Tales of the Gemsmith

by Jared Mandani

  The act of magic, even that powered by the Green Ouroborax, taxed the Queen mightily, sucking away her vital life force until she became corpse-like, dying. That is when she fell, defeated by the human Aldar and the dwarves. Her remains were sealed into a crystal coffin.

  And of the Green Ouroborax? It vanished after that battle, what we call the Battle of Shards because of the way it tore the bones of the mountains there, [Shardwick?] but many claim that it was seized by the human Aldar – although this I doubt. If the human DID have it, then how could he not use its power to punish us? And as of yet, this new human King Aldar seems mighty, but he does not seem unstoppable and cruel. So perhaps he hid it away somewhere – with his wizards and sorcerers perhaps? Or maybe he threw it into the sea (although I do not know how far he could have travelled without it perverting his mind) [therefore … MUST be in Shardwick].

  “Here, Crusher.” Winters shook his head at the strange document he had just read. “Do you know what Control Modding is?”

  “Huh? What do you want to know about that Kentucky-fried rumor for?” the dwarf laughed, pulling at his moustaches He waved the scroll in his hands, pleased. “This is great stuff though, Winters – just what the Ambassador ordered!”

  “Oh yeah?” Winters the sorcerer said distractedly, still thinking about the hacked document. It just … it seems to make sense, as if someone else is following this Story at the same time as we are?

  “Yeah, it’s all written fancy, but it lists the possible ways that Efen can be slowed down.” Crusher looked a bit uncertain for a moment. “But first you have to get her weak, which basically means getting her to cast one freak-ton of spells to deplete her Mana.”

  “Oh great. Stop the Lady Efen from destroying the world by asking her to destroy the world first?” Winters didn’t think that sounded like such a great idea.

  “Yeah, I know. But anyway –it says here that she has to use her magic to keep herself alive because of what the Green Ouroborax did to her.”

  “Yeah,” Winters agreed. “When she split the Three Realms, the crystal basically super-vampired her.”

  “Right, that makes sense then. So, maybe she’s using her Mana to keep herself alive, and when she’s running low then she has to spend her magic on staying alive?” Crusher reasoned. “Either way, that’s when you can wound her, and it says here that when she’s wounded, you can use dragon iron to trap her.”

  That’s why they put her in the Jodo Canyons! the sorcerer thought excitedly.

  “Great, so we just have to whack her with a lump of some of the rarest stuff in the game?” Mirelle appeared at their side. “Dragon iron, you say?”

  “Yeah,” Crusher sighed, then frowned as comprehension broke over his features. “Lucky we know one or two things about Dragon iron, right, Winters?” The dwarf’s eyes were fixed on the mage’s hand, where the circle of his Winter Ring was clearly visible.

  “That’s right, Crusher.” Winters grinned.

  Brring!

  That was the sixth bell. The Council sessions were over, and their time was up.

  “Oh no,” Mirelle said, looking appalled.

  *

  “Come on – we have to move it, now!” their elf guide was saying, urging them to run out of the library and down the corridor. Gone was any pretense at hiding, or of being mere ‘guests’ of Mirelle, as they gasped and bolted, skidding along the sanded floors to turn the corners leading back up to the surface of the Shrine – and hopefully freedom.

  “No – not that way! This way, this way!” Mirelle was shouting as Jay and Sari started to turn left when they should have turned right.

  “We’ll make it,” Winters hissed at her. He was sure it wasn’t far now – until his virtual nose caught a whiff of something, sweet and fragrant at the same time. Incense. Oh no, he thought. Didn’t that mean they were close to the Council Halls?

  As if summoned by his fear, they turned the corner to see a sedate crowd of elves in varying long robes of white, green, blue, and purple walking towards them, arguing as they did so.

  “Crap.” Mirelle skidded to a halt. For a brief moment it seemed as though the crowd, amazingly, hadn’t registered them as they were still deep in their discussions with the Queen, but then one tall elf pushed to the front, his voice rising in fury.

