Yvvaros: The Clash of Worlds

by Alex Mulder

  “Why…?” asked Luke. “Why have you brought me here?”

  The woman turned around slowly and smiled at him. Luke’s eyes went wide when he saw her face.

  “…Mom?” Luke shook his head. “How…?”

  She said nothing, and reached out her hand for Luke to take. He stared at it, feeling his confusion shift into deep, chest wracking remorse.

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “I need your help, Luke.”

  “You’re dead… because of me.” Luke scrunched his eyes closed and hit his palms against his head. “Tess is dead because of me.”

  “You’re the only one that can restore balance to Yvvaros. I can show you the way.”

  “Why?” Luke gritted his teeth and clenched his hands into fists. “I don’t care about Yvvaros! I did this all for her!”

  “You couldn’t stop her,” said the woman. “She made her own choices and chose her own path. Just like I did.”

  “You’re not really her…” Luke shook his head and let out a grief stricken sigh. “You can’t really be her.”

  The woman smiled. Despite himself, Luke suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to take the hand that she’d offered him.

  The second he touched it, the room was again bathed with a blinding bright light and he was somewhere new.

  Luke was somewhere that he’d almost forgotten about. He stood just outside his house in the real world. It was nighttime, and the moons and stars hung in the sky overhead.

  Wait… the moons?

  Luke did a double take as he examined the celestial tapestry more closely. The Earth’s moon was clearly visible, but on either side of it were Yvvaros’s azure blue moon, and the smaller red rock that orbited along with it. The two larger moons were almost the same size, and the red rock hung above them like a third eye.

  He was expecting something to happen, or someone to appear. The night was silent, however, and the street was empty. Luke slowly started walking down it, doing his best to keep his breathing steady as his mind fought against the scene.

  This is just a hallucination. The cave is testing me.

  “Where are you?” yelled Luke. “Come out and show yourself?”

  He began taking a closer look at the street and realized that it wasn’t the neighborhood that he remembered. The houses were worn down. The paint on the outside was chipped, and all of the lawns were overgrown. Even the concrete was cracked and weathered, with pockets of weeds growing where they could.

  “I know this isn’t real!” screamed Luke. “If this is your test, than I’ve already passed it.”

  There was no response. Luke looked around again. The street lights were out, but the moon and stars gave enough light to let him see clearly. He walked down the street and toward the park.

  There’s nobody here… What is this supposed to be a test of?

  The park was overgrown. Trees and vegetation sprouted from the ground, turning the space into a small sector of reclaimed wilderness. The chain link fence that ran along one side was rusted and broken open in places.

  “This is a waste of time! Bring me back already!”

  Luke began running through the town. The houses on either side of the street became even more run down and destroyed, as though every step was taking him further forward in time. It was like something out of a nightmare.

  He slowed to a walk as he passed Ben’s house. It was nothing more than a crumbling foundation. Strangely, grass no longer grew in the uncovered patches of Earth. Luke continued on toward his school, the scenery growing more unnerving with every step he took.

  The road, which at this point was little more than an outline of crumbling rock and dust, stopped abruptly. Luke shook his head at what he saw as he looked toward where his high school had once stood.

  The ground was covered in a hexagonally patterned layer of metal, or rather, circuitry. The edges of each hexagon glowed orange, emitting heat. Luke looked behind him and realized that the houses and buildings he’d walked by were no more. The dreamscape had shifted as he passed.

  “What… is this?” Luke turned in a circle. There was nothing on the horizon, nothing but the strange mechanical layering beneath his feet. As far as he could see, the ground was flat, carpeted with the glowing hexagons. Not an inch of earth was left exposed.

  He bent down and touched the metal. It was perfectly smooth, and hummed with activity as though it were alive.

  Is this the future? How… can this be?

  “Please, let me go back!” Luke was shouting, and he didn’t know why. “I don’t understand! Tell me, what is it I’m supposed to be seeing?”

