.
I bit my lip in frustration. I couldn't drag them out two at a time. There's no material in the world heavier than divine flesh. They clung to each other as if finding new strength in their tandem.
What could we do?! Chop off The Fallen One's hand? It would grow back... later... probably... But something frightened me. I was already in the crap as it was. I had disembodied Macaria, created the pantheon of Balance practically with my own hands, and summoned another pain in the ass as a goddess—a light Elven maiden with a fiery gaze.
Very soon the dark alter ego of the Fallen One was going to come awake and teach both me and the poor god a lesson. The Fallen One might not even notice it – for him it might feel like a slap on the wrists. But for me it would be more like being stuck in an iron maiden for a couple of hundred years.
My thoughts were interrupted by Snowie's mighty hand as it seized Aulë by the collar and pulled hard. The next moment, all that remained in the troll's fist was a shred of the divine shirt. Did you think it was for nothing that all modern bulletproof vests have loops sewn on them for prompt rescue of casualties? So how were we supposed to drag the Father of All Dwarves? By his prominent proboscis?!
Snowie growled like an idling tractor, swinging his bludgeon at the advancing shadows. The darkness momentarily flashed multicolored sparks—black, green, and crimson. The blessings of the gods: the Fallen One, Macaria, and Aulë.
The troll stepped forward. The iron grip of his fingers clutched the gods' waists. Grunting with effort and unmistakably cracking his back, Snowie tore their bodies from the ground and, swaying unsteadily, walked heavily towards the portal platform.
I couldn't help but grin—he looked just like a village grandma carrying a couple of water pails.
Right then he gasped from the sharp pain in his poor brain. He turned and froze like a statue, paralyzed by fear. A few inches from my face, the shaky contours of the otherworldly chimera flowed with its bottomless, empty eye sockets. The creature bored into my mind, singling out my deep-rooted fears.
A familiar pain began to throb and I reflexively reached for a packet of pills. As my hand stretched out, it froze, refusing to obey. Before my very eyes it was being covered in cyanotic mounds of rebellious flesh.
I squeezed my eyes shut, gritted my teeth, and shook my enfeebled soul.
It's an illusion! A bunch of scary stories for little kids! I'm immortal and invulnerable to illness. My body, exhausted by age and the environment, has long been dead and buried. And here I am, second in line from the Fallen One, and no ghostly creatures from other people's nightmares are going to frighten me. Begone, you wretch!
Scooping a generous helping of the gentle and velvety Darkness, I wrapped myself in it as if in a cocoon. Colors faded, sounds became faint, but the nightmares imposed on me lost their severity and began to disappear. My muscles were twitching; convulsions were shaking my body. Still, I could already move.
Behind me, whimpering hopelessly, stood Snowie. "Bomba, sweetheart... I’m turning into stone... Forgive me, for I will never see our children...”
The troll froze in an unnatural position, yielding to the chief fear of his race: to the fervent terror of turning to stone.
"Snowie, block it out! Fight! It's fucking with your head! It’s an illusion!”
I scooped up the remains of the Darkness. My internal stocks were emptying at an unbelievable speed: resisting the pressure of an ancient god's nightmares is no easy task. Energy was being deducted at the most ruinous rate.
I flung the life-giving droplets at the albino's body.
The troll flinche
d. His eyes lit up with a momentary show of understanding.
I immediately started shouting, drawing his attention to me and forgetting the modest power of his inbound information channels.
"Snowie! Snowie, you bastard! You... you... what does Bomba call you in private?!"
The troll scowled. A single fold crossed his forehead. He turned his head to me and struggled to move his lips.
"Karlsson-on-the-Roof. I meant to ask her who he was. She only laughs, she never tells me...”
I backed up towards the portal, not daring to expose my back to these creatures, and roused my friend's consciousness. "I'll tell you! I promise! Get your luggage through the arch and we'll jump out. Then we'll grab a cup of tea and have a heart to heart! Come on, move your butt! My God you're slow, you’re like a steamroller."
Chronos shuddered in his sarcophagus, slightly shifting his posture. His wound, which had barely started to close, once again glistened with dark moisture. The ancient god grimaced with exasperation.
