Exile

by Riley Morrison

  The figure stopped and turned. He waved his hands, making sure she knew he was there.

  Now that he saw her better, he wasn’t so sure it was Lillus. The features were similar, yet this woman had white hair and stood taller than the Demon Mage... She came over, and he saw she also had white eyes. Is she blind? How could she be if she’d seen him? Strange. He’d never seen someone with eyes like hers.

  The woman peered in at him. Then she spoke, but he couldn’t hear what she said. “Who are you?” She mightn’t be able to hear him, but perhaps she could read his lips.

  The woman stared at him, then stepped away and put two fingers to her temple. A moment later, a voice spoke in his mind. “Can you hear me?”

  It was her.

  I... I hear you.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  My name is Ajax Stoneh—that was his Visarian name. I am Adrian Stewert.

  She frowned, as if his name confused her. “How are you here?”

  What do you mean? Who was this woman?

  “I hear your thoughts. My name is Kara. I sense that you are confused, probably more confused than I am.”

  Is the exile over? Are the machines gone?

  “You know of the Firstborn?”

  The what?

  Suddenly, the woman turned away. A red-headed woman ran up to her and grabbed her by the arm. Before he could say anything more, both women were gone. Moments later, something huge and dark passed in front of the stasis chamber. It stopped, and a face formed within the black. It stared at him, its eyes empty gray voids. This can’t be real. He backed deeper into the stasis chamber, until his back hit the bottom.

  Then a black appendage reached through the glass and clasped him around the head. He screamed, thrashing around, as his life force passed from his body and into the darkness.

  AJAX WOKE WITH A START and reached for his weapon. It was dark, and there were no signs of the shadowy creature feeding on his life. He had half unsheathed his sword but stopped himself. Just a dream. It all had just been a dream. By the One God, I’m tired.

  Lillus was on watch on the other side of the small forest clearing, Yana asleep beside her, which meant it must be approaching sunup. He rubbed his weary eyes and quickly checked his stats.

  Everything seemed in order. Nothing had changed. Strange that in the dream his stats, his equipment and his power had all been gone. Having dreams was rare in Visaria. He hadn’t had any since spawning in this new life. Odd that he had now. It felt so real. What if it wasn’t a dream?

  With that question in mind, he closed his eyes and let himself drift back to sleep.

  When he woke, Yana shoved a bowl of cold soup into his hand, then proceeded to give him a sloppy kiss on the cheek. “Make sure you don’t choke on the uncooked vegetables and meat, my love.”

  He stared into the brown slop in his bowl. “Meat. I don’t eat meat. I’m a vegetarian.”

  The demon cupped a hand over her mouth and cackled. Valeria and Lillus watched on, drinking the soup straight from their bowls. Ajax frowned at the succubus. “Stop laughing at me. It’s not that odd. I used to know lots of people who didn’t eat meat back in the real world.”

  Yana finally got control of herself, and ran her claws over where she’d just kissed him. “You’re so cute.” With that, she let him pick out the chunks of steak from the soup and eat his breakfast.

  Valeria stared at the discarded meat with a wrinkled nose. “So you’ll throw it on the ground and waste it, as if that’s better for the animal than eating it. That logic doesn’t make sense to me.” She shook her head. “At least if you eat it, something good comes of the animal’s death.”

  “Vegetarians in general don’t make sense to me,” Lillus said. “Crazies, the lot of them. But vegans make vegetarians seem sane. Those people were weirdos.”

  Ajax slurped down the soup. Calling vegetarians crazy was a stretch coming from someone like Lillus. A woman who set fire to corpses and cooked marshmallows with them. But he agreed with her about vegans.

  They really were crazy.

  “Hey.” Valeria pointed at Ajax’s equipment. “Is that a broken pineapple?”

  He quickly reached out and buried it under the rest of his stuff. Lillus laughed. “He’s really touchy about that pineapple. Must be a male thing.”

