Worldshift- Virtual Revolution

by Scott Straughan

  “Yeah, that’s a great idea,” Ethan agreed aloud, which drew nods from everyone else.

  Michael took the lead again, and the team quickly jogged toward their goal. Thankfully, the compass was leading them in almost the exact opposite direction the other player had gone. Ethan had no desire to tangle with him.

  “There’s something over there,” Michael remarked before they’d gotten too far. They were standing atop a hill that allowed them to see above the nearby bushes, and Michael was pointing down the slope to the left.

  Ethan quickly activated the telescopic vision built into his helmet. “It looks like a camp of some sort.”

  “But it’s been trashed,” Kyle said.

  Among the trees at the bottom of the hill, several tents and crates had been placed. All the tents had been knocked over though, and there were other signs of struggle, such as blast marks. Suddenly, as Ethan was studying the camp, he saw a flicker of movement as a woman in all-black armor walked out from behind a tree.

  “Shoot, it’s another black player,” Ethan hissed in alarm. The sleek style of her armor was the same as the man before, so they were obviously connected.

  “Hmm, interesting. I think I know what happened here,” Michael said. “I believe a team of players had set up here and were literally camping the area so they could ambush people coming to the temple. However, they appear to have picked off more than they could chew with these players in black.”

  “That’s pretty convenient for us,” Ethan remarked happily.

  “Indeed,” Michael agreed in a thoughtful tone. “We could have walked right into this ambush.”

  “Let’s not stand around here and count our blessings. We need to keep moving,” Lily said.

  “Someone is sure in a hurry,” Jude huffed.

  Ethan immediately came to Lily’s defense. “She has a point. Let’s get away from the creepy and powerful player killers.”

  Michael nodded and pulled out his compass again. After a quick look at it, he led them farther into the forest.

  After walking for a few more minutes and doing some climbing, the team crested the top of another hill and the forest canopy overhead thinned out. This allowed Ethan to see the sky, which was the same grey clouds as always on this floor. However, something did stand out.

  “Hey, I think I found the temple,” he told his team.

  “What? Where?” Kyle asked.

  Ethan pointed at the sky ahead. There was a large stone tower rising from the forest and into the clouds. Its top was shrouded, and thus it was impossible to see how tall it was. The tower reminded Ethan of the Tower of Ascension itself, although it was much smaller and a uniformly round shape.

  Jude laughed after looking up. “Ya, that seems like the way to get to the next floor to me.”

  “Indeed. Not exactly subtle, is it?” Michael remarked as he began walking again.

  They soon reached the edge of the forest around the temple and got a good look at it. Around the building itself there was a high stone wall. Luckily, there was a gate through the wall that was not too far from where they were standing, and they were able to quickly reach it. On the other side of the wall was an empty courtyard and a path leading into the tower itself, which was made from the same stone blocks as the wall.

  Ethan frowned as he looked around. “We should be alert for traps. Hidden temples are always full of mechanical traps. They could even be out here, and if they don’t use a power source, they’re almost impossible to find with scanners unless you’re right on top of them.”

  “That sort of thing isn’t my specialty. Do you want to take the lead then?” Michael asked. “Now that we’re out of the forest, I’m going to send out some drones and scout out the premises.”

  “Sure, that sounds like a plan,” Ethan replied with a happy grin. He was pretty good at this sort of thing.

  After activating his scanner, Ethan took the lead and carefully walked toward the entrance. At the same time, Michael fell back to the middle of the group and sent two drones out to circle around the tower.

  As they moved across the courtyard, Ethan didn’t detect any traps, but once they reached the entrance to the tower, he stopped. Beyond the archway lay a short span of floor and then a blank wall, but when he leaned through the entrance and looked to his right, he saw a dim hallway that stretched out of sight and into darkness. It seemed to curve around the exterior of the tower.

  Acting cautiously, Ethan activated his helmet-mounted light, creating a beam of light that pierced the darkness in the hallway. It revealed a floor made of square tiles and two lines of statues that ran along both walls. The statues were of various animals—including birds, cats, and monkeys—and their myriad of shapes cast a host of twisted shadows.