Time was flying. My stomach was in my throat, as if a plane had just fallen into an endless air pocket. My legs were bogged-down in the viscous air, my ears were ringing. The chimeras surrounding us were beating against the flimsy Shield of Darkness.
"Hurry, hurry!" I mouthed with my bitten, bleeding lips. Elven teeth are sharp like cut diamonds, which isn't always going to be to your advantage.
The sound of frantic gunfire came from the depths of the dungeon. It looked like like the delicate electronics of the droids had begun to boil, unable to withstand the excessive pressure of the ancient god. Broken glass jingled. Something exploded weakly, crackling with electrical discharges. Our warehouses and wine cellars were kaput.
"I'm here...” a barely audible wheeze came from behind.
Fallen One!
Unable to contain myself, I turned around and, staggering, immediately rushed to the aid of the Head of the Pantheon. Now on his own two feet—we had to get out of there.
I slipped under the god's arm, offering my shoulders for support. The Fallen One turned his ashen face to me and gave a weak smile.
"Ah, my First Priest... You're in the thick of things, as always. I must admit, it was a shit idea to hide us in this graveyard. Chronos was jealous like a dozen old maids.”
"Well, excuse me," I cheerfully grinned in response and spat out some blood that had crusted on my teeth. "Next time, I'll drag you to the girls' dorm. It’s much more fun over there."
The Fallen One forced a smile. Then he said seriously, "I'm glad to see you...”
Licking my lips, ragged from my own teeth, I nodded. "We're going to live."
Seeing that Snowie was already pushing through the soapy curtains of the portal, I cautioned, "The ark. Going in?"
From behind me, Chronos mumbled something unintelligible in his sleep. However, the Fallen One heard him.
He turned around and, narrowing his eyes, whispered, "I'll be back."
The portal popped, hurling us through space. For a moment, my vision went dark and my mind became cloudy as usual: a tell-tale sign of a change in atmospheric pressure. Or maybe it was the reaction of an organism to being disassembled at one point and reassembled at another. No idea how AlterWorld's reality did it, obeying the whims of its game designers.
‘xcuse me? Instead of the rich colors of sunset, we were met with a deep night, illuminated by the light of dozens of campfires and torches.
"Darling!" emerging from the darkness, Yavanna rushed to Aulë, who lay prone.
"My dear!" the round figure of Bomba rushed towards us from one of the fires.
"Commander!" the dozing, droopy-eyed Cryl raised his head.
The Fallen One's hand, resting on my shoulder, flinched perceptibly. No one was there to meet him. Only respectful looks and reverently bowed heads greeted the supreme being of AlterWorld.
“Fallen One...” I whispered quietly. "Where are you going now? You shouldn't be alone. Come on. Maybe we can hide away in a tavern, kill a bottle of cognac, and calm our nerves?"
The Fallen One faintly shrugged. Closing his eyes, he bent his head first to one shoulder, then to the other, as if listening to sounds of the night.
Maybe he's working with the interface or quickly getting the latest news from the planet's information field? Judging by the way he repeatedly looked at me—surprised, indignant, and then, uncomfortably close—he was appraising me.
Finally, he said, "Shit. Well, it could have been worse."
"Maybe not," I replied with a guilty shrug.
Meanwhile, an emergency was seething in the chat. The boss is back. All hands on deck! Magical lights flashed in the windows of the keep and in the wings of the castle while people quickly flocked to the courtyard.
Clan members smiled with relief. The hounds pushed through with their armored backs, elated in an emotional maelstrom of our celebration. Huddled in the shadows were some people I didn't know. Lots of them, actually.
Their crowd was out of sync with AlterWorld. Fat and skinny, bald and long-haired, the elderly and children. Normal, everyday faces with a stamp of fear and confusion. There were practically none of the now-commonplace athletic figures and pretty faces from magazine covers. Outcasts? Where did so many come from?
Heaps of multicolored junk towered around the perimeter of the courtyard. There were confiscated automobiles, train cars, a pyramid of barrels, and a tall, rickety pile of rusty rails.
"To the temple!" the Fallen One snapped, then purposefully marched towards the massive gates.
I hurried after him. My entourage was already gathering in the wake.
