(^_^)
“Lothar! Sam! You have to wake up!”
Wolf skids to a halt and I hop off.
“What is it, Oric?” Sam asks.
“Oric?” Lothar asks with a yawn. “What’s going on?” He rubs his eyes for a moment, and then puts his glasses on. “Where’s Florin?”
“The Drachma Killers got him!”
Sam’s face hardens. “What? How?”
“He left while everyone was sleeping. I followed him to see what he was up to and …”
“He left?” Lothar asks. “Why would he do that?”
“I thought he was trying to bail on us, but it turns out …” I shake my head at the irony of the situation.
“What?” Sam asks.
“He was buying us food, and he was wearing the same purple cloak–”
“–I believe it was lavender,” says Lothar.
“Dammit, Lothar, you know what I mean. I heard them, I was close enough to hear them.”
“How?” asks Sam.
“I snuck up on him and was hiding behind a barrel when they took him. Anyway, like I was saying, they thought he was me. The fact that he wore my Masking Hat only made it more obvious. So they took him, and one yanked the hat off to discover that he was Florin Talonas.”
The ground rumbles as the giant gets to his feet, worry wrinkles on his forehead. “Where is he now? I really hope they don’t hurt him!”
“I followed them back to their camp.”
“How many?” asks Sam.
“Two Drachma Killers. I guess they were the two that survived. I … I don’t know how they survived what Deathdale did to their guildhall, but they did. Hellfire and brimstone, that about sums up what I experienced in Drachma that night. Anyway, I followed them after they took him.”
“And?”
“I heard them discussing their plans,” I say hurriedly. “They’re going to ride to the Source Code Bomb tomorrow and toss him in.”
Lothar gasps. “Toss him in?”
“Or see what happens if they just put his lower half in. I don’t know, Lothar, they’re sick fucks. We should follow them, save Florin, and hell, while we’re there, we should toss the First Artifact in. Just as the Obelisk suggested. Get this mission over with.”
“About that.” Lothar lifts his hand and strokes his beard stubble. “I know that now is not the time for a long discussion, but seeing as we have a little time.”
“Time?”
“Yes, Oric, you said they’d take him in the morning. We have a little time.”
“Early morning. And what if they decide to bail out sooner?”
“Then we will track them. I’m sure Wolf can do it. They have animals with them, do they not?”
“Shire horses. Get to the point, Lothar.”
“Okay then, here is the point: I believe, and I know this may be a bit controversial, but I believe that the Obelisk is wrong.”
I gulp and look up at the scholarly giant. “So it’s not just me?”
“Same here,” Sam chimes in. “Something about throwing an artifact into a moving source code bomb seems primitively naive.”
I wait for lightning to strike one of us, and when it doesn’t, I ask Lothar to continue.
“It all comes down to some passages I read when I was in the Occult Athenaeum, the great forbidden library of the Solidus Academy. From the knowledge derived from your world and given to us – and granted, this knowledge may not be up-to-date – no one has been able to stop the spread of a source code bomb. The Proxima powers that be have kept this quiet, and there aren’t a lot of occurrences of digital terrorism aside from a group known as the Reapers.”
Sam nods. “I know about the Reapers. And I know who to contact regarding them and the source code bomb. How long do you think I have?”
“You’re leaving?” I ask.
“I need to get to my ship and get in contact with someone from a world known as Steam. I’m calling in a favor, a favor ten years in the making but a favor nonetheless.”
“What’s the shortest possible time you think it would take to get info?” I ask.
“Less than an hour.”
“Do it.”
Sam’s Blueshift wristband appears. “I will be back as soon as humanly possible. Be ready to go when I arrive.”
“Hey, before you go …”
“Yes?”
“Not trying to be insensitive here, but Wolf’s hungry, definitely could use a steak or two. And I’d like a burrito.”
Sam raises a very skeptical eyebrow at me.
“You’re right, bring something for Lothar too. A pot roast should do.”