  “Mirelle!? What is going on here? No dwarf can step foot inside the Shrine!” It was Captain Vaniel, without his stag at the moment, but still with his sword at his hip. Winters saw that he was quivering in fury as he pointed at his friend, and then, the elf captain’s lip curled and he snarled, “Traitors!”

  “Run!” Mirelle said, and the rest of them didn’t need to hear any encouragement to do so.

  Winters grabbed the shorter Crusher, pushing him forward as the others vaulted tree roots like steps on the ground, pushing themselves off the walls in their panic to escape.

  “Bolt!” he heard one of the Councilors cry behind him, and the root wall beside his head exploded as power slammed into it.

  “Not inside the Shrine, you fool!” Vaniel was shrieking. “Call my guards! Archers to the upper halls!”

  Great. Elvish archers. Winters skidded around the last corner to see that the others had made it at least to the same entrance they had come in – a narrow arched doorway off to one side of the main tree. Mirelle was struggling with Crusher, who was already seeking to loosen his great war hammer and turn to face his foe.

  “Don’t attack them, you fool dwarf!” Mirelle was shouting.

  “Whyever not?” Crusher barked up at her as Winters slid down the sandy bank to the wide avenue that spread out around the old tree.

  “Yeah, why not?” Winters argued.

  “Because we’re surrounded, inside the Judgment heartland, you idiots! They’ll just kill you!” she screamed, raising her hand and waving back towards the tree. Winters saw his friend’s eyes flash an eerie white as she started to mutter arcane sounds, and he felt a ripple of power flash over his head, and a grinding noise from the walls behind him. Winters turned to see the stout, rock-like bark start to twitch and grow, expanding to snap shut over the avenue, to the sound of muffled shouts of rage.

  “That won’t hold them for long.” Mirelle wobbled on her feet, and Dean wondered just how much Mana that had cost her.

  “Then we’d better get going…” He seized her by the elbow, turning to hurry down the avenue towards where the graceful, arching bridges rose and dove over the sacred pool at the foot of the Shrine Tree—

  “Ah – mage?” It was Crusher, already turned in front of him and stock-still beside Lady Jay and Sari.

  “What is it? We have to go now in case you didn’t hear!?” Winters shouted, before he raised his eyes to see beyond his friends, and what had stilled their flight.

  There was a large crowd of elvish guards coming towards them, some with their long silver swords drawn, and others with their short bows cocked and ready. We won’t last five seconds… Winters tried to count how many were raged against them. A dozen archers maybe? A dozen more fighters?

  “Uh… We come in peace?” Winters tried to smile innocently, just as the ground shook, and there was a sound of the whole world breaking apart.

  Interlude IV: Red and Green

  Ramesh zapped into the Shrine of Oak like a bit of flotsam thrown before a storm. The scenery of trees and sedate huts rippled and tore for a moment, throwing him across one of the many sacred meadows, before it wobbled back into place, regaining its focus and solidity. This time there was even the hiss of static ringing in his ears, and when he turned around he saw there was a dark trail of scorched earth where he had landed.

  “Crap,” the thief groaned, rubbing his head. This was getting more and more difficult every time he did it. And that only meant that the moderators were upgrading their security tech all the time. How long before they find the crack in the code I’m using to do this? How long before he would either be stuck outside, out in his own failing anal
ogue body? Or worse still – stuck in here, as his body slowly wasted away and starved, and he wasn’t even able to repair his avatar, thanks to their cheating!?

  Soon, but not right now. He gritted his teeth in fixed determination, pushing himself to his feet and running past the small shrines and altar stones to the only place he needed to go: the sacred pool.

  “Hey!?”

  “Who is that!?”

  “Intruder!”

  There were shouts from startled elves as the notorious bandit leapt over their walls and through their ritual dances. But the man didn’t care. He didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. Ramesh the Red Hand leapt from one of the twilit banks of the elvish community to land on the prow of a flat-bottomed barge floating serenely down the silvered waters.

