He grinned. “Morogan smash metal mans!” With a bloodcurdling battle roar, Morogan leaped from the wall and began tearing machines limb from limb with his bare hands. One of them shot Morogan in the shoulder, and he grew more aggressive, pulling out his shield and mace and smashing the one that shot him. Sai jumped from the wall as well and joined the fray.
“Oi, remind me to never make that boy upset,” said Thasgrin, a grin peeking out of his red beard. “Ye better get in there, son. Before there’s nothing to smash.” He chuckled.
Drawing my swords, I willed power into them, bathing the upper wall in white light, stark even against the morning sun. I chose a group of machines a ways out and took a running leap off the wall. I Dashed at a forty-five upward and away from the wall, gaining altitude. At the peak of my arc, I rolled midair. I willed my shield to envelope my body, and the tingling sensation from earlier returned. I landed atop the machine directly below me in a shockwave of energy, crushing it.
Lightning and parts and baubles blew out in all directions. I spun one hundred and eighty degrees with my swords extended, level with the ground. Energy distorted the air behind my blades, leaving a visible trail. The spin sliced eight mechanical soldiers in half. Keeping the momentum, I surged forward, slicing through metal like a hot knife through butter.
The sound of metal crushing rock shook the ground. Men atop the wall, who lost their footing, found themselves hanging from the edge. People rushed to help them back up. Two familiar green pinprick eyes stared back at me from the cave. Fifty feet off the ground. Shit.
17
“Titan!” someone screamed from the wall. The cave began to glow a bright red, and a deep hum filled the air, building in intensity. The hair all over my body stood on end. I could taste the energy in the air. A massive wave of energy exploded out from the cave, obliterating the mechanical soldiers still charging toward us. I raised my left hand and switched shield modes to external projection. Interlocking hexagonal shapes materialized before me and locked into place in a flash of blue energy. The wave smashed into my shield, driving me to my knees. The energy dissipated, leaving a massive smoldering trench two feet deep into the ground.
“SADA, power status,” I asked, dissipating the shield.
“Power at twenty-five percent. Seek power source.”
Pounding footfalls filled the air and vibrated the ground, as the massive Titan emerged from the cave, murder in its electronic eyes. My murder, for it was staring directly at me. “Target acquired. Destroy.” Its deep voice echoed around the mountainside. It lifted its arm and pulled a giant sword from its back, all the while pounding toward me.
“Abalonius! Run, man, run,” screamed Thasgrin as he leaped from the wall, landing in a crouch.
I stood my ground. “SADA, can you disable the safety limits?” The Titan stomped ever closer.
“Confirmed. Safety limits disabled. Proceed with extreme caution,” said SADA.
I willed power into my blades again. The energy exploded out from them, arcing off everything nearby. I reset my shield for internal projection and willed power into it as well. Arcs of lightning cascaded over my entire body. The Titan was almost on top of me. This was either going to work spectacularly or kill me. Also, spectacularly. Fuck it. The Titan would destroy the stronghold. I wasn’t going to be responsible for the untold casualties. I triggered Burning Rage. Instead of the usual double body size increase, all of my muscles rippled. My arms, my legs, my chest—everything tripled in size. My pulse pounded in my ears, and my vision went blood red. An aura of pure red fire enveloped my entire body as red lightning added to the white. The ground split and cracked all around me. I Dashed forward, causing a massive eruption of dirt and rock behind me.
The Titan lifted its massive sword and took a swipe at me. I ducked, narrowly avoiding losing my head, and slashed in an “X” across its chest. Burning red gouges split its chest, molten metal sizzling in the dirt at our feet.
“Destroy,” it bellowed.
I triggered Temporal Shift, and its movements slowed to molasses. Spinning around and landing behind it, I slashed and Dashed all around it, trying to cause as much damage as possible.