"How long have we been gone?" whispered Cryl.
"A week," he quickly began to rattle off, not even noticing my dropped jaw. "You left with Snowie and we immediately gathered our soldiers. We stood here for thirty minutes, an hour, and no one came! We wanted to come to the rescue, but by that time the fog had already gathered strength. The wretched green muck distorted our coordinates, so we couldn't break through to the center of the cloud: we'd constantly get blown off to one side. Grym appealed to the gods and we helped him with some strong, devout words.”
Almost unnoticeably, the Fallen One seemed to have lost his step, slowing down ever so little and listening in on our conversation.
"Yavanna alone answered our prayers. She appeared, unsteady, barely standing. Even the trees around sobbed. She felt around, sniffed the air and told us to wait. They said that all of this was just a time game. Well, then she herself sat on the grass. And that grass, by the way, has now become rather special. There's a whole page of bonuses attached to it now! Problem is, Lurch has laid his hands on it and won’t let our alchemists anywhere near."
"We'll sort that out," I nodded. "Tell the others, we’re meeting in one hour."
The First Temple rumbled from the gigantic organ, welcoming the return of its god. The Fallen One's face visibly relaxed. He smiled as if seeing an old friend. He quickly ran up the steps, across the empty hall and collapsed onto his throne with relief.
A place of strength.
The Fallen One looked at me with displeasure. "Who sat on my throne?"
I was already tired of fearing responsibility for my many mistakes, so I just snapped, "Goldilocks! Who do you think?"
The god's eyebrows shot up in surprise as I continued to condemn him. “You're out of touch. AlterWorld's umbilical cord has been cut and is bleeding fragments of reality and meanwhile, I'm left with a screaming baby on my hands and with five infuriated gods on my case!”
The Fallen One froze, trying to understand what I was talking about. He gently closed his eyes for a moment, forming the proper query for the info-sphere. He started.
"My son!" the Fallen One sat forward, squeezing and crumbling the onyx of the throne's distressed armrests. "Where is he?"
I gave the signal in private chat, allowing the mom and her brother to come into the Temple. I’d been hiding them just in case. It had been either the thought of a mega-argument and becomi
ng the lightning rod for the Fallen One's rage as he spanked me across his knee, or just out of fear. Who knows what these gods might do? Even male hamsters will eat their young. Meanwhile, female black widows do quite the opposite. They eat their suitors after fertilization.
Yavanna’s High Priestess had grown noticeably thin, cheeks sunken in, face ashen. The mom was surrounded by her entourage of young priestesses and nursing mothers. She wearily approached the Fallen One and, giving a slight, respectful bow, handed him his child.
His cheeks had filled out. He looked like a right little hamster! You’d think he was at least a year old. And he already sparkled with the uncategorized status of a higher being!
The Fallen One held the child awkwardly and with infinite care, looking at his son with delight and amazement. In turn, the child googooed and tried to pull out an artifact hairpin of unknown properties from his father's cloak. That's right, hamster! Just like me! Little bro...
The Fallen One gleamed. The mom stepped back, joining the crowd that encircled the throne.
Inconspicuously he shook her lowered hand. A god wasn’t supposed to make a show of emotions in public. "Hi, mom,” he whispered. “How are you? You look... um... tired."
She smiled faintly. "Always a gentleman! I look like shit, I know. My son doesn't just drink my milk, he also consumes my life force. Being far from a goddess, I simply don't have those kinds of reserves. And Yavanna's illness puts its stamp on her priestesses."
"So what can we do? How can I help?"
She shrugged feebly. "We've already figured it out. I feed him, and the girls put their hands on my shoulders, forming a circle of strength. If you pay attention, you'll notice that half the women in the clan can barely move their feet. Feeding your little brother isn't so easy. It's true that this is a plus for me: the astral channels pump such a large volume of energy that my peak output will soon reach that of a temple altar.”
In the meantime, the Fallen One stood up, straightened up to his full height, and gave a low bow, though not out of formality. "Thank you, good people! Thank you for your loyalty, courage and... my son! I will never forget. The lesson is this: you are not slaves to a god, but rather his colleagues and little brothers!"