  “IN THE BEGINNING, GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH”

  The voice that echoed in response to his question was loud enough to shake the inside of his bones. He fell to his knees as once more a painfully bright light washed over him. Wearily, Luke resigned himself to his fate.

  CHAPTER 27

  Luke was lying on his back, surrounded by darkness. It took him a moment to realize that he was back in the cavern. As he pulled himself to his feet, a glowing rune circle appeared in the center of the cave. He walked over and stepped into it, not giving himself time to consider the full extent of what had just happened.

  In an instant, he was back in the realm of the Universal Truth. The same woman that he’d seen in his vision stood a short distance away. Her body was emanating the familiar white light, but this time, Luke couldn’t make out the details of her face.

  I don’t know who she is, but I know who she isn’t. It’s just not possible…

  “Welcome, hero,” said the woman. “You have once again entered my realm, the realm of the Universal Truth.”

  “Why…” Luke shook his head and stared at her, squinting his eyes against the light. “Is your goal to torture me? To break me down? To drive me insane?”

  “My goal is to prepare you,” said the woman. “You are much more important than you know.”

  Luke gritted his teeth as he recalled what happened to Tess.

  “Was it you?” The question came out in a quiet voice and it took all of his remaining strength to speak. “Did you set it up, force me to…”

  I killed her.

  “You must restore balance to Yvvaros,” said the woman. “Sacrifice is inevitable. Do not dismay.”

  Luke leaned forward, setting his hands on his knees and staring blankly at the ground. He didn’t say anything, not at first. The woman waited patiently, letting the silence hang on the air.

  “I don’t care…” he muttered. “I don’t care about any of that anymore…”

  “There’s more going on here than you can see, Luke,” said the woman. “You must keep moving forward. This is but another test of your spirit.”

  A test… I’m through. I won’t.

  “I don’t want this!” Luke punched the ground and screamed into the darkness. “I never wanted this. She was why I did it. There’s no point…”

  “You have claimed the Elemental Well,” said the woman. “The gifts of Makorin are yours.”

  LEVEL 21 ATTAINED

  Luke closed his eyes, knowing what came next. He was back in the cave. A new sword lay in front of him, and next to it was a yellow, baseball sized crystal.

  “Well, that was impressive, I have to say.”

  A figure walked into the cavern. Luke slowly turned his head, and saw an Arbiter walking toward him from the entranceway holding a torch in his hand.

  “You…” Luke stood to his feet and gripped the new weapon in front of him. “You monster! I’ll make you suffer!”

  “Whoa, whoa, take it easy!” The Arbiter held up a hand, and with the other it pulled off its helm. Kaoru’s hair was shorter than it had been the last time Luke had seen him, but there was no mistaking the man for anyone else.

  “Silverstrike told me where you were headed,” he said. “I ‘defected’ from the Arbiters when I heard what happened at Carthac Island.”

  Luke didn’t say anything. />
  “Hey…” said Kaoru, stepping closer. “Are you okay?”

  Luke slowly pulled himself to his feet.

  “Yeah…” he said. “I’m fine.”

  “You did it.” Kaoru clapped him on the shoulder with a metal gloved hand. “This is why you came here. Whatever it took, its part of the plan.”

  Luke picked the crystal up off the ground and handed it to Kaoru.

  “It wasn’t worth it.” Luke felt his eyes blinking quickly and automatically. “It wasn’t worth it at-”

  “Luke?”

  Tess walked into the cavern. She paused when she saw him, and then quickly ran over. Luke stared at her blankly as she pulled him into a hug.

  “Tess…” he said. “You’re… alive?”

  “Yeah, of course.” Tess pulled back slightly and gave him a quick peck on the lips. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Luke grinned and felt a dozen emotions melt away at once.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” said Kaoru. “This cave air is a bit too stale for me.”

  Luke held Tess’s hand as the three of them walked out of the cave. He felt a bit silly doing it, but it was hard to stop himself.

