The Highlord hissed and cursed as he sought distance, glaring at John as blood spurted from his wrist.
John hurriedly threw off his shield as the blood gushing from his own wound clotted over completely and began to heal in the handful of seconds Highlord Rojan glared at an always moving, always circling John, Rojan’s own injury dripping a steady stream of blood upon the grass by his feet.
John snarled, throwing another bur his foe’s way. “Sanguine—” Spell disrupted! Ego Attack disrupts spell! Save versus backlash made! Save versus Crushing Despair made! You have suffered another 30 damage to health and 0 to Psion. 30 Mana wasted.
It looks like your foe is no fool after all! Perhaps he has butchered wizards before? Certainly he plans on butchering you!
Of course, you have an edge he wasn’t counting on, don’t you, John?
Mocking laughter filled the air. “Fool. Did you really think I’d let you get off another spell? You won’t be the first Southern rebel mage daring to invade my lands that I’ve lawfully and justly cut down. And as far as the local inquisitorial chapter will be concerned, that’s all you will be!”
His enemy’s gloating smirk turned to a calculating frown. “With the wounds to body and psyche you’ve received, you should be on your knees.”
John smirked even as he felt the steady flood of power trickling into his veins from the trapped men still struggling like fools against the bronze vines. Men which Rojan had done absolutely nothing to help as they bled out from dozens of wounds, most especially their feet. And a full 20% of their lost health was flooding into John, thanks to the vampiric effects of those vines.
Rojan's eyes widened as John took advantage of the momentary pause in battle to leap back and unsheathe his kriegsmesser in a single coordinated movement. The Highlord snarled as he desperately changed hands with his saber and buckler while John readied his killing blade.
Rojan chuckled in sudden relief as the night rang with blaster fire, though John always seemed to shift position before any foe could draw a bead on him a second time.
“It’s too late, Farreach bastard! My men will soon have you surrounded, and then you will be mine!”
John gave a cold shake of his head, knowing he was about to embrace a course of action from which there could be no turning back.
“I don’t think so,” he said, lashing out with his mind as he charged forward with a roar, putting every ounce of power and potency he could into a strike so tight, so focused, it was like a serrated blade tearing through cloth.
You have successfully boosted Mindblade! +3 Vs Indomitable Will! You have partially pierced your foe’s defenses! 40 Health / 10 Psion / 10 Fatigue damage inflicted!
Congratulations! Mindblade is now Rank 2!
Rojan seemed more shocked by John’s actual ability to launch a psionic attack and pierce his defenses than by the damage itself.
A fatal mistake.
“How did you? But… no!” he screamed, but it was already too late.
John was already pivoting his hips, projecting his weight forward, using his recently enhanced speed, strength, and coordination to lash out with devastating force, the false edge of his hybrid kriegsmesser streaking through the air in a vicious Schielhau strike, Rojan’s sword sent flying as the wicked clip-back point slammed into the oversized buckler the panicked Highlord had desperately raised to counter, John moving far too quickly for the man to backpedal out of range.
The skull-cleaving power of John’s blow smashed the Elementium shield against Rojan’s head so hard that the man collapsed to the ground, frothing at the mouth and spasming, the now crushed hand caught between the buckler and his head all that had prevented John from caving in the man’s skull completely.
John squeezed the hilt of his blade all the tighter, heart hammering with the dark exhilaration of fighting for his life, feeling all previous reservations burn away as he pivoted around, glaring back at the men still firing their blasters his way.
Men he would be all too happy to cut down.
“Cease your fire! Cease your fire!” shouted none other than the desperate captain, still entangled in deadly vines of bronze. “The honorable duel between Highlords for the rights to Farreach Holdings is at an end!”
The approaching handful of soldiers racing for their location suddenly slowed their pace, lowering their weapons.
