by Jeff Sproul
There were no other paragon-centric structures around. According to Gella, it was likely that Golem had absorbed them for materials and only cared about the gate itself. However, there were Golem-looking structures near the gate, roughly fifteen or so feet away. The black and oily structures were like giant circular swimming pools. Riley wasn't sure what they were exactly, but he supposed that they might store materials for the gate itself, if Gella's information was true.
Aaron led them around the cavern, hugging the right wall so that they were curving around the room and out of the way of all the troops coming in from both the gate itself, and the portal spiders. Riley was in the back still and could only follow, but he knew that Aaron had to be looking for the best direct route to the gate, which would keep Golem's forces from stepping into the invisibility field and discovering them. This meant going the whole way around the room and approaching the gate from behind. It was a slow process, but also the safest.
As they moved, Riley noticed creatures around the room that he hadn't seen before, strange forms that were hard to compare to things he knew. One was like some kind of fish and octopus. Another was like a horse crossed with an eagle, but it resembled more of a lizard than anything. The forms he saw were hard to describe. It was as if Golem had a nearly limitless method of combining creatures, and it was fusing things together just for the sake of testing them. It was strange to think that even in this heated conflict to get rid of Golem completely, it might still imagine that it was utterly safe and that it could continue to test new creations out.
Some of the creature-fusions headed up into the passageway along with the regular ground forces. As Riley watched them, he knew that regardless of how well their forces were holding out, Golem would eventually gain the upper hand. It was able to adapt to the situation and create what it needed.
Once they had gotten around to the back of the room, Riley could see that the back side of the portal was a static blue field. It wasn't clear and window-like, as the other side was. This meant that they could only go through by going around it. Aaron surely noticed this as well as he finally led the trio toward the gate. They passed several nests as they went, but new soldiers were going around the sides of the portal and weren't likely to come into their field.
Riley was on edge. They were nearing the gate. Then, they were right behind it. The 'wrong' side of the portal was beside them as the gate itself towered over them. At this point, Aaron turned around.
"What's the plan?" he asked.
Glint looked between Riley and Aaron.
"The moment we leave a bomb out in view, Golem's going to know something is up. We might have a couple seconds, optimistically. So how about this, you place your bomb on the right edge of the gate. You set your timer and once it's set, Glint teleports away and we walk through the portal. You pop your sphere and smash anything that gets close and hopefully the other gate is nearby. I didn't see it through the portal, but I could barely make out anything."
"Before I leave you both to die, you are sure that the second gate is nearby once you go through it, right?" Glint asked with concern in her voice.
Riley nodded. "Gella had some friends of hers in Mage World check the gate site. It currently has a portal that matches the description of this one here. So they're both in the same location."
"Alright, alright," said Glint. "Let's finish this up."
Riley and Aaron exchanged a look. Aaron nodded.
"After you," Riley prompted Aaron.
Aaron turned and slowly made his way around the gate, with Glint and Riley on his heels. They kept an eye out to make sure that no Golem soldiers were going to bump into them as they stood just behind the right side of the gate. Aaron unharnessed himself from the bomb and set it down. He tapped it once, then tapped at a screen a few more times, setting the timer.
"Ten seconds?" he asked.
"Should be enough," Riley replied.
"It's set," said Aaron. "I'll activate the timer when we're good."
At this point, it was only a few feet for them to walk around and slip through the front of the portal.
"Alright boys. Good luck. I'll count you down," said Glint as she went into her inventory and retrieved a transportation cube. It had been a long while since Riley had last seen one. "Three…two…one." Glint's hand crushed the cube and at the same moment, Aaron pressed the button on the bomb and crushed his own tier three sphere in his hand.
The silvery field around them vanished.
Aaron took on the pale chitinous form of the Weevil.
Glint was gone in a flash of light and Aaron was already turned and running around the side of the gate with Riley right behind him.
Aaron went through the portal and became distorted as Riley went right after him. It was like going through the surface of water. New visuals rushed in around him. His vision darkened. He stumbled. He felt himself falling forward.
Then, something grabbed him. His body shook.
"Riley! Don't do this now!" came Aaron's voice.
The fog in Riley's vision cleared. Visuals returned to him. He blinked the haze away and saw Aaron there, gripping the front of his harness with that white, chitinous hand.
"I'm good!" Riley said, just as several Golem soldiers closed in on them. Apparently he still had issues with portals. He had just hoped it wouldn't be too bad. Luckily Aaron was there to catch him. It had only lasted a couple seconds, but each one was vital.
Aaron punched and swiped at Golem's troops, knocking them away as Riley regained his senses. He immediately created a copy of himself using Laura's power. Then another and another. He produced nine of them, and as each one formed, they triggered the second power set that Riley had taken, which, as per usual, was Amber's. His copies created large, rounded gel shields with spikes jutting out from them. His nine duplicates used them to batter and smash enemies away from them. They didn't have to kill them, they just had to survive a little longer.
Riley directed his duplicates to protect them and engage only the closest of Golem's forces.
A moment later, there was an incredibly bright flash on the other side of the portal. Then, the portal fizzled and vanished.
"One down!" Riley said as he looked around, trying to take account of their surroundings.
"Over there!" Aaron directed, pointing to the right of them as he then attacked several more nearby Golem soldiers.
Riley was already in a panic, even as he tried to take in his surroundings. He kept his duplicates in escort mode as he ran after Aaron, who was headed toward a white, shimmering portal maybe a hundred feet away. It wasn't too far, but it also didn't feel that close.