  “What’s gotten into you?” she asked. “Did you have to fight something down here? The barrier must have dropped when you killed it.”

  “Yeah, something like that,” said Luke. He smiled.

  Luke was surprised by how much time had gone by while he’d been down in the caves. The sun was setting in Yvvaros. The entire desert shone with a vibrant orange light. He finally paid attention to the flashing icon in the corner of his screen, dropping his attribute points into his main combat stats.

  “I discovered a lot while I was undercover,” said Kaoru. “Defeating the Arbiters isn’t going to be easy. There are more of them than I was expecting.”

  “We’ll find a way,” said Luke. “We have Makorin. Silverstrike has done what he could to take care of the alliances. We’ll be okay.”

  “Luke…” Kaoru had begun slipping off his Arbiter armor and storing it in his bag. “We still have to get to the server in the real world. I was hoping to find something, anything that would let us get around it, but I couldn’t.”

  Tess was silently watching the two of them, and Luke met her eye.

  I know what it’s like to lose her. Now I have to save her.

  “Alright,” said Luke. “I can do it.”

  “Not just you, this time,” said Kaoru. “Send me your address in real life and I’ll fly out tonight and meet up with you.”

  “I could always just ask Silverstrike. He lives on the same street as me.”

  Kaoru frowned.

  “He needs to focus on what he’s doing in-game,” said Kaoru. “And also, I uh, I have to talk to you about him. Later, though.”

  Luke nodded, understanding what was going through the man’s head.

  Silverstrike has practically gone all in at this point. We can’t rely on him.

  “Anyway, we should get back to Dunidan’s rest.” Kaoru started walking away from the caves. “It’s going to be at least a day before we can get everything organized. That will give us time we need to make our move.”

  “Alright,” he said. “Here, I’m sending you my address and phone number now.”

  He scribbled it on a piece of parchment and handed it to Kaoru. The three of them walked across the desert mostly in silence. Luke stayed close to Tess. She giggled a couple of times, noticing the way that he kept smiling at her, as though it had been years since they’d last seen each other.

  Luke hadn’t been back to Dunidan’s Rest since he’d first left to go after the Elemental Wells. It loomed on the horizon like a desert fortress, larger and more imposing than he remembered.

  “Have we always had that much space?” he asked.

  Tess smiled at him.

  “It’s Katrina’s doing,” she said. “She expanded the walls with the money you gave her, and then used some of her own to build a small inn next to the general store.”

  “Dunidan’s Rest is turning into a little town,” said Luke. “And to think, it all began with a level one quest and an oasis.”

  This is why we have to take the Arbiters down. They could do to my home what they did to Carthac Island. They might already be preparing to.

  “Come on, let’s head inside.” Kaoru led them toward the gate. “It’s been a long day, for all of us.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Luke was taken aback by the activity in Dunidan’s Rest. The changes had been relatively minor, but the addition of the inn had nearly doubled the number of players unrelated to his or Katrina’s guild milling about the desert outpost.

  “Hey Kato!” Katrina herself was standing outside of the new building, the Dunidan Inn, with her arms crossed. “What do you think?”

  Luke shook his head, his mouth agape.

  “I think we’re going to need to start thinking about expanding the farm,” he said. “Do we have someone working in the inn fulltime?”

  Katrina nodded.

  “It’s Mina, the girl who lost her parents,” said Katrina. “I brought her back here with me.”

  Mina… the girl whose mother I killed.

  Before Luke’s guilt could tug at his heartstrings, a rough, clumsy hand clapped onto his shoulder.

  “Heeeey buddy!” Silverstrike had an oversized grin on his face. “Did you do it?”

  Luke opened his mouth to answer and then frowned. Silverstrike was swaying from side to side, and looked at him with unfocused eyes.

  I’ve seen him drunk in-game before, but never like this.

  “Yeah, I did it,” said Luke. “But there’s more to the plan than just my part.”