  Breaths misting in the icy morning air, they set out again, keeping off the roads. One night out of York, and still the looming Dernese army and its patrols were ever a threat. Tracks and broken equipment littered the forest floor, as if dozens of enemies had passed through the area recently. Judging by the poor workmanship of the equipment, Ajax had no doubt it once belonged to another group of Dernese goblins. Probably scouts for the larger force besieging York, assuming it had not fallen already.

  It seemed as if they had been unlucky to run into that patrol of goblins the day before. If their fortune held out, they would soon be well beyond the reach of the scouts who would stick close to the main Dernese host.

  Ajax almost stopped dead in his tracks. Unless of course the Dernese planned to retake York and then march through the mountains and invade the sparsely populated border region of the Imperium...

  He thought on this for a time, as they made their way through the snow-shrouded valley floor between two giant ice-capped mountain peaks. Why else would they bring such a vast army north? They could have retaken the town with one tenth of what they had brought. If they did intend to invade the Imperium, why march through the mountains knowing full well they would lose many soldiers to attrition?

  The boxes! His heart beat faster. The boxes they had seen yesterday with the cloaks in them.

  Maybe the Republic of Dern had supply caches hidden all throughout these mountains. They could have been put there well ahead of the invasion force, so when it passed through the area, they would have all the equipment they needed to make it out of the mountains with most of their soldiers still fit for battle.

  No...

  That had to be the Dernese plan. But how had Imperial Intelligence missed such a bold plan? Their job was to discover threats like this. What if the Republic had been aware the Imperium had made similar plans to invade their homeland in the eastern border region? Could the Imperial Army be walking into a trap?

  Something else to warn the Imperator about, though no doubt there were people far smarter than him who had already made contingencies for such an event.

  As they picked their way up an ice-encrusted crevice, they passed a small node of iron ore. “Wait.” Ajax stopped the other three and searched his inventory panel for his pick. “I want to mine this ore node for my blacksmithing.”

  All three of them frowned at him. Lillus motioned him forward. “Come on. You’ll make too much noise.”

  “There might still be patrols around,” Yana added.

  Valeria only watched him intently. As usual.

  “I’ll try to do it as quietly as I can. It’ll only take a moment.”

  Lillus crossed her arms. “Fine, just hurry up.” She kept watch on the path behind them, but wouldn’t be able to see far as the crevice twisted and turned as it snaked down through the valley. Her eyes darted from left to right, her posture rigid, as if she feared something was about to leap on top of her.

  “Are you alright?” he asked as he carefully began chipping away at the ore node.

  Lillus’s breath steamed as she let it out. “I don’t know. Something is out there. I can feel it.”

  “I feel it too,” Valeria said, still watching Ajax.

  The Spirit Mage’s intense gaze was beginning to make him uncomfortable. A chunk of iron ore broke off and it disappeared into his inventory. “What have you been feeling?” He peered up at the bleak gray sky. “I haven’t felt anything.” Now that he thought of it, both women had been acting a little off since they had broken camp earlier in the day. Neither had said a word, and even Yana had remained silent (for once).

  “I don’t know.” Lillus took an orange out of her bag and
started peeling off the skin, her eyes never leaving the path behind them. “All I know is we must hurry and get out of these mountains.”

  “You had a dream, didn’t you?”

  Ajax stopped picking away at the node and turned to Valeria. “How did you know?”

  “The voices...” She put a hand to her forehead. “They know.”

  “Know what? That I had a dream?”

  Valeria shook her head and looked away, mumbling under her breath. Lillus came up to him and put a hand on his arm. “What happened in the dream? Tell me.”

  “Well...” He put the pick back in his inventory and glanced at the changes.

  Mining

  Level: 74/300 Novice

  +4 chunks of iron ore

  He briefly told her of being in the stasis pod and feeling his powers were gone, as if he had been back in the real world. “Then it got weirder. I saw a woman with white hair and eyes, and she saw me.”

  “Anything else?” Lillus let go of his arm, her face a deep frown. Yana put an arm around her to comfort her mistress.