  “Ah, excuse me—!” he gasped at the young elvish couple looking up, shocked to see his arrival, before he jumped to the other side of the bank and continued his run.

  “Intruder — someone fetch Captain Vaniel!” He heard shouts, now coming from all around him as his leather boots found the wide, straight crushed gravel road that led straight to the seat of the tree, and, before it, the holy pool.

  Pheet! Pheet! Unfortunately, his pursuers had now seen his goal – and with nowhere to duck and hide, they could pick him off with their expert archery skills.

  “Fall Awry!” The Red Hand flickered a mystic sign in the air, and there were shouts of alarm and rage as the bows suddenly lost strings, or the arrows warped in the air. The charm of bad luck wouldn’t last long however, and he could only hope that he got to his destination first—

  He felt the change in the game a moment before it happened.

  Oh no – what is it now? he thought. Had the moderators released another Archon on him?

  But no, this time there was no creepy accompanying voices on the wind, no flap of huge bat-like wings. This change in the architecture of the game was smaller than that, Ramesh saw as he looked up. But I’m still screwed, he thought in alarm as the distant leaves of the tree – many hundreds of feet above him — waved and shook as if from a mighty storm. He saw the foliage shaking and a cascade of leaves the size of his hands fell into the township of the Judgment.

  Something had made that happen, and that something was plunging towards him, in a sonic-boom of fury.

  It was the Lady Efen, surrounded by her own halo of white and blue energy, her form still as breathtakingly gorgeous as the day it had been coded. Her hair was white and flying back from her features, but her eyes were the purest black.

  Oh, crapola…

  “My gem, human! My gem!” she was screeching as she raced overhead.

  It wasn’t far though. Just over there, past that stone marker, was the edge of the lake. For a blindingly fast moment, he wondered if he should pull out, skip back into normal meatspace, and come back when she had cleared off – but no. The code-monkey had no way of knowing whether the moderators would have patched the holes he was using by then, and if they had it would all be over.

  “Awry! Shield!” He threw up what little defensive cantrips and spells he had into the air above him as he dove for the holy pool. Maybe he should never have done this, maybe he should just accept defeat-

  But his body was scraping along the silver-gray sand of the lake as he fumbled in his pocket to pull out the shard of green crystal. In an instant, its green light filled his vision as the cloth he had wrapped it in fell away. He felt the power of it pulsing through his eyes, through his hands, and into his very soul-

  Woosh! He dove head-first, hands outstretched into the holy waters, submerging the Green Ouroborax as the demi-goddess arrived in a shriek of fury-

  And then the world shook, and the holy lake of the elves erupted.

  Chapter 21: Reboot

  KADA-THOOOM! Behind the encircling elvish guards, there was a sound like a shriek, and a white wall of water exploded into the air like an oceanic nuclear test. In an instant everyone on the shoreline was flung to the ground, and the guards and the adventurers were toppling backwards as the colors of the Shrine of Oak changed, contrasted, glitched-

  *

  Source Access: Y.

  Security Override Protocol Enabled.

  Processing Key 1 of 5…

  Key 1 Accepted.

  *

  The words blared in heavier courier script over Dean’s vision, as the virtual surroundings of the Shrine of Oak, of his companions, of the elves in front of him faded from view. A sudden, dizzying flash of white, and then – black.

  “Holy spaceballs… What was that?” Dean Winters said into the darkness, his voice sounding oddly muffled as if he stood inside a tiny room.

  “Crusher? Marcy?” he called, only for there to be no response whatsoever. Dean started to panic. What had happened? Had the game crashed?

  He tried to raise his hand, to touch his own face, but nothing seemed to be obeying him. If he wasn’t in the game, then why couldn’t he feel his face? Or the VRM-Alpha headset that sat on top of it in real life?

  For a hideous moment, Dean wondered if his mind had become trapped somehow inside the game, or in some weird virtual non-space around it. What would happen? Would his body just be a vegetable, back in the occupational rehabilitation ward? Would he ever wake up to real life again!?

