by M B Reid
In the moments before joining the fray he noticed two things.
First, the bleeding icon had abandoned his HUD, indicating that it had timed out.
Secondly, there was a blur of shadows as someone Azoth didn’t recognised joined the fray.
In the split second he had to make a decision, Azoth decided to continue with his current course. Rudy had struck down one of the three skeletons. He seemed to be unable to defend himself from Logan and Trent’s attacks whilst also dealing out damage. If Azoth could add his own onslaught, they might be able to finish Rudy off.
Once and for all.
Azoth unleashed everything he had. Tendrils of bone flashed from both wrists, lashing at Rudy’s chest like striking vipers. His scimitar was caught by a twirling dagger, the blow being redirected into one of Logan’s skeletons. Azoth watched in horror as his own blade cleaved one of the minions in half. He’d been in the battle for all of two seconds and he’d already weakened their position.
Trent grunted, a deep animal sound. It took Azoth a second to see the dagger buried in his side, Rudy’s second weapon already moving for a killing blow. Azoth threw his scimitar, the blade arcing through the air. It stuck point-first into Rudy’s arm, the blade carving through tendons as it halted the attack.
The shadowy figure Azoth had seen chose that moment to strike.
They seemed to step through shadows, somehow slipping through the skeleton to Azoth’s right. He watched the figure step behind Rudy, two daggers flashing in the firelight. Rudy twisted, somehow aware of the impending danger despite everything else that was going on. One dagger missed its mark, sparks flying as it deflected off the dark armour.
The other found its home. It punched through the thick plate and buried itself to the hilt in Rudy’s spine.
Trent made one final effort, his glaive carving into Rudy from the front. He coughed blood into Rudy’s face as the knife buried in his side was twisted.
Azoth leapt forward, using his shield as a battering ram to clobber Rudy. Azoth tackled him to the ground as Rudy screamed in a language he couldn’t understand. It reminded him of the horrid backwards-words that the rat king had spoken. But Rudy couldn’t speak with the magical weight the original abomination had wielded.
Azoth started punching Rudy, and as he did so the ice in his heart melted away. In moments it was replaced by the blind burning fury that had served Azoth so well in combat. The world tunnelled away until nothing existed except for Azoth’s gloved fists and the back of Rudy’s skull.
On the third punch he felt something give way in his right hand, a broken finger perhaps, but it didn’t slow him. His assault continued until Rudy’s head was nothing but a bloody pulp on the cobblestones.
They’d done it. The threat was dead.
Still, the rage didn’t recede. Azoth rose to his feet and looked for the next victim to fight.
“Who the hell are you?” He demanded, stepping towards the shadowy figure that had joined the combat at the last moment. Their hood had fallen away during the fight, revealing long red hair. Treacherous red. Azoth lashed out with a bloody fist. He’d seen hair like that on only one person, and his rage was demanding that he killed her.
She’d tried to have him killed!
His fist caught Voria by surprise, knocking her to the ground. One dagger clattered out of her grip. The other was still embedded in Rudy’s spine. Azoth fell upon her, pinning her arms to the ground with his knees. Fury burned in his eyes as he took his first swing.
His punch made her head bounce off the cobblestones, and something clicked inside Azoth. His fury demanded he punch her again, and so he did. Underneath it all though, almost as a subconscious thought, he realised that he was out of control. Voria had just helped them kill Rudy, she’d risked her life to help him put the old guard captain out of his misery. The rational part of his mind realised that she was changed. There was something more to her. Something was very different.
And yet he couldn’t stop himself. He saw red, blood, her hair.
He punched her again, screaming at her. Calling her a murderer, a monster. The irony of the situation was lost on him. That subconscious part of his mind became aware of Logan shouting his name, of people moving around him, but he couldn’t reclaim control of his body. He was a conduit for the rage, and it wanted Voria dead. Strong arms grabbed him, hauling Azoth to his feet. Dragging him away from her wounded form.
“That’s enough” Logan screamed, his skeletal fingers digging into Azoth’s flesh. He manoeuvred himself between Azoth and Voria. If Trent hadn’t been pinning his arms to his side, Azoth would have punched his friend.
Finally, Logan’s words wormed their way through the haze of fury.
“It’s over. We won.”
Like the tide receding, the rage began to ebb away. It started with his vision. The tunnel of red washed out, giving Azoth a full view of the world. Fires raged around them. Guards stared at him as if he were some sort of monster, and the nerve of that made him want to pummel them to a pulp as well. Then the need to punch things slowly eased away.
Finally, the fire that filled his veins faded.
Azoth took a deep breath, returning to normal.
With the fight finally over, Azoth turned to his fallen friends. Logan was already tending to the Old Man, covering him with a blanket he’d found somewhere. Azoth retrieved his scimitar and, with his strength buff returned, hoisted Trent over his shoulder. The hunters breathing came in slow ragged gasps, spurting blood with each exhalation. Rudy must have punctured a lung. Azoth carried him toward Logan and the Old Man’s body, laying him down away from the battle.