  “She talked to me using telepathy or something like that. But we only spoke for a few moments; then some showy monster came along and she fled with another woman. It saw me.” He shuddered, remembering the feel of being drained of his life. “I woke up after that.”

  “Fascinating,” Lillus said.

  “Yes... Anyway, it was nothing. Probably. Just a dream, you know?” It had felt like more than just a dream.

  “Dreams,” Valeria whispered. “I never had dreams until the voices in my head spoke to me. Now I have them every night. A dream of the void and the end of all things.”

  That didn’t sound like a dream Ajax ever wanted to have. “Mine was nothing like that.” He bit his lip. “Can we move? I’m done here.”

  Without another word, they moved off through the crevice, the two women lost to their own thoughts.

  I so much prefer Lillus when she is busy mocking me. At least then I can relax and not feel like we are two steps away from disaster. The Demon Mage was clearly a lot smarter than him and knew more about what was happening out there than he ever would. If she was worried about something, then he should be worried too.

  Walking in silence, he kept watch for danger, the mountains around him cold and silent.

  CHAPTER 13

  STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT

  As evening fell, a blizzard blew through the mountains from the west. They found a cave in which to shelter, and set about lighting a fire using some wood Ajax had gathered from the snow-covered underbrush. Icy air filled the cave, but the entrance was sheltered from the wind, sparing them the worst of the wind.

  After dinner, Ajax offered to keep first watch. There would be little chance anything would come upon them on a night like this, but it was better not to take any chances. They were only two days out of York and there could still be goblin patrols around... or worse.

  Monsters of all manner prowled the sparsely populated regions of the world. Krang beasts, undead worgs, and even ghouls and ghasts. Terrors devised by the minds who had made Visaria.

  Lillus draped a blanket over Ajax as he moved to sit between the campfire and the entrance. “Wake me around midnight, and I’ll take over.” Her eyes were ringed with dark circles, her black hair frazzled from blowing in the wind.

  “How are you holding up?”

  She grimaced. “I’m fine.”

  He waited for more, but she started to move away. “Wait. Please.” The Demon Mage stopped. Ajax licked his lips. “You’re worried, aren’t you? Worried about this void and—”

  “Yes. You should be too. But this feeling I’ve felt all day...” She shook her head and left him, then curled up beside Yana.

  The succubus looked over at him and blew him a kiss. Then she put her arm over Lillus and draped a wing protectively over her.

  Valeria had already fallen asleep without a word. Ajax turned away and stared out into the dark night, the wind howling past the entrance.

  It was near midnight when Ajax felt something disturb his thoughts.

  He sat up straight and rubbed his bleary eyes. No, he was not feeling something—but sensing it.

  Shivering, he rose to his feet and drew his sword. He had no idea what was approaching from out in the blizzard, but whatever it was, it meant them harm.

  Valeria sat up and let out a deathly scream.

  Ajax spun around, expecting to find a monster inside the cave with them, but saw no sign of a threat. Valeria stood and backed into the rear wall of the cave, arms raised as if warding off an attacker. Lillus and Yana were on their feet now, scanning for danger. Ajax’s heart began to pound in his chest, and he moved away from the entrance, shield up, sword gripped tight.

  Black shapes materialized from the darkness at the entrance of the cave. They moved into the glow of the fire and it seemed as if the shadows themselves had come alive. Before them stood three human-shaped figures made of swirling darkness. A white mist rose from their bodies, and when it touched the cave roof, frost started forming on the rock.

  The cold emanating from the figures smothered the heat of the fire, the flames pulling back as if they too were afraid. Ajax began to shiver violently inside his armor. He tried to bring up the stats of the figures, but all he got was garbled information.

  Unknown entity 1

  Unknown entity 2

  Unknown entity 3

  File corrupted

  Sub routine compromised

  Please contact an administrator and quote the numerals 3567/15/4 23:33

  What the hell does that mean?

  Ajax had never seen a warning like that before.