John blinked as the captain's terrified, pain-filled gaze met his own. "Honorable Highlord… Johnathan Farreach? I do believe there has been a terrible misunderstanding. Please forgive our horrid mistake in believing you were somehow involved with rebel incursions or any invading force. I see now that your offer of challenge was honored and accepted, and your victory in combat proves the legitimacy of your family's claim to these lands, which I shall be all too happy to express to the local court still unwinding the intricacies of these..." the man groaned, struggling to speak coherently while trapped and tormented in vines of sharpened bronze. “These unfortunate political misunderstandings.”
The man collapsed to the ground, as did the soldiers beside him, sobbing with relief and groaning with pain as John dispelled the bronze vines, the grass soft and springy once more. He caught the captain’s grateful gaze, flashes of his wife and children flooding his eyes that John couldn’t help but pick up on, instantly quelling the last of his fearsome battle lust.
Still, it was some moments before John could force himself to speak, swallowing back his rage.
“Then I shall forgive the misunderstanding. It is good that you bore witness to the outcome of this… duel between Highlords, my triumph vindicating my clan’s Claimance upon these ancestral lands. And our battle, as you said, followed the Accords, yes?”
“Yes, my lord!” said the captain, tears streaming down his cheeks as several hastily arriving soldiers put on what looked like emergency strips of self-sealing gauze upon his devastated feet, leaving behind a number of shorn off toes, as they did for the other soldiers that had been caught beside him. John heard one soldier hollering desperately for the doctor to come with all haste as they then tended to the groaning Highlord, which basically meant staring at the man, the soldiers too terrified to do anything as he continued to seize and froth at the mouth.
“Yes! The accords have been honored. You have full Claimance upon these lands." He licked desperate lips. "And should you spare the Highlord's life, his clan will seek no blood price, and he will be honor-bound to oppose your claim, and you, no further."
John jerked a nod. “Fine. I accept. I have Claimance upon these lands, and my first order is for all men to stop firing or otherwise hindering my brother and everyone else who jumped through the gate!”
The man turned to one of the soldiers tending to him. “Jorgenson! Inform the men that the misunderstanding has been adjudicated! There are no invaders here! The individuals barricaded in the heart of the complex are our guests. Is that understood? They are our guests! Have the men stand down and convey the message to our guests immediately!”
The soldier before him immediately paled, snapping to attention and dashing back to the complex. But John was hardly paying attention, feeling a cold shiver in his mind, as if he had just moved his piece forward in a game whose rules were utterly alien, and the consequences of defeat more horrific than he could possibly imagine.
John winced, carefully paying no heed to the light now blinking away in his mind's eye, instead sprinting for the complex as fast as his feet could take him. He sensed only fear and confusion from the soldiers and scientists within the compound when he arrived moments later, racing along tiled corridors in a building that could have passed muster for any high-end research facility back on Earth, were it not for the archaic-looking computer banks, complete with open reel tape drives and rows of multicolored lights blinking merrily away wherever he looked.
He could only pray he would get to his brother in time.
21
His heart was pounding by the time he reached the reinforced steel door sealing off t
he jump gate.
“Mitch. Are you there? It’s me, John!”
He clenched his fists anxiously in the painful silence.
“I did my best to inform our guests that the misunderstanding had been rectified. I swear, Lord Farreach,” assured a breathless man with wispy blond hair and frightened silver eyes in a blue servant’s uniform. His psyche was an open book to John’s increasingly sensitive mind. He was desperately hoping John wouldn’t cut him down out of hand, wondering what his husband and their adopted daughters would think when news of his decapitated corpse made its way through the grapevine, terrified that all the rumors about half-mad Terrans were true. The thought of an Earthling with a Highlord’s power was beyond horrifying. And the boy was so young. How did they get so powerful, so young? Angel’s mercy, was the boy peering into his thoughts even now? Oh, he was as good as dead.
The man immediately crumpled to the ground, a sobbing heap. “Please, my lord. Don’t kill me. I beg of you!”
John frowned, suddenly feeling extremely uncomfortable. “I’m not going to kill you for your thoughts. Just go, please.” The man’s eyes widened with relief… and horror. He blinked rapidly, blubbered breathlessly, and dashed away as fast as his feet could take him.