“Get the priestess!” He ordered, glaring at the guards staring him down. They were standing in a rough semicircle around the carnage, and none of them seemed to know whether to help him or arrest him. Azoth remembered a snippet of advice from a first aid course he’d attended once. You had to single out a person, otherwise everyone would assume someone else was doing it. He raised a bloody fist and pointed to a guard at random, a young guy with a wispy moustache.
“You, go and get the priestess!”
The guard turned and ran, efficient now he had his orders. Azoth turned his attention to Trent’s injuries. It only took a moment to determine they were beyond his skills. All he could do was hope that the priestess arrived shortly.
Except… he was in a video game.
“Who has a healing potion?” He demanded, returning his attention to the guards. One man glanced side to side at his companions and Azoth singled him out. He stomped towards the man.
“Hand it over. This man just saved your damn city, you’re going to save his life.”
The guards lip trembled as he looked at the others around him in turn. None of them would meet his gaze.
“Give him the damn potion” An old guard finally grumbled. In moments a small red vial had appeared in Azoth’s outstretched hands. It was clear the guards weren’t going to do anything more.
Azoth returned to Trent’s side. He held Trent’s head up with one hand and emptied the vial into his mouth. The game magic seemed to kick in within seconds. Trent coughed once more, clearing the fluid from his lungs, then looked up at Azoth with vitality burning in his eyes.
“Thought we’d lost you there” Azoth grinned.
“I’ll be fine. I just need a break. What about -” Trent trailed off as he spotted the shape of the Old Man beneath the blanket “- damn it”.
“I’m sorry” Azoth said, and he realised he meant it. These men had treated him well. Hell, they’d saved his life. His only life.
“He went out the way he wanted to”
“Yeah? It was a hell of a fight.” Azoth agreed.
The two men shared a look. An understanding.
“We’ll see to him, don’t worry about that.” Azoth promised.
Sure that Trent was now a few steps removed from death's door, Azoth returned to the scene of the crime. Rudy’s ruined body lay face down in the muck.
Everyone watched as he stood and raised the stone to his eye level. It was the size of an egg, and almost the same shape. He glanced at Logan, who was staring back with the closest approximation a skull could make of confusion.
“What are you doing?” Logan asked.
“Huh?”
“You’re not holding anything” Logan said, taking a slow step forward. Azoth felt a flash of anger at the way his friend said that, as if Logan was trying to negotiate with a mental patient.
“What?” He growled, the flash of anger reaching his voice. He held the stone out so Logan could get a better view.
“Dude, there’s nothing there. It’s still in his chest.” Logan crouched down, and groped at the hole in Rudy’s chest. He straightened up, cupping his empty palm as if he were holding something.
“See?”
“Are you fucking with me?” Azoth snapped.
“Wait, you can’t see it?”
Azoth fought back the urge to yell at Logan. Whatever joke he was trying to make wasn’t landing. He was suddenly aware of movement behind him, and his free hand settled back on the hilt of his scimitar. If the guards thought now was the time to try and apprehend him they had another thought coming. When he turned he saw that it was Voria, limping closer to see what they were arguing about. She seemed to have recovered from the beating he’d given her, but he felt a pang of guilt nonetheless. He really should apologise. On the other hand, she had tried to kill him.
Scattered thoughts clicked into place. When he’d been punching her, his subconscious had been trying to tell him something about her had changed. Now, as she limped toward him, he saw what was different. She was dead, just like him and Logan.
A sudden burst of light flashed nearby, causing everyone to jump. By the time they’d settled, everyone had identified the light as the in-game helper, Jira. The orb of light flitted closer to Azoth, circling his head and sharing secrets. After she was done she popped out of existence, not waiting for him to respond.
“You’re kidding” Azoth groaned.
“What?”
“You know in old MMOs, where quest items spawned for all players instead of just one?” Azoth began.
Voria gasped. Both Logan and Azoth turned to stare at her. Azoth should have found it funny, but the situation was far too serious for joking.
“I - sorry, go on.”
“Uh, well. This is a stone of Animasto.” Azoth said, invoking the name of the magical items that could grant freedom from the game.
“Shit” Was all Logan could manage. He peered at the invisible item in his hand.
The three players looked at each other, reality setting in. They could all pick up the stone. That meant escaping from the game wasn’t as simple as someone gathering three stones. To escape this god forsaken game, everyone had to gather three stones for themselves. They’d been wasting their time hiding away here hoping someone else would save them from their predicament. All this time, they were the only ones that could save themselves. Had the game placed a stone into their path to show them this?
Azoth struggled against the urge to punch something as he reined in his anger.
Voria looked to Azoth and Logan, her pleading gaze seeking permission to pick up her instance of the stone. At Logan’s nod she swiftly gathered the stone and retrieved her dagger from the dead man's spine. She slipped the dagger into its sheath, careful not to appear threatening. Azoth fingered the pommel of his scimitar, he’d been prepared to cut her down if she made a move against them. He hadn’t really expected her to do anything though. Now that they knew the real deal of this godforsaken game he felt a sudden kinship with her. They had to get themselves out of this mess. That would require coordination.