I noticed several exposed cables on the back of its neck. Temporal Shift ended, and time returned to normal. The Titan’s left hand swung around and nailed me in the chest, smashing me into the ground, sending me sliding for a good thirty feet. I left a huge trench in the ground. I was in bad shape. The enhanced Imbue Power had slowly eaten away at my HP, and I was getting pretty low. The backhand was mostly absorbed by the internal shield, but I didn’t have much time left.
The Titan charged. I jumped straight up over its head and flipped over, slashing downward with both swords aiming for its weak spot. Its shoulders popped up, revealing small barrels that snap-aimed toward me. Several red blasts of energy shot me out of the air, and I hit the ground like a rock.
“Get up!” yelled Sai, flying past me.
“Back of the neck!” I yelled back. I had to buy him some time. The Titan hadn’t noticed him yet. I charged in, parrying and blocking the massive sword. This one was much stronger than the first one I had fought. We went back and forth for a few rounds, neither giving up ground. Slowly but surely, my HP was still draining. Warnings started popping up.
Warning Low Hp
I had 75 HP remaining. Sai used his Focused Instincts and blurred toward the back of the Titan. It noticed and started to turn toward the greater threat. I slashed at its legs, destroying several knee actuators. It backhanded me once again, sending me flying. I hit the ground hard. A gigantic boulder smashed into the Titan’s head, followed by a bolt of blue lightning, stunning it for a moment.
[ Warning Hp Critical ]
I was down to 20 HP. I Dashed upward and came down with every ounce of strength I could muster. The Titan shifted its weight and slashed sideways, parrying my attack and sending me into the wall upwards of fifty miles per hour.
You are unconscious.
You will wake up in one hour.
Think about the choices that led you here.
Make better choices next time.
I opened my eyes. I was standing in Otherworld. “That may not have been the best of ideas, Abalonious,” said SADA. I turned toward his voice behind me. Floating in the air was a ball of blue and white energy. Small sparks danced about within the spherical cloud of energy.
“Maybe, but I’m sure it gave the others the opportunity they needed to finish the Titan,” I said.
“Perhaps you are correct. However, you could have been killed.”
“I thought I was immortal here,” I said.
“If you die with the safeties disabled, you will not respawn. You will be trapped here, in Otherworld. Forever.” He let the silence hang in the air for a few moments. “That is not acceptable. We both have missions to complete, and you are the only one worthy of wielding my power. If we fail, Tempest will be overrun with undead.”
“Go easy on him, SADA. He’s only been here for a couple weeks, after all. He is doing rather well, all things considered.” I turned. Noslen stood with us. “Hello, Abalonious.”
“Uh. Hello, sir,” I said.
“I see you’ve figured out some of SADA’s other functions. Well done. As you’ve likely guessed, there’s a ton more. Even I never discovered them all.”
“Didn’t you create the game? Wouldn’t you know everything about SADA?” I asked.
Noslen smiled. “Not at all. You see, much of the lore and constructs were procedurally generated using state-of-the-art randomizing systems. Systems, interestingly enough, which you helped design. The code which you wrote for our security algorithms were the basis for our procedural design system.”
SADA flickered to red and then back to blue and white. “Do not fill his head with ideas, Noslen. It will go to the kid’s head, and he will get cocky. Like someone else I know.”
Noslen laughed. “Perhaps. Maybe what he needs is a little more ego. And some more training.�
�� He paused for a moment, pensive. “In the mountain, you will face many challenges. There will be a ton of information in there. Some of it will be irrelevant, some lore, and some will lead you and your party to several ability and equipment upgrades. Make the right decisions when faced with tough choices. You will only get one chance, and a mistake could mean certain doom for the continent.” He paused, looking up into the darkness for a moment. “Unfortunately, I can’t stay any longer. Trust in SADA and your friends. But most of all, trust in yourself.” One second he was talking, and the next, he was just gone.
“Huh,” I said.
“Yes. He tends to do that quite frequently.”
“It’s kind of annoying.”
“Yes. Quite. Your time is about up as well.”
“SADA, are we able to communicate like this at will? Or only when I’m in Otherworld?”
