by Oliver Mayes
“You don’t know your place, Daemien-chan. I’ll show you. Circle of Hell.”
Damien hadn’t seen it coming. He braced to leap backward just a fraction of a second too late and found himself stuck. The flames were lashing around his legs, holding him in place as he burned. Archimonde lurched forward into the circle to join its prey. The flames lashed around Archimonde as well, but they neither burned nor held it in place.
“You told the whole world of the existence of occultists. That did not belong to you, Daemien-chan.”
Archimonde’s tongue encircled Damien’s waist and pulled him out of the flames as the root ended, drawing him toward the growling stomach. Slowly, this time. Damien equipped his daggers and screamed as he plunged them into the tongue. The damage was paltry, barely registering on his enemy’s health bar, but the flames rushed up Archimonde’s body toward the puncture wounds and...restored them. Archimonde was regenerating in the flames.
Archimonde’s burly red arms grabbed an arm, then a leg, and twisted Damien sideways, holding him across his midriff before the tongue slowly fed him into the meat grinder, talking around him the whole while.
“If you post your chat with Magnitude, I’ll be posting this. Let’s not fight, Daemien-chan. Let’s be friends.”
He was already within the mouth. It was stretching and contorting itself to fit him across the middle. Damien had a free hand, and he was stabbing at the arm holding him there to no avail, yelling himself hoarse all the while. Then the mouth crunched down on his torso and grated across him, like the teeth of a chainsaw. It encompassed him from his armpits to his waist, the teeth dragging through leather and then flesh. Even with pain settings reduced, being eaten alive was awful. His health was already low and Damien had seen what the teeth had done to Noigel. One bite should’ve been enough, but Archimonde was dragging it out. Savoring him. The tongue now unoccupied, the mouth paused to speak around him.
“Yuuuummy! Gooo-Chiiii-Soooo-Saaa-Maaa-Deeeee-Shiiiiiii-Taaaaaa!”
Another careful, deliberately prolonged bite. Then another. And finally, mercifully, a fade to black.
You have been killed by ‘Archimonde’. Your experience has been reset to the start of your current level and your body may be looted, at which point a random item of equipped gear will be forfeit.
Remember, it’s only a game!
Death cooldown – 23 hours, 59 minutes and 56 seconds.
Thank you for playing Saga Online.
8
The World is a Vampire
Damien jolted upright and cried out, his arms flailing around his body. The gradual easing out of the simulation had not been enough for him to disengage from the game, this time. What Archimonde had inflicted on him was more visceral than any nightmare he’d ever had. In a state of numb shock, he lay back down and stared at the timer for a while. After a minute had passed and he still hadn’t come to terms with his death, he went to confirm the nature of what he’d just come face to face with.
Damien’s trait choices were listed, including those he hadn’t taken. Some of the answers were there, but not all. It was a start. Archimonde had taken the ‘Contagion’ trait at level 10, allowing Corruption to spread by touch. That’s why all Damien’s imps, and Archimonde’s too, had gone up in flames after they’d been pulled in by the Imp-losion. At level 20 Archimonde had taken ‘Purgatory’, which gave Circle of Hell a rooting effect for five seconds and increased damage the longer someone stood within it. Archimonde had finished it off by improving Circle of Hell a second time at level 30, taking the ‘Unhallowed Ground’ trait that healed demonic minions within its area of effect. Which had worked on Archimonde as well, apparently. So Archimonde was officially classified as a demonic minion.
As to which of the level 40 traits Archimonde had taken, there was no knowing. None of the abilities those traits pertained to had been used. Archimonde hadn’t needed them. There was certainly nothing there to explain the manifestation of its grotesque form, otherwise Damien would’ve seized it with both hands himself instead of taking the Ex-Imp-losion ability.
There was also at least one more trait, the known unknown, that Archimonde received at level 50. Archimonde was at least level 53, given that Damien was level 42 and his killer’s level appeared as question marks. Maybe it was the level 50 trait that allowed for the insane transformation? That seemed to make sense, given that halfway to max level was such a big milestone. Even if Damien could be certain that was the source, it was not helpful. He had no way of surpassing this foe the way he was now, no matter how cleverly he played.
Even without taking Archimonde’s physical stature into account, one thing was perfectly clear. Damien had built his character wrong: he was an oddity, a weird alternate build that had avoided using the occultists’ primary stat in favor of taking the long way round. Archimonde’s player had built the character the way it was designed for and the benefits were clear. Damien had put all his points into having a large horde of demons, yet in the face of the character-centric build Archimonde had employed they were all but worthless. Damien and his minions were weak and vulnerable, whereas his enemy was both sturdy and effortlessly powerful.
Damien was cycling through the recording to take another look at his enemy, free from immediate danger, when he was startled by a loud crash from outside. He pulled off his H4ckz0r headset as Lillian stomped from her room into the kitchen, muttering angrily the whole while. Then the footsteps stopped and there were more crashes as she went about her business with considerably more force than necessary.