“So what happens now?” Voria asked.
Chapter Twenty-One
“This is bullshit” Azoth roared, throwing a door across the dank little room of the dungeon. It had been a few hours since they’d killed Rudy, and the sun was due to rise at any moment. Yet here he was, hiding in the shitty subterranean cavern that he’d been avoiding since they first joined the game. The anger coursing through his veins carried dark thoughts to his brain. He should walk back into that waste of a city and kill everyone who stood against him.
The guards weren’t capable of protecting the city against someone like Rudy, they sure as hell wouldn’t stand against him and Logan. If they added Voria and Trent to the mix they’d be able to claim the city in a day. Azoth glanced around the room. Logan was in one corner, carefully positioned out of the way of Azoth’s rage. Voria was presumably still standing outside the entrance to the dungeon. She hadn’t trusted them enough to follow them into the underground bunker, and he couldn’t blame her for that. Trent was out there with her, standing watch over the last embers of the Old Man’s funeral pyre.
“Yeah, it is. But now we know about the stones we can’t stay here anyway.” Logan pointed out. His voice was calm, almost as if he were carefully forming every syllable. As if he were worried about setting Azoth off again. That niggled at the back of Azoth’s mind, festering with the anger coursing through him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He grumbled. It took a conscious effort not to growl.
“If we need to get the stones for ourselves we need to go and find them. Hell, we’re a third of the way there. Once we find a few more we get to go home. Away from this hell-hole. Back to my family.” The way Logan said those last few words cracked through the anger fuelling Azoth. His rational mind took over again.
“Sorry man, I don’t know what’s been getting to me.” Azoth apologised, “It’s like everything that happens is infuriating. Absolutely everything.”
“It’s the rage” A woman's voice said from behind them. Voria stood on the bottom step of the staircase leading to the surface. She was shrouded in shadows, and looked ready to turn and run at a moments notice.
“Huh?”
“That rage buff you use in combat. It sort of, I dunno, burrows into you? I was dealing with it ever since I rolled up this new character. But it seems to be gone now, something about becoming undead I think.”
Azoth pondered this for a moment. It certainly felt like an after-image of the focus he’d had when raging in combat. Was the buff really going to change his personality? More worryingly, would it be permanent? He didn’t want that kind of fury following him back to the real world.
“You used it?” He asked. Voria studied her feet for a long moment before replying.
“It was good at first. I rolled up this character back before the patch got deployed, and it didn’t cause any problems. Made me more effective in combat and that was all. But when the new patch went live, when we got stuck in this godforsaken place, it’s like it attached itself to me. As soon as I logged in it was there, buried in the back of my mind. And it came to the surface quicker every time, until almost anything would set me off. That’s what happened with Darius, when I -” She broke off, and Azoth realised she was choking back tears.
Could he have been wrong about her all this time? Maybe she did feel remorse for the player she’d killed.
“But it stopped when you became undead?” Logan asked. He moved away from his secluded corner and joined Azoth in the middle of the room, presenting a unified front against the murderous woman.
“Yes” She gasped.
Azoth glanced at his skeletal companion. There was only one way this conversation could go, and he wanted to delay that.
“Nothing else h
elped?” He asked.
“Not that I found. I tried all the normal stuff, meditation and that. You know?”
“I can’t come back if I die.” Azoth said. Venom had inched its way back into his voice and he struggled to keep the anger at bay.
“No, I’m sorry.” Voria whispered. She looked like she was ready to flee from the dungeon.
“I need a moment to talk with Azoth” Logan announced. Voria took the hint and retreated back up the stairs without a word.
“We can’t trust her, can we?” He asked. Azoth took a long time to consider before responding.
“I think we can -”
“She tried to kill us!”
“She failed. And I believe her.” Azoth admitted.
“About what?”
“That the rage drove her to kill that guy. It’s crazy man, when it kicks in all I want to do is hurt things. It’s so damn hard to think straight, let alone control myself. I don’t think she could have stopped, not if she felt like that.”
Logan paused for a long while, considering. Azoth felt the need to shirk away from his friends gaze, as if he were a specimen in a lab.
“Still, she tried to kill us.” He reiterated.
“And she helped us fight Rudy. Which one of us would have been next if she hadn’t jumped in?”
If they invited her to travel with them, there couldn’t be any animosity in the group. That got people killed.
“You really think we can trust her?” Logan wasn’t accusing him of anything with that question. He sounded genuinely curious.
“I think she could have walked away and left Rudy to kill us. She could have slipped away and let the guards kill us. Hell, she could have stood against us. But she didn’t. I definitely believe her about the rage, the goddamn anger making her do things she wouldn’t normally do.” Azoth paused, letting his point sink in, then tried to lighten the mood.