  “The guilds are fine, Kato!” Silverstrike laughed, and then looked at him seriously. “I got in touch with most of them after the Arbiter attack. No big deal.”

  How did the Arbiters find out about the meeting in the first place? Silverstrike was the one organizing it. How careful was he about who he told?

  “What’s with the serious face?” asked Silverstrike. “The hard part is over! We can celebrate!”

  The rogue walked over to the oasis and took a seat at the edge of it. Luke frowned and looked at Tess. Katrina was asking her about something, and it didn’t look like she’d seen her brother’s sloppy display.

  “I have to talk to you about Silverstrike, Kato.” Kaoru spoke in a quiet voice, taking Luke by the arm and pulling him over to the guild hall. He led him inside and then shut the door behind them.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” said Luke. “He’s always been like this. It was better for a little while, but I think the stress of organizing all of the guilds has-”

  “We can’t rely on him, Kato.” Kaoru frowned. “I know that sounds cruel, but he’s on the verge of a breakdown, or at the very least, his judgement is shot.”

  Luke sighed.

  He’s my best friend. I trust him.

  “He’ll be okay,” said Luke. “We all have our vices. I’ll talk to him outside of the game tomorrow, and see if I can get him focused on our mutual goal.”

  Kaoru nodded.

  “Good. Speaking of which, I have to log out soon. We have to hit the world server as soon as possible. Everything else is in place.”

  “Alright,” said Luke. “So I guess we’ll be meeting in the real world next time. It feels a bit… strange.”

  Kaoru shrugged.

  “Not any stranger than this, I think,” he said. “I’ll get on a plane tonight and be in your town by early tomorrow. From there, we can plan out exactly how it’s going to go down, and then take a bus up to Plattsburgh.”

  “We still have to find the exact location, though,” said Luke. Kaoru just smiled.

  “Already taken care of. It’s amazing the kind of things you can figure out from looking at a map of a small city’s power grid. I’ve narrowed it down to three possible locations.”

  This is really happening. We’re almost there.
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br />   “Alright.” Luke gave Kaoru a thumbs up, “I guess I’ll see you soon.”

  He turned and walked out of the guild hall. Tess was waiting by the general store and smiled as she saw him walking over.

  “Is that all for today?” she asked.

  “Yeah, just about,” said Luke. “I have to log off. Please, while I’m gone, don’t…”

  Don’t get yourself killed.

  Tess rolled her eyes.

  “I know, I know,” she said. “Lucky for you I have some work to take care of here in base. Katrina tripled the amount of space we have for farming when she expanded the wall.”

  “Thanks.” He pulled Tess into a tight hug, and then kissed her softly on the lips. “I’ll be back as soon as I can be.”

  “Don’t rush for me. This is the part of the plan that has to happen in the real world, Luke. I want us to pull this off just as badly as you do.”

  Luke forced a confident smile onto his face.

  “We are going to pull it off,” he said. “Just you wait and see.”

  Luke reached into his bag, pulled out his journal, and then signed off.

  He blinked. The headset was still over his eyes. Luke lifted two uncoordinated and fatigued arms to pull it off. He felt tired and sick.

  I’m going to have to get used to this. It’s been so long since I’ve had to count on my body in the real world.

  It was dark outside. Luke saw a full moon out his window. He stared at it for a moment, grounding himself, adjusting to physical reality.

  It took a focused, concerted effort to stand up. The carpet underneath his feet felt strange, a bit too soft and unyielding, not like sand. Luke coughed into the crook of his arm, feeling phlegm congealed in the back of his throat.

  He stepped away from his desk and slowly made his way downstairs. The house felt unlived in and empty. Luke took slow, ponderous steps down the hallway, feeling a bit like he had during the visions in the Cave of Exton.

  Easy, now. This is my house, my home. I know this place inside and out.

  The food that Sam had brought for him was still sitting on the kitchen counter. Luke didn’t feel hungry, but he forced himself to eat, pulling out a granola bar and mechanically munching on it.