Damien tentatively opened the door. Lillian was roaming around the kitchen in a whirlwind, slamming down processor paste canisters on the counter top and attacking her food processor unit with them. Damien edged his way in and stood in front of the door, waiting to be seen. When that didn’t happen, he closed the door behind him, gently, to announce his presence. Lillian’s eyes flashed up at him, full of rage. She turned away and went back to taking out her emotions on her kitchen appliances, slightly more softly than before.
“What happened?”
She banged down a canister so hard that paste flew out the top of it. Then curled up her fingers and set them on the counter, staring down at the floor. After a few deep breaths, she looked up at Damien.
“I called everyone into our forum for discussion, but some of them didn’t show up. Then I found out why. Some of the players who arrived had some enlightening screenshots to share. Their death screens. Who do you think they were killed by?”
Damien was already aware of Magnitude’s big power play. He’d seen the effect of it with his own eyes, even before Magnitude had explained his subjugation of players who weren’t even in his guild.
“Yeah, it’s a problem. But now you know what to expect, we can devise countermeasures. The players in the forest won’t be much of a problem; if they’re going to be aggressive we can cull their numbers first, then—”
Damien had fallen prey to the classic blunder. He’d assumed he could calm Lillian down by fixing her problems. Which presupposed not only that he knew the extent of her problems, but that she was asking for help. She was not. She was trying desperately to vent, and him talking instead of listening only fanned the flames.
Lillian’s voice cut across him, low but forceful.
“No, Damien. You think you get it, but you don’t. Most of them weren’t killed by random solo players. They were killed by MY people. A bunch of them decided it was easier to join the Carlisle-Elite. Six players, nineteen of us dead between them. One of them, a lowbie warrior called TwinBlade, killed five of us. FIVE! Three of them were priests, so that’s where our healing and support magic went.”
Damien stood very still as his peripheral vision gradually expanded, the room becoming improbably large and detailed as if everything in front of him were a display on a screen.
“He was part of the rearguard, assigned to protect the casters while our vanguard went through the gap I’d made. They waited for the strongest playe
rs to go through the gate, then butchered our casters before they could follow. I stood up for TwinBlade, way back in the day, when he was still worthless. Even Andrew was fair to him. And he asked for...no, he DEMANDED the loot after we did the dragon today. And I gave it to him, because I thought he deserved it, and he took it, and he said ‘Thank you, boss’, and then—”
Lillian had failed to vent. Without warning, she swept her arms across the tabletop, through the canisters and the plates, throwing everything to the floor. The tools were all synthesized and none of the cutlery broke, but there was plenty of mess. Having done the deed, Lillian stuck her fist under her chin and regarded the sloppy mixture decorating her kitchen thoughtfully. Damien pursed his lips and looked at it with her, as if they were enjoying a piece of post-post-post-post-modern art together.
What a waste. Damien could only imagine what his mother would have to say if he’d been subject to such an outburst. Then he realized he’d done something pretty similar during his time hopping between pod hotels, if only with a flask of nutrient juice. At least Lillian was making a mess of her own things, rather than the charitable gifts of other people.
It took a while but eventually, as the pastes started to blur into a bubbling murky brown where they overlapped, Damien snapped out of his malaise. Now was not the time for such judgment, of Lillian or himself. Nor would it achieve anything. Now would be a good time to offer his support, such as it was.
“I’m sorry, it sounds like you put a lot of energy and goodwill into your role as guild leader. You deserve better than the way they repaid you for your hard work. Come on, let’s get this sorted out.”
He was walking toward her when she threw out a hand for him to stop, then pointed him at the sofa.
“Don’t take another step. I made this mess myself and I’ll clean it up myself, you’ll have no part of it. I’ve already involved you in one mess today, and it didn’t help either of us. I’m assuming Richard finished you off eventually? Wait, you came back much later than I did, what happened?”
Damien rolled his eyes into the top corner of the room and ran his tongue over his teeth. There was a brief moment of revulsion as he drew the unnecessary parallel between his own mouth and the one he’d been eaten by, which he steadfastly powered through in order to construct a brief summary of his evening.
“Magnitude, his superiors and I had a long talk about all the terrible things that would happen if I didn’t fall in line, which are now pretty much set in stone. He surprisingly let me go when I refused to make a deal with him, and then bad things happened. Namely I was eaten alive by his extremely powerful, occultist, demonic, fat weaboo associate named Archimonde.”
Lillian absorbed this information slowly while Damien folded his arms and gently nodded, assisting her in ticking off the key points.
“Ah. His superiors? There are more of them?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Terrible things such as putting you on the kill list, same as he did with us?”
“Among other things, yeah.”
“I see. I assume when you say you were ‘eaten alive’ by his associate, you mean this Archimonde beat you really badly?”
“Well yes, but also no. It beat me really badly and it also literally ate me alive.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. Via the giant bobbit mouth in its torso.”
“What’s a bobbit?”
“Don’t look it up if you don’t know what it is, it’s not very nice.”
“That sounds messed up.”
“It did it while talking in Japanese, out of the stomach mouth, as if it were a cute girl.”
“That...that’s much worse.”
“Immeasurably. I’m going home.”