John grimaced, promising himself he wouldn’t touch his friend’s minds without their permission. But he couldn’t help sensing the anxious terror wafting through the door. Sense? He smelled it, his Hunter’s Sense was still active.
“Mitch! We used to play paintball in Newhope Park, and you always got the drop on us by climbing up the trees, scurrying like a monkey through them before dropping behind our lines so we never knew your secret till you told me that day at the diner. It’s me! Or a clone of me, whatever the hell I am. So for fuck’s sake, open the door!”
“John? Thank fucking God it’s you! Hold on a sec…. Oh fuck, fuck! Tell the central hub to shut down the gate, shut down the gate!” Mitch screamed.
Heart pounding, John turned to the soldiers and scientists gazing at him so damn intently.
“You heard him, shut down the gate!” John ordered.
“Yes, sir! At once!” cried out the nearest pair of scientists, if their white lab coats were anything to go by, immediately dashing for the room across the hallway. And the moment John sensed the magnetic lock unseal in the room ahead…
You could control it all yourself with a thought, Johnny-boy. All you have to do is open that metaphoric interface we both now is blinking away inside your mind.
Can’t hide forever, Contender!
John sprang into the room, two-hander at the ready, his eyes taking in everything in a heartbeat.
A brightly lit massive room void of all furniture save the crackling gate and his friends, looking as stunned as anyone would after finding themselves caught between worlds, with enemies on all sides.
Carl, former captain of the football team, was wearing a chain mail hauberk over a quilted gambeson with a steel skullcap, and John saw no trace of any weapon on his person, just eyes gazing at the world around him with wonder, terror, and dazed confusion. Just as tall and powerfully built as John remembered, yet for some reason he was staring back at John with awed disbelief.
“Jeezus, John, is that you? How much iron have you been pumping?”
Emily was there as well, also wearing gambeson and mail, though no helm covered her flowing blonde tresses, flawless features gazing at the world around her in fear and wonder both. Despite all that had happened, her striking beauty still left John speechless. Soft crimson lips widened in an oh of surprise before transforming into a joyous smile that sent his heart racing. It was all he could do not to fall under the spell of those entrancing violet eyes. “Oh my God, John, you’re alive!”
John blinked, caught off guard, suddenly finding himself juggling greatsword and sobbing girl as Emily crashed into his arms, sobbing her heart out. “I thought we were dead. I swear to God, I thought we were all dead!” Horrified eyes locked with his own. “They’re trying to kill us, John. All of us!”
“Wait, who’s trying to kill you?”
“John, no time!” Mitch snapped, a frightened-looking Lucy by his side, silky dark hair tied into a tight bun, her expressive almond eyes gazing into John’s own with something close to awe.
John couldn’t help smiling ruefully at his best friend in the entire world. Or at least, that was how he had thought of him until just a handful of days ago, far too brief a time for old habits and feelings to completely fade away.
His brother flashed a quick, roguish smile in turn. “It’s damn good to see you, John. But if we don’t close that gate...”
John caught sight of the room just beyond the crackling frame of shimmering alloys his Magesight immediately pinged as containing Elementium and other exotic substances he had no name for. Though he could tell that the field shimmering within the frame was as much incredible high tech as it was magical, giving everything beyond a hazy blue cast. He saw a massive reinforced steel door at the end of the room beyond, at that very moment being forced open to reveal a flood of soldiers armed more like a US SWAT team than Jordian Dominion troopers. But the Highlord among them, with his glaring crimson eyes and a crackling blade of absolute darkness held before him, was very much in keeping with John’s impression of inquisitorial Highlords, as seen in the minds of so many soldiers and scientists.
The giant of a man roared something, but sound didn’t cross the barrier, only light waves, it seemed. When he raced for the gate, his intent was clear enough.
And the scientists still hadn’t turned the thing off!