The area was covered in sludge. There were nests and pools and spires as far as the eye could see. It was a wasteland of Golem. The only thing that wasn't exclusively Golem was the white portal they were headed toward.
Aaron led the charge as fast as he could go through the sludge. He couldn't jump, both because the sludge limited it, and because he couldn't leave Riley behind. Aaron smashed and deflected dozens of Golem soldiers as Riley's own clones dealt with the rest around him. They thrust like a spear toward the white portal. Fifty feet. Thirty. Twenty. Ten. Then, they were upon it, but Golem's soldiers were surrounding them in great numbers.
Riley wasted no time in removing the bomb. He was a mere foot from the portal's surface, but the stone of the gate had a base he could set the bomb on and ensure hitting it with the small-area blast. "Can you interface with the gate?" Riley asked.
Aaron was directly behind him, smashing away enemies. One of Riley's clones dematerialized.
"No time!" came Aaron's sharp reply.
"Three seconds!" Riley said as he tapped at the holographic screen for the bomb. "Go!" he called, as he hit the 'activate' button to trigger the countdown.
Another of his duplicates burst into particles. Then another. And another.
Aaron smashed away the closest Golem soldier and then turned around a second after Riley said “Go.”
>
Riley felt Aaron's hand on his back, pushing him forward into the portal as he came up beside him. The two went through the white portal, vanishing from Mage World Online.
Epilogue
On one of the televisions in SHO Cafe, a news segment was discussing the recent affairs in Sigil Online. On the screen was the notable face of Warcry, being interviewed by an in-game reporter who was transmitting the feed live.
The male reporter had a mic in his hand, even though it was perhaps a little silly since it was just a prop.
"So what happened next?" the young, dark-haired reporter asked.
"Well, when the stream of enemies stopped pouring out, we mopped up what was in the area," said Warcry. "I can only hope that Relinquisher and Arbiter managed to nullify the gate in Mage World Online as well. We haven't heard from them since."
"We've confirmed a report that the other gate in Mage World Online has also been destroyed," said the reporter. "Is it safe then to assume that Golem has been stopped?"
Warcry looked around, then back to the reporter. "No. We still have to clean it from Sigil Online. There's a lot of work ahead of us, but we've stopped it from gaining an unstoppable foothold. All of Sigil Online needs to come together to clean every last trace of Golem, else we still risk the prospect of what happened to Mage World Online. There are still forces at work that will try to hinder this objective. Most notably, The Goldbearers, who came here from Mage World with the sole intent of aiding Golem and reaping profits from killing players and selling their stuff on the market. So no, absolutely not. Golem hasn't been stopped, but now we have a good chance of actually stopping it, which was impossible until we took out both gates."
"And what is The Rook Alliance going to do to help bring about the true end of Golem in Sigil Online?" the reporter asked.
Warcry crossed her arms. "Well, I'm not really going to divulge our strategies to everyone out there watching. But I will say one thing that's high on our agenda." She then turned and looked right into the camera. "There's a gold diamond ship out there, and we're coming to destroy it and anyone who aligns with the players on board."
Seated in a booth in the corner of the cafe, Aaron dipped his spoon into a banana split. "You know, I think that went really well. It was kinda cool fighting all those enemies, just the two of us. The whole game world at stake. While we didn't single-handedly save Sigil, we also kinda did.”
Riley stared down at his chocolate milkshake, then slowly looked up at Aaron. "What do you mean it went well," he growled. "We got teleported to a whole different game that isn't Sigil Online!"
Aaron shrugged. "Yeah, yeah, but…we have a whole new game ahead of us, right? From what I can tell, it's some sort of space game."
Riley lifted a brow at Aaron. "A space game? I didn't see what game we were coming out of when we logged off."
"Yeah, that's one of the new changes when everything went to the Celenion Framework. There's no logo anymore for the game you're in. You just make a character, pick a game, and everything is centered around your character."
"So we have no idea where we are, but it’s a space game. There's a few out there," Riley sighed.
"Yeah, but maybe we got into the new one?" Aaron said, pointing his spoon at Riley. "Speaking of which. Since things are…you know, a bit uncertain for the both of us now financially, do you want to maybe get an apartment together so we can split costs? It’d help us save what we both have left."
Riley thought about it a moment, tilting his head one way, then the other. "My lease is coming up. So I guess that would work out on my end." Riley's brows then lifted as he looked at Aaron. "You said you sold off all your stuff, right? Before we left?"
Aaron nodded. "Sure did. I completely converted to global dollars from the Sigil credits I had."
"I did the same as well, realizing things were getting bad at the time with Golem. So I'm in a decent enough position for a few months."
"Well, I'm sure you're going to last a few more months than that," Aaron said as he took a bite of ice cream.
"How so?" Riley questioned.
Aaron swallowed the bite of ice cream and looked at his friend. "Because those wallets you gave me to decrypt actually had 7,327 dollars worth of Sigil credits, which I took the liberty of cashing out when I cashed all of my stuff out as well."
Riley's jaw dropped. He blinked a few times, then smiled. With a slow, steady nod, he smirked even more and then took a sip of his chocolate milkshake. Maybe things were going to work out after all.
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If you enjoyed this story, you might also like:
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About the Author
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Jeff Sproul is a writer living in a small cabin in Alabama. It’s quiet, peaceful, but there’s a lot of bugs. When he’s not squishing bugs and spiders, he enjoys a frozen pizza on the weekends and a daily two cups of coffee for his sanity.
Jeff Sproul has been writing stories for over ten years. Some of his favorite scifi and fantasy works are Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, Starship Troopers, Warhammer 40k and various anime (which would be far too long to list.)