  The strange figures remained motionless, the cold mist billowing around them. “What do you want?” he asked, his teeth chattering.

  One of them pointed at Valeria, and Ajax sensed what it wanted without hearing its voice. It had come for the Spirit Mage.

  “No... Get away from me.” Valeria cried, her back against the rear wall. She lifted her arm and began casting an offensive spell, but then she stopped so suddenly Ajax thought she had died.

  Valeria’s face had gone blank, her mouth hanging open, her eyes wide. Then, like a puppet on strings, she took a jerky step forward, then another and another. Ajax grabbed her arm. “No, stay back.”

  Lillus moved to help him as Yana hissed at the figures, cracking her whip. They never moved. They only watched and waited.

  The Spirit Mage struggled against Ajax and Lillus’s grip. “Let me go.” Her voice sounded cold and flat and she never looked at them. “Let me go to them. They have need of me.”

  “No, what are you talking about?” Lillus demanded. “We need you. Help us banish them.”

  One of the figures pointed at Ajax and a deep cold enveloped him. Letting go of Valeria, he screamed, falling to his knees, his life force rapidly depleting.

  -30hp (unknown ability)

  -30hp

  -30hp

  -30hp

  -30hp

  HP: 54/204

  HP depleting fast, Ajax used his Touch of Light, restoring his full health. But then the damage continued, and he wailed in agony as his saliva turned to ice in his mouth, his blood freezing in his veins.

  -30hp

  -30hp

  He popped his Shield of the Lost Sun spell and finally got some relief. It nullified 90% of the damage, but would only last 30 seconds. If the damage persisted after that...

  -3hp

  -3hp

  -3hp

  Valeria snatched her arm away from Lillus and walked forward again. Yana lashed out with her whip, winding it around the Spirit Mage’s waist and snaring her in place. The same figure who had cast the devastating attack on Ajax turned its attention to the succubus. Instantly, the damage to Ajax ceased and he could breathe again.

  Now, Yana wailed in agony, her wings flapping rapidly. Lillus screamed with her, the link between the two making her feel the demon’s pain. Soon Yana collapsed into a heap and turn
ed to frozen dust. Lillus collapsed with her, still screaming, blood pouring from her nose.

  No...

  Ajax cast a healing spell on Lillus, and a second, and a third. Then he became too weak to go on, the ice from the enemy attack still freezing his body. His sword dropped to the ground. Valeria removed the whip from her waist and continued her jerky walk over to the figures. When she neared, two of them grabbed her, one on each arm, and they led her outside into the darkness.

  Once they were gone, the heat of the fire returned and the ice that had formed where the figures had stood quickly melted into water. The firelight dimmed, and Ajax slipped away into darkness.

  CHAPTER 14

  GRIM DAWN

  When Ajax woke, the blizzard had passed and the sun had just crested the distant mountain horizon. He sat up and shook his head to clear the fog from his brain. The fire was little more than smoldering coals.

  Then he remembered what had happened. Valeria... They’d taken her.

  Quest Failed

  Escort Valeria to the capital to meet the Imperator. Make sure she warns our esteemed ruler of the threat and offers her services for use by the Imperium.

  Quest Update

  Continue with the plan to report to the Imperator about the threat of the void and the Dernese invasion. Tell her everything you have seen here. Kill Lillus if she deviates from this objective.

  At least he was at full health again.

  HP: 204/204 (BASE: 195+9 BLS)

  “Lillus...” He saw her slumped in the corner beside a mound of ashes. Yana.

  Getting to his knees, he crawled over to the Demon Mage and held his breath. Was she dead? Her eyes were closed, and her skin very pale. With a shaky hand (as much from the cold as from trepidation), he touched Lillus on the cheek.

  Thank you, God. Her cheek was warm, which meant she still lived. “Lillus. Can you hear me? Please don’t be dead.” He shook her gently and she began to stir. “Come on, wake up.”

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she stared blankly at the cave wall. Then sense seemed to return to her, and she focused on him. “Ajax.” Her eyes widened. “Yana.”