“If you are lucid dreaming, you will be able to summon me. Otherwise, no. You must be here in Otherworld to communicate in a corporeal method. You can, however, cross over at any prayer stone at will, you just have to desire it. Now, wake up, you have work to do.”
“Abalonious! Abalonious! Wake up!”
“He’s not waking up! Garstil, zap him again!”
A loud crash made my ears ring, and my world exploded in pain, and I screamed. After the pain subsided, I opened my eyes. Ten people leaned over me in a circle. Thasgrin waved his hands over my chest, green energy healing the wounds caused by the lightning bolt that had just hit me.
“Are ye with us, son? Ye gave us quite the scare.”
I nodded. He helped me to my feet. I swayed for a second before catching my balance. I noticed several large chunks of gray stone lay scattered at my feet. I followed the debris to the wall, remembering I’d been thrown into it. A crater in the wall sunk in half a foot, and cracks spidered out from the center. Runes slowly leaked power, wisps of purple smoke dissipating into the air. The wall had sustained massive damage. “I should probably be dead,” I said.
“Aye. I don’ think any of us would’a survived a hit like that. The wall will likely need months to repair as well.”
“We need to go into the mountain,” I said. “I crossed over to Otherworld when I was unconscious. Noslen was there, waiting for me.”
“Aye? Well, then ye should have punched him in the face for me. Least he could do is drop in and say hi to ’is friends.”
“Uh. I don’t plan on punching any deities anytime soon.” Garstil, Sai, and Morogan laughed. I walked over to the Titan. Its exposed cables and actuators on the back of its neck had been severed with surgical precision. “Nice job, Sai. This one was a lot tougher than the first one I fought.”
Sai grinned. “It was a worthy adversary. It was my honor to dispatch it.”
I stared at the downed Titan a bit longer, “SADA, are there any usable parts on this thing?”
“Scanning.” Streams of yellow light shot out from my right bracer and traced the Titan repeatedly. “Right shoulder. Secondary subplating. Acquire phase pulse module.” A schematic of the shoulder area was projected in front of me, highlighting the piece that I needed.
Sai and Morogan helped me pry the plate off, and we found the piece SADA had referred to. I twisted it out of its socket and installed it into the appropriate module slot on the bracer. “There you go, what’s this going to do?”
“Once integrated, you will be able to fire plasma blasts from your right fist. However, power is at five percent and not charging. Seek power source.”
Thasgrin walked over. “I got ye covered there.” He reached out and touched the right bracer, and that familiar electricity jumped across from his hands. “That should do ye.”
“Power at one hundred percent. Phase cannon integrated,” said SADA.
I grinned. “Let’s test this thing then. How’s it work?”
“The same way all of your armor-derived abilities do. Simply will it to be so,” said SADA.
I pointed my hand at the giant machine in front of me, closed my fist, and willed the energy into my hand. It began to glow red. I opened my hand, and a ball of red energy leaped out and blew a small hole in the Titan’s ballistic armor plating. “Not bad. But I wonder…” I made sure no one was in front of me, just in case it worked. I willed power into my fist again, pouring more and more of the energy reserve into the attack. Red electricity began to arc up and down my right arm up to my shoulder. I released the blast. A fifteen-foot cone of red destruction bathed the Titan in annihilation. When the energy faded, all that remained was a molten pile of scrap metal in a V-shaped crater thirty feet long.
“SADA, power status?” I asked.
“Power level at forty-five percent. Not charging.”
Thasgrin smiled and topped me off again.
“I could get used to that.”
“Don’t get too used to it, laddie, I haven’a used that power in centuries. Makes a Dwarf hungry to tap into those latent energies. If ye keep this up, I’ll make ye pay for me meals.” He let out a hearty laugh.
“Deal!” I laughed as well. Clean-up crews had begun clearing the battlefield. Repair crews had started to examine the broken wall. “Let’s clean up, grab something to eat, and head into this cave. What do you say, Thasgrin? You in?”