  Dean started to panic.

  *

  Odge Systems… Checking…

  *

  The words flashed in blinking white in front of Dean’s eyes.

  “Marcy!?” he tried again, feeling his chest start to tighten – somewhere. If I can feel my chest, then why can’t I… feel it!? He thought about raising his hand, thumping his chest, but didn’t feel anything. But then why did his chest feel so tight?

  This was bad. This was really bad.

  *

  Server Side Reboot…

  *

  This is it. I’m going to spend the rest of my life trapped in here, never able to get out. A mind in a box. Dean could feel his anxiety start to skyrocket. Was it possible to have a heart attack without being aware of it? Is this what happens when you die?

  *

  Local Machine Reboot…

  *

  A flicker in the darkness, and again there was a flash of white that would have blinded him. If, you know, I had eyes, Dean thought for a moment before the darkness started to gray.

  But Dean Winters wasn’t back in the Shrine of Oak, and neither was he lying on his hospital bed. He was in the gray room where his adventures inside the VRM-Alpha had started. What had Marcy called it? The Loading Arc? Training Space? And he wasn’t alone.

  Standing in front of him in what he had thought was ‘his’ space was a figure he knew well. It was the Lady of Efen.

  You!” Winters gasped, pointing at the character. He saw that his hand wore the heavy gauntlets his character Winters did, and indeed, the rest of him was the Artificer Winters. “What’s going on? What are you doing in here!?”

  The Lady of Efen had her back turned towards him, her platinum hair flowing over her shoulders and halfway down her back as her flimsy translucent gown stuck to the curve of her spine and hugged the suggested curves of her buttocks.

  Gosh. Winters swallowed nervously. She was even hotter up close, as she slowly turned without moving her legs, revealing the rise and fall of her chest, her sharp, perfect features, and her eyes that were white and radiant.

  “L-Lady…?” He managed to say. This must be a glitch in the game, surely? Had her NPC somehow been transported to his personal VRM-Alpha machine? Although the sudden thoughts of what it might mean to have her here in his personal, private zone whenever he logged in were interesting, Dean thought it would probably be unwise. She was, after all, a very angry, pissed-off divinity.

  “Winters.” Her voice sounded exactly the same as before, and Dean wondered why he had expected it to be different. Because I thought there might be a real person playing behind her character, like I play Winters.
/>   “Where are the crystals, Winters?” the Lady said, floating slowly towards him.

  “I, uh – I don’t know. We thought you knew!?” he said, when she stopped just a foot away from him.

  “You need to get them for me, it is imperative that…” Suddenly, something happened to her. Her form appeared to glitch in and out of existence, and when she returned, her eyes flashed a deep, solid black. “Give it to me, human!” the new, black-eyed Efen screamed, pushing out with her hands a blow that sent Dean’s avatar spiraling backwards to skid along the floor he thought was supposed to be soft – but it wasn’t, it felt very hard indeed.

  “How dare you keep this from me!? These are mine, you understand? MINE!” The Lady rose in the air of the gray practice area, and, as Dean coughed and pushed himself to his feet he could see electric sparks of light jolting into her form as if she were a static collector. “You will die for your disobedience!” she screamed, raising her arms slowly above her head, surrounded by a corona of pulsing, sparking energy.

  “But – I saved you!” Dean shouted in alarm. “From your prison in the Jodo Canyons, remember!?

  The black-eyed Efen didn’t pause, but something rippled through her form. Another glitch shook and twisted her as if she were a badly-processed game graphic. Which, I guess she might be, after all Winters thought. She was replaced with herself once more, the first Efen with the white and radiant eyes, and the ball of power faded from her arms.

  “Yes, I remember now. You saved me. I owe you a debt. Listen to me, Winters. This is very difficult to maintain…” Another almost-glitch, but this time the angry, black-eyed Efen did not return. Somehow, the ‘good’ Efen managed to maintain her composure and her control.