One green flash later and she’s gone.
Chapter Eighteen: Shattering the Game-time Continuum
“Maybe we should do something,” Lothar says.
Sam has been gone all of twenty minutes, and in that time, the giant has paced, drummed his fingers along his chest, and tried multiple times to reread the letter from his friend using the faint light of the fire.
“If you want to move on the bastards, I’m game, but …”
“But what?”
“Be ready to die.”
Lothar huffs. “They’re the Drachma Killers.”
“I know. I’m the one that told you.”
“They’ve never killed a giant. Not many have killed a giant. Your armor, from Jagraj, he was one of less than ten human-sized humans to kill a giant.”
“Human-sized humans? I suppose that makes sense.”
I know Lothar can’t see the horror flicker across my eyes, nor does he know what Deathdale told me, how they tortured her former avatar. The naive giant hasn’t seen a Drachma Killer ride up with a completely skinned human hanging from their saddle. The rape. The maiming. The torture both real and psychological. Lothar doesn’t know.
“If we’re going to do anything, we’ll need Sam,” I finally tell him. “And don’t for one minute think I don’t want to bring the fight to them right now. Hell, I almost did it. I thought about activating my rage ability. I thought about tossing pinecones into the fire and going for a shock and awe campaign. Move in quick. Wolf takes one, I take the other. Only two.”
“You could have done it,” Lothar says, his confidence in my ability something I haven’t heard from him before.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I could have, but …” I glance at Wolf, whose head is darting back and forth between us as we chat. “I lost Wolf once and look what it did to Sam. I couldn’t risk it. I also couldn’t risk my own life. It would have put whatever it is we’re trying to do here in jeopardy.”
“I know,” he says half-heartedly.
“I made a damn promise to myself after the Tags – well, Stater soldiers and mercenaries dressed as Tags – torched Tangka. I would save Unigaea or die trying. And having nearly died in Drachma just a few days back, I’d rather keep brushes with death to a minimum.”
“We need Sam.”
“She’ll give us an advantage. Her magic is something that I’m still coming to grips with in terms of having it at my disposal. That came out wrong. I don’t have it at my disposal, but you know what I mean. I feel we’ve barely scratched the surface of what she can do.”
“I feel that too.”
“So, yes, we’ll wait for her, and hopefully she’ll have some info that will help us deal with the Red Plague. If not, we’ll still rescue Florin. I’ll admit, I didn’t trust him at first.”
“That much was clear!”
“And I still don’t fully, but, and I’m going to feel stupid saying this, if anyone is going to kill him, it’ll be me.”
Lothar’s slight grin drops into a frown.
“You don’t know how much bullshit that guy has put me through, regardless of whether he remembers who he is or not. He killed Sam! He ordered her former avatar’s killing. Okay, that doesn’t resonate the same way it should considering our current circumstances. He led to Deathdale’s death as well.”
“I was under the impre
ssion that Deathdale led to her own death.”
“There’s no telling how things would have played out if we hadn’t been ambushed in our hotel room.”
“By the way you’ve made it sound, nothing could have stopped her.”
I picture Deathdale, the explosion, Wolf’s dead body.
“Maybe you’re right,” I finally admit.
“So you want to kill him?”
“I do, but I probably won’t, because as you can see, I’m kind of a softie.”
Lothar gives me a curious look. “As opposed to a hardie?”
“That sounds like a euphemism for an erection, which seems to be the theme of our night.”
“What do you mean?”
“We keep running into dicks.” I laugh nervously, and when I see that he’s not laughing along, I continue. “Lothar, I don’t know what will happen with Florin in the end, but I do know he was buying food for us, which was a kind gesture. Then again, maybe he was planning to poison us.”
“What!?”
“It’s possible. Point is, we can get to the bottom of that later. Right now, our mission should be saving him. That, and figuring out what the hell to do about the source code bomb.”