“Aye. That I am. Someone’ll have to keep ye lads healed up.”
Quest Received: Find out what corrupted the ancient base.
18
.: An Indescribable View :.
With full stomachs and HP bars, we headed back out. The cavern was massive, excavated with the purpose of moving large equipment in and out. We carried torches as we ventured deeper. The sounds of our footsteps changed as rock gave way to gray metal plating. A massive loading bay was set into the wall at the very back of the cavern. The door was locked up tight and did not open when we approached it.
“Huh, last time I visited one of these bases, it detected my AI and opened. Maybe the corruption is affecting it?”
Thasgrin looked around the doorframe, searching for something. “I don’ think so. My father brought me here when I was a wee lad. He mentioned that the door was keyed to our bloodline. Jes’ gotta find the panel.”
“What look like?” asked Morogan.
“Square and green, if I remember right.”
We searched for a few minutes not finding anything. We were about to give up when Sai called out, “Here. I believe this is what we are searching for?”
Behind a boulder protruded a gray pedestal with a green panel on top. “Aye,” said Thasgrin. “This is it.” He placed his hand on the panel, and a beam of green light scanned his hand. The massive door began to open.
“Thasgrin open door! Break more metal mans!” exclaimed Morogan, clearly excited to wreck more robots.
The door boomed to a halt, fully open. “We’d better get moving before the welcoming committee shows up.” I looked around. “What are we looking for anyhow?”
Garstil crept forward and peeked around a corner, “Some kind of control room, I suppose.” We took a few more steps in. “Do you think we’ll be able to restore the control system?”
“I sure hope so,” I said. “According to Noslen, there’s a ton of data in here. Some of it will get us some good upgrades; some of it will help us figure out what to do next. We can’t afford to fail if we plan on moving forward.”
“What did Noslen task you to do anyhow?” asked Thasgrin.
“Essentially stop Slag and Flint and now, apparently, the necromancers. They’re working together, so now they’re all enemies.”
“Aye, always the necromancers. I wish we knew what they were up to.”
“Noslen said they were trying to take over all of Tempest. Since we can’t go back to our own land, we have to fight to save this one.” Garstil and Saiban both agreed.
“Morogan agree too. Stop deadmans.”
“Aye, quite the worthy quest then. I would be honored to join ye. Gonna be needin’ all the help ye can get.”
“You’r
e more than welcome to join us, Thasgrin. The more, the merrier. And you’re right, we’re probably in over our heads. Slag was a murderer in his past life, and he’s cunning and clever. It wouldn’t surprise me if he found a way to make an alliance with the necromancers.”
“This way,” said Thasgrin. We turned at a T-junction in a corridor and ended up in some kind of huge storage room. Shelves lined the walls, and large metal tables took up the majority of the space. Parts and tools of all sorts cluttered the work areas.
“It would seem as if whoever was here left in quite the hurry,” said Sai. “Perhaps we will find some sort of record of past events? A journal or something?”
“Let’s look around,” I said. We split up in search of clues, scouring the place top to bottom. “You guys find anything?” I asked. No one had. We looked around for a few minutes longer.
“What this?” asked Morogan, pointing at a blinking light on a console. He poked the light, and the screen came to life, showing video playback of a Dwarf wearing a lab coat.
The Dwarf in the lab coat spoke. “The virus is spreadin’ throughout the entire system! We’re not quite sure what’s causin’ it, but we can’t give up. If we don’ stop this, the Sentinels will destroy all life on this continent.” Red lights began to flash, and warning klaxons began to blare. “We have to evacuate! Everyone! Out of the lab!”
The screen went dark.
“Kronek,” growled Thasgrin, and every bone in his fists popped. “What happened to ye, brother?”
I looked around the lab again. “At least that explains why everything was just left everywhere.” I turned to Thasgrin, “That was your brother?”
“Aye, I haven’a seen him for a very long time. I don’ even know if he’s still alive.”
Legend of the Sword Bearer: Tempest Chronicles Book 1 Page 17