  “Whelp, this is definitely trapped,” Ethan said.

  Kyle chuckled as he peered past Ethan. “Yeah, I’ve seen that movie too.”

  Taking a cautious step forward, Ethan crouched down to inspect the floor. The tiles were really suspicious.

  “I do a lot of solo exploring in high-level areas, so I’ve had to be able to deal with traps,” he absently told his teammates as he studied the tiles.

  Kyle walked up beside Ethan. “I’m in a pretty friendly guild, the Robot Heads, so someone else has always handled traps for me.”

  “When in harmony, all weaknesses are covered, and people can do what they excel at, which benefits the whole,” Jude remarked.

  Ethan snorted. “And you focus on shooting as much as possible.”

  “Exactly. If it doesn’t involve blasting away with a gun, then it’s a waste of my talents.”

  Ethan felt like making another comment but held his tongue. He found it sketchy how believers in harmony could twist its rules to suit their own interests so easily. Usually, they were against selfishness and people doing what they wanted. They simply found reasons not to apply this rule to themselves when it was inconvenient.

  Finishing his inspection of the hallway, Ethan turned to face his teammates. “I’m fairly certain I’ve figured out which tiles are trapped. Follow in my footsteps, exactly. There are probably devices built into the statues and walls or hidden spikes in the floor.”

  “How can you tell?” Kyle asked.

  “Some of the tiles read as being slightly thinner to my scanners. It’s not something that would trigger an automatic warning, but it’s one of things I’ve learned to look for.”

  “Huh, I’ll have to remember that,” Kyle remarked. He sounded impressed.

  Shrugging as if it were nothing—but secretly feeling quite pleased with himself—Ethan moved deeper into the hallway by carefully stepping only on certain tiles that he scanned in advance. His teammates followed him one at a time, and they all had their helmet lights on. However, around halfway down the hallway, Ethan came to a stop and frowned as he looked around. The beam from his light slowly slid across the statues that lined the wall to his right. Something wasn’t right. He could feel it.

  “What is it?” Michael asked. “I have my drones watching the way we came in. Do you want me to bring them in and scout ahead?”

  “No, drones won’t help. Just give me a second,” Ethan replied. “The thin tiles have disappeared. Either the rest of the hallway is untrapped—Ha!—or there is a new trigger mechanism here.”

  As his team waited silently, Ethan studied the walls. He hadn’t found anything on the floor, so the new trigger mechanism had to be there somewhere. Wait, was that the glint of a reflection? Did that cat statue have gems for eyes? It did. Ethan looked at the opposite wall and the statue there. It was a monkey, but its eyes held the same gems and were at the exact same level as the cat’s. None of the other statues had shiny eyes…

  Ethan nodded and turned to look at his teammates. “See those two statues up ahead? Duck under their gaze as you pass them. If you step into their line of sight, I’m pretty sure it will set off a trap.”

  His teammates acknowledged his words and then followed him past the statues.
Each of them ducked low under their gazes, and a trap wasn’t triggered. Ethan located a few more statues like that before they reached the end of the hallway and stepped into the chamber beyond. It was a huge round room and as dark as the hallway had been. The beams from the players’ helmets could only reveal a small portion of the chamber at a time. There was a ring of pillars, but Ethan looked past them and toward the center of the room. There, he saw a huge statue of a knight in armor. It had its sword held up above its head and pointing skyward.

  “Oh, that isn’t suspicious at all,” Kyle remarked with a chuckle. “I’ll bet anyone fifty credits that that statue is the boss for this place and it will come alive and attack us.”

  Everyone turned to look at the statue when they entered the room, bathing it in light and rendering the rest of the chamber dark. They walked slowly but surely, until… boom! Ethan’s heart skipped a beat as he jumped around and instinctively looked toward the source of the noise that had startled him. All his allies did likewise. The door behind them was blocked. A large stone slab had fallen into place and shut the doorway.

  “We really should have expected that to happen,” Lily remarked warily.