(^_^)
Sam’s form takes shape thirty minutes later. She immediately falls to the ground and is joined by Wolf, who nudges her with his head and helps her up. The determined look on her face as she smiles at me is something I’ve come to expect from her. Damn, she’s wonderful.
“It just may work,” she says as soon as she’s mounted.
“What do you mean?” Lothar takes a knee next to Sam.
“It is something you mentioned earlier about OMIB-porting. The letter from your friend.”
“Ah. You’re referring to the letter from Tignor,” Lothar touches the front of his robes, “in which he theorized that it may be possible to OMIB-port using algomagic.”
“Algorithmic magic, yes. What I suggest, and tell me if I’m crazy here, is that I cast Reverse Time on the First Artifact.”
Lothar’s eyes light up. “Reverse Time? Please explain.”
“This will bring the First Artifact back to the period in which it was created. Hopefully, it will activate the ruby in the scepter and allow us to create a portal.”
I equip the First Artifact and look it over. The ruby at the top is dull at the moment, no sign that it can be activated.
“Those are a lot of variables. How are you certain the portal it creates will be of the OMIB-porting variety?” asks Lothar.
“I’m with Lothar on this one, Sam.”
“I told you about working with the Dream Team ten years ago,” she says to me. “I didn’t exactly work with them, never met them, but I did recover steampunk mech suits for them in the Proxima World known as Steam. Long story short, I remember hearing at the time about an NVA Seed – same thing as the Obelisk – permanently OMIB-porting NPCs to the fantasy world known as Tritania.”
“Interesting,” Lothar says.
“All of this matters because this NVA Seed known as Dolly – the seed of a defunct Proxima world named Cyber Noir – used her first memory to create the portal. Most of this info isn’t commonly known. I had to call on a weapons’ dealer I know in Steam who goes by the nickname Steampunk Santa for the deets. But that’s the gist of it.”
“And the First Artifact is the Obelisk’s equivalent to a first memory, is that what you are hypothesizing?”
“Correct, Lothar.”
“And we can use the artifact to create the portal?”
“Correct again.”
“Did you say Steampunk Santa?”
“Yes,” she tells me.
“Okay, just checking I heard that right.”
Lothar stands and begins pacing, the ground quaking ever so slightly with each step he takes. “It just may work, but we need the coordinates of a location, otherwise the portal may essentially be a black hole with unknown whereabouts on the other side.”
“We’ll make it go to Tritania.”
“How?”
“Another bit of information I discovered. The creators of Unigaea used Tritania as a neuronal framework. Unigaea is basically built on the same model as Tritania, only smaller. It’s a risk, but it’s a risk we have to take. You were right, Lothar, we’re not stopping the source code bomb. This world is about to be turned upside down.”
“Do you at least have the coordinates for Tritania?” he asks.
“I do. Do you have paper?”
“I’ll remember it.”
“Write it down.”
“Fine.” Lothar drops in front of his meditations box and gets out a crisp piece of parchment. Once his quill is wet, he writes down the numbers Sam gives him.
“Eight, Sixty-seven, fifty-three, zero, nine.”
A thought returns to me. “Hey, I hate to interrupt geniuses at work, but did you bring some food?”
Sam looks up at me incredulously.
“What? If we’re going to save Florin, we need to eat something.”
A bag of jerky appears in her hand and she dumps it on the ground in front of her. Wolf goes to town, and as he does so, she takes more food from her list.
“Chinese takeout?” I ask as soon as I see the white boxes. “This is great!”
“Ramjet thought you had enough Mexican food, so he prepared this instead.”
“That smells great!” Lothar says as soon as I open the first box and dig in. Kung-pao chicken never tasted so good, and as I eat the glistening morsels of chicken, I catch Wolf looking up at me. “You won’t like this stuff, boy.”
He barks.
“Now isn’t the time,” I tell him with my mouth full. “Seriously, we need to focus on saving Florin and then testing Sam’s theory. Shit. Hey!” Wolf jumps at me and I take the food away just in time.