John’s eyes widened, desperately looking for something, anything, that could stop the giant with the Psi-blade that could cut through reality itself, if the Readit rumors had any truth to them.
He glared at the portal frame, preparing to strike it. - But hadn’t he read that the portal devices themselves were near indestructible unless you used a Psiblade to cut it, at least when it was active?
Mitch’s face paled. “Fuck, John, we’re out of options. Run!”
Then John’s eyes fell on what was next to the portal, even as the Psiblade seemed to tear through existence itself as the Highlord forced himself through the gate.
“John!”
His friends had already fled, and John did the only thing he could.
He chopped down with his blade in as fierce an Oberhau blow as he had ever struck, cleaving through the massive power cord and feeling a glorious rush of exultation, or perhaps it was current, when he caught the startled gaze of the Highlord forcing his way through the now inert portal. He had just been cut in half, spraying innards everywhere as the front half of his head and body collapsed in a shower of blood.
John’s surge of triumph was nearly equal to his agony as he was flung across the room, jolted by energies far more vicious than any ever to shock him before.
Insight gained! You don’t need to kill the gate, just the power!
You have suffered 100 damage and a Critical Wound! Save versus sudden death made! (+4 for Hybrid Constitution. It takes a lot to stop your ticker!) Save versus unconsciousness failed! Maybe cutting cords conducting alien energies with a metal blade wasn’t the wisest idea? Though it certainly beats death by Psiblade! You’re out for the count, John. Let’s hope you’re still you when you wake up!
You have killed a highly ranked Terran Inquisitor far beyond your power level! Experience earned!
You have completed the hidden quest: My Brother’s Keeper Part I! Sure, he was a manipulative ass who helped clone you and set you up countless times before, but he’s still your brother and you did take a shine to him those endless summers (years?) he spent training you. Or one of your clones. Either way, blood is blood, and fraternal bonds are to be honored and revered. Unless, of course, you’re Mitch. Experience earned!
Bonus experience for saving several of your classmates. A portion of their quantized potential is now forever your own!
You have completed the hidden ques
t: Lost Heir, and have reclaimed your ancestral lands, staking your claim upon the Board of Jordia. Expect a future visit from the nearest Justiciar, anxious to greet the latest Contender who dares to walk the Path of Kings. Experience earned!
John blinked, sensing how perilously close his shimmering blue experience bar was to cresting level 6 already.
Good luck surviving the succession!
Even in his dazed state, John’s eyes widened in alarm at those words.
He could all but sense that blinking button glaring all the brighter in that odd state between sleep and wakefulness, somehow knowing that the moment he touched it, an odd probability wave would collapse like endlessly rattling dice finally coming to a stop, and he would instantly have to choose his fate.
And goddamn did he hate the idea of rolling snake-eyes.
He yanked his metaphoric hands behind his back.
“No. No way in hell I’m playing that game!”
He winced as darkness turned to sudden brilliant light, then opened his eyes in wonder, heart in throat as Agneta’s crystal blue gaze met his own. She flashed a teasing smile, holding a globe of golden light in one hand, and a silver token he somehow just knew represented himself in the other.
John couldn’t help but be struck anew by her beauty, her golden curls blowing in the breeze racing across the lush green hills they found themselves upon, rich with the scents of wildflowers and lotus blossoms, offering a spectacular view of the mystical lands all around them. Picturesque as his surroundings were, John found his gaze inexorably drawn to the obsidian board Agneta was now gazing so keenly upon.
Her token-holding hand hovered over a massive checkered board filled with brilliant pieces she had laid upon the grass. John felt a chill when he spotted a piece flickering like living flame at one end of the board, and a piece surrounded by darkest gloom upon the other.
“Are you sure you don’t want to walk that path, John? It’s the path lesser gods once strode as mortals, before becoming legendary powers themselves.” She gazed up at the wondrous living world that was both a moon and a goddess, looking so very much like Earth, clearly visible even in the daytime skies of their shared dream.
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