  Jude huffed irately. “I did. It was still fraking loud though.”

  “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about being ambushed by players anymore,” Ethan joked in a playful tone.

  “One of my drones is still out there,” Michael said with an irritated sigh.

  As they were talking, Ethan snuck a nervous glance back, and the light from his helmet illuminated the statue in the center of the room. It was still an immobile piece of rock. That was good. He’d been worried about it coming alive while their backs had been turned. Ethan let out a sigh of relief, but then flinched in surprise as the entire dark room was suddenly flooded with light that burnt away every shadow.

  “What the?” Ethan cursed as he shielded his eyes. The light seemed to be coming from above, and it was blinding. There were similar curses from his teammates.

  Before any of them could adjust, a loud voice boomed at them. “Welcome, aspirants. Now your test begins. Defend yourselves or be found unworthy and destroyed.”

  CHAPTER 23

  THE LESSON

  Shielding his eyes, Ethan glanced up toward the source of the voice. Thankfully, the light in the chamber dimmed, and the voice’s source became visible, first as a shadow and then more clearly. A large armored figure was floating downward. Behind him, way up on the ceiling, shone a huge white crystal. It was the source of the light.

  Ethan blinked as he studied the descending man. He was about seven feet tall and had a muscular build that was emphasized by the heavy golden armor he was wearing. The plate armor was decorated with glowing runes. It looked like spellsmith work, although it didn’t have a helmet. The man’s face was clearly visible. His facial features and pointed ears made him look like an Aknii, but his skin was a dull silver instead of blue, and his eyes glowed a bright gold. As a result, he didn’t look quite like a living creature. Was he some sort of construct or undead?

  There was a quick sequence of booms from beside Ethan. He flinched and then glanced over and saw Jude opening fire. She hadn’t waited for a sign of hostility or bothered warning her teammates. Instead, she had immediately blasted away at the floating figure with her heavy machine gun.

  Bullets zipped through the air, but before they got to their target, they impacted something in the air and were deflected off the side. The golden figure simply smiled ruthlessly as he gently came to a stop, so his feet were floating several inches above the ground.

  “Selfish fraking cheater!” Jude yelled in frustration as she stopped firing.

  “I think that’s some sort of evoking. Watch out for aether blasts,” Ethan warned his allies.

  Before they could respond, the golden figure laughed and made a dismissive gesture. “Good try, but now it’s my turn.”

  Ethan’s eyes opened in alarm when he saw two ripples in the air form on either side of the floating figure. Reacting quickly, all he could do was throw himself sideways as two aether blasts shot past him. One missed him by an inch and flew harmlessly past, but the other hit Lily in the chest. There was a thud and she was sent flying backward.

  “Blasted hacks,” Ethan cursed as he moved to help her.

  “No, stop!” Michael yelled at him.

  Ethan turned to see what the older man was talking about. A ball of aether had appeared in front of the golden man, and it was growing. The crackling electricity around it made it visible, and its creator sent it flying toward Ethan with the wave of a hand.

  “Scatter and surround the target!” Michael yelled as he started moving. “He shouldn’t be able to shield himself from multiple directions.

  As the ball of energy flew their way, everyone did as Michael ordered. They scattered. Ethan dashed sideways for a moment before heading toward Lily’s prone form again. She had been thrown quite far away by the boss’s aether blast. He hoped she was all right.

  The energy ball hit the ground not too far from Ethan. There was a boom as the ball exploded and a zap as the energy within discharged. Ethan glanced back over his shoulder. For a moment, the lack of effect surprised him. Then, a bolt of lightning shot down from above. It seared across his vision and hit the exact same spot as the energy ball. With a sizzling boom, shards of stone were thrown in every direction as the blast dug a small crater in the floor. The debris bounced off Ethan’s armor as he was thrown sideways.

  “Holy ones and zeroes!” Kyle yelled in surprise.

  “That lightning came from the crystal above,” Michael calmly stated. “Jude, destroy it.”

  “Sure thing!” Jude snarled as she stopped running and raised her weapon.