“I feel bad though, this is the first time I’ve seen you since your mom got out of hospital and it’s been a complete disaster. Are you sure you don’t want to stay over? I’ve got tomorrow off, so it wouldn’t be—”
“Nope, no way. Sorry, I’ve got to be back with my mom before morning. Still a bit worried about her, you know? And I have to come up with something to put on my stream. Which will be tricky since I’m dead.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. I’m sorry, I...I thought this would go well.”
What had happened? They’d always gotten along and now out of nowhere everything was awkward and weird. Was one bad beat all it took? Standing around here wouldn’t make it any better.
“Don’t worry about it, Lillian. I reckon this will look better in the morning. Let’s call it a night, and maybe I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”
“Yeah, okay. Sorry about this. I’ll try and sort something out. Keep an eye on your messages. Could you send me the footage of your talk with Magnitude, and maybe the encounter with Archimonde as well?”
Damien didn’t feel like sharing the sour fruits of his evening’s labors with anybody, but he didn’t want to make this any more painful than it already was.
“Sure. I’ll review it and send you something when I wake up tomorrow.”
Lillian nodded sadly and came around from behind the counter to give him a hug, then led him back to his room to collect his things.
“Alright, thanks. It’ll be good to know what we’re up against.”
Damien grimaced. No it wouldn’t.
He woke up late the next day, not having set an alarm since there was no point, and things did not look better. His online persona, the one everyone actually cared about, was still very dead. He still had nothing worthwhile to put on his stream. Everything had gone more or less okay until Magnitude showed up. He couldn’t simply show everything up to that moment. That would invite Magnitude and his cohorts to complete the picture. The final brush-strokes of that particular portrait would have very grim consequences for Damien indeed.
Damien would’ve been perfectly happy to end up on the Carlisle-Elite recruitment kill list in exchange for exposing Magnitude’s underhanded tactics and his dim view of the player base. Players would come after Damien hard, but it wasn’t as if he were Mr. Popular. Instead, Magnitude’s associates had played a card that showed him exactly how much trouble he was in. A big part of the interest in Damien’s channel was due not only to being the competition winner, but also thanks to being the highest-level occultist. If he started making waves now, they could easily post his humiliating death at the hands, and teeth, of an occultist far above his level and ability. His entire channel and his fledgling streaming career would suffer an enormous blow.
There was no question Archimonde had gone out of its way to make the encounter as terrifying as possible, not only to intimidate, but to make the footage hanging over Damien’s head as damaging as possible. Introducing Archimonde was a far worse threat than the talk with Magnitude had been. They’d already had him right where they wanted him, yet had only shown their full hand when he turned down the safe option.
Damien checked out the Carlisle-Elite page. Despite the low number of members, there were nearly a thousand people following the page and thus receiving notifications. Lo and behold, a large banner across the top announced yesterday’s big offer. Members of Rising Tide were now permanently worth five kills toward the recruitment quest. There were several videos showing different viewpoints of Rising Tide’s inglorious defeat, including a few from the perspectives of former Rising Tide members who had turned traitor.
There was also one acknowledging the ‘brave heroes’ who’d helped to defeat the enemy from within, honoring them by formally inducting them into Magnitude’s elite standing army.
Damien could hardly believe people would swallow this without question, but the likes and comments sections told a different story. Either they knew better and had bought into the illusion on the basis it would serve them one day, or they’d sincerely fallen for Magnitude’s warped rhetoric.
It was, of course, not immediately obvious which was which. The players spreading his rhetoric out of the arrogant notion that they’d be the human sewage that rose to the top of the septi
c tank had remarkably similar online footprints to the players who simply didn’t know any better. They looked exactly alike. For all intents and purposes, they were actually the same people.
The important thing was that there was nothing whatsoever on the page about Damien. That pretty much confirmed his theory, and meant he wouldn’t be posting anything about the raid from his own perspective. He felt a wave of relief. Closely followed by shame. Then anger. He’d been left in no position to disillusion anyone. He was caught more deeply in Magnitude’s web than any of them, and the personal cost to him was too high. Besides which, if speaking out resulted in his destruction it would be worth absolutely nothing.
He drummed his fingers on his desk. What was he supposed to do with the rest of his day, while the aspect of him that mattered to anyone was still dead? Which is when Cassandra knocked on the door. Damien composed himself.
“Come in!”
The door swung open, and in walked his mother with a tray of food and a wan smile.
“Good morning, sleepyhead! How is everything going?”
He smiled back at her. He hadn’t thought it possible, but following sixteen hours without food he was very hungry. Late breakfast consisted of bacon and eggs, his favorite thing and Cassandra’s failsafe option for him. He lied without even pausing to think about it.
“Everything’s fine. Good, even. I’m just doing some research into current affairs.”
“Oh, you mean the thing going on with Magnitude? Yeah, I saw Lillian took a beating yesterday, bringing the fight to him. She’s very brave, standing up to a bully like that.”
Cassandra was really following everything. Damien pulled his lips good and tight. He even managed to make them turn up a little.
“Yeah, she’s very brave. No doubt about that. I’m sorry, mom, what I’m doing is really important and I have to get back to it. This breakfast is exactly what I needed. Thank you.”