“As requested, I brought a pot roast for you, Lothar. Two actually. Come down here, because when I take these out of my list, Wolf is going to go crazy.”
Lothar gets as close as he can to Sam without crushing her. He places his hand out and both pot roasts, held by metal trays, appear in his palm. He quickly eats the food and licks his fingers.
Wolf looks from the giant back to me.
“All gone.” I show him my hands and he barks. “Relax, we have more important things to do.” The warm feelings shared between the three of us quickly filter away as my statement sinks in.
The Drachma Killers, although there are only two, are no laughing matter.
“How do you propose we do it?” Lothar asks me, his brow furrowed.
“Sneak attack. Only way possible. Sam fires off a spell and I run in with my electric shield. Lothar, you provide backup support. Actually, maybe we should send you in first. Yeah. That could work. You could rile them up, and we pick them off. Let’s do that.”
(^_^)
Best laid plans of mice and men and whatnot.
The killers are long gone by the time we arrive at their campsite. Their fire is snuffed out, and just about the only thing left is a puddle of blood reflecting the remnants of the night’s sky.
Crimson on crimson.
“We’re too late!”
“They can’t be that far off,” I tell Lothar, who is slightly out of breath. “It’s been less than two hours. Wolf. Track them.”
With Sam on his back, Wolf starts sniffing at the ground. He moves north, predictably, and then turns to the east.
“Let’s go!” Sam calls out.
We take off once I’m on Wolf’s back, Lothar running behind us. We’ll need to catch up first, then slow down and get to stalking. For now, however, we have ground to cover.
Wolf stops every now and then to make sure he’s hot on their trail, and it isn’t long until we come across a pile of bodies, a few of which are still burning. Lothar coughs, waving away the smell as he tries to catch his breath.
I recognize their red and black armor immediately.
Tagvornin guards.
There are six dead, two s
till smoldering and the other four in various states of dismemberment. One has been decapitated, his head set on the bloody stump of his neck so he can watch the road. Stuffed in his mouth are severed fingers.
Two others have their throats slit. They lie on their backs with their faces looking at each other. Upon further inspection, I can see that their intestines have been pulled out, split, and tied to their wrists. Viscera cuffs.
“What in the actual fuck?” Sam asks as she looks over two of the female guards, who are nude from the waist up and have had their breasts cut off.
The final guard has his arms and legs cut off and rearranged. He lies starfish style, his legs now where his arms should be and his arms where his legs should be, the light snow beneath him red with blood.
Lothar excuses himself and walks a few paces to the right to vomit.
“Such a waste of a good pot roast,” I say as the giant vomits.
Sam elbows me in the gut.
“Hey!”
“My apologies,” Lothar says as he wipes his mouth. “I have never seen something so vile.”
“We just need to catch up with them, and they can’t be far off now. It takes time to arrange bodies like this.”
“Not that much time,” I tell Sam. She elbows me again. “What do you expect? I’m a Player Killer. I know these things. You should too.”
“Are you saying you’ve done something like this?” Lothar asks, horror in his eyes.
“Fuck no. I said I was a Player Killer, not a mentally deranged serial killer. My guess is they are twenty to thirty minutes ahead. Remember, element of surprise. Just be ready for anything. Fuck, this is stupid.”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“We should be testing Sam’s theory about OMIB-porting to Tritania, but here we are instead, trying to get ourselves killed.”
Sam laughs. “I guess that makes us who we are.”
“I was under the impression that outside influences, many of which we have no control over, make us who we are,” Lothar says. The giant now holds his nose in the air, refusing to look down at the Killers’ bloody handiwork.
“We’ll discuss that later. Let’s go!”
Sam, Wolf, and I take off, my heart rate increasing with each step Wolf travels. It is a suicide mission going up against the Drachma Killers, especially at our levels, but what other choice do we have?
The Last Warrior of Unigaea Box Set: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure Page 54