  The sound of more heavy gunfire filled the air as she fired again. However, once again, the bullets hit a rippling nigh-invisible barrier and were deflected away from their target. Ethan grimaced as he jumped to his feet and moved again. If he had continued running in a straight line, that blast would have torn him apart.

  Meanwhile, the golden man hadn’t stayed still. With Jude distracted, he suddenly burst forward and flew at Kyle. Michael took a few quick shots at him with his pistol, but they either missed or bounced off his heavy armor. Kyle turned and tried to defend himself with his sword, but a blast of aether from the boss knocked him off balance. The golden man then grabbed Kyle’s wrist, and there was a crackle of electricity as he shocked him. Sparks and wisps of smoke rose from Kyle’s arms, and he spasmed as the boss swung him around and threw him aside. Kyle flew through the air for a few seconds before hitting the ground and sliding. Jude then opened fire on the golden man, but he blocked her attack with an aether shield and threw another ball of electricity at Kyle’s stunned body.

  “I got this!” Ethan screamed as he swerved toward Kyle and activated his hookshot. The adhesive hook hit Kyle’s thigh, and Ethan immediately activated his reel and tugged as hard as he could. Boom! Stone was shattered as lightning lanced again, but Kyle had been safely pulled out of the blast radius.

  “Thanks, man,” Kyle said before groaning in pain. Thankfully, he seemed to still be conscious.

  “No problem.” Ethan detached his line and dodged an aether blast that had been thrown his way.

  On team speak, there was a groan from Lily as well. “Ugh, I’m still here too. Although, even after taking some serious drugs and several med-packs, I think I need another minute before I can move.”

  The golden man was now taking fire from Jude and Michael, who were both using the room’s stone pillars as cover. The boss didn’t seem to consider Michael’s pistol to be much of a threat, so he was concentrating on blocking Jude’s machine gunfire.

  Ethan raised his pistol and tried to snipe the boss’s seemingly unprotected head, but all his shots missed. Either he was a much worse shot than he thought, or there was another invisible aether barrier protecting the man’s head.

  “All right, how about this?” Ethan muttered as he
reached and pulled a javelin from his quiver.

  Assuming the proper stance, Ethan put all his armor-enhanced strength into hurling the javelin straight at his enemy. Once the weapon left his hand, he seized the Origin and used it to push the projectile as hard as he could.

  The crystal zipped through the air with startling speed. There was a boom as the red blur broke the sound barrier and then slammed into the boss’s invisible shield. The crystal then exploded, creating another boom, and the golden figure on the other side of the shield was knocked backward. However, his shield didn’t fall, and he didn’t appear damaged.

  Grunting in frustration, Ethan tried to think. This boss seemed to be using evoking almost exclusively. Even the shocking touch attack he’d hit Kyle with had probably been some form of it. Had the boss somehow used his own aura and armor to pierce Kyle’s aura? It was an interesting idea, but he needed to focus.

  Suddenly, Jude stopped firing for a moment as she reloaded, and the boss turned to glance at Ethan. Ethan jumped in surprise as two aether blasts zipped toward him. He managed to dodge one of them, but the other slammed into his side. Gasping in pain, Ethan hit the ground hard and bounced before coming to a stop. He gasped in pain. Even through his armor, it felt like he’d been kicked in the chest by a horse. However, he automatically worked through the pain and administered a combat med-shot to himself.

  Unfortunately, Ethan wasn’t given any time to recover. Michael yelled at him through team speak. “Get up and move, Ethan!”

  Clenching his teeth, Ethan sat up and looked to see what all the fuss was about. Oh. The golden warrior was throwing a lightning ball at him. That was bad. His ribs hurt far too much for him to get up quite yet, although he could feel the cool sensation of painkillers spreading through his body. Instead, he shot a nearby pillar with his hookshot and used his reel to drag himself toward it. A moment later, the energy ball burst next to where he’d been lying, and lightning blasted the stone floor. It had missed him.

  When he reached the pillar, Ethan managed to get up and throw himself behind it. Hopefully, he’d be safe there for at least a few moments so he could catch his breath.