"Do you get it?" Val asked.
Yin laughed. "Not remotely! But if you and Julia keep practicing and I'm linked to you, if you all are serious about training regularly... I will get it eventually. I know I will!"
Dirk favored Val with an unreadable glance before turning to Yin. "Don't be too disappointed if you can't learn it on the fly, Yin. Few mages, if any, can use a Synergized Ward at all. Their shields are enhanced to block laser fire at most, which is why Ice Spear is such a damn effective spell against rebels, and most players even aware of the synergized version of the skill just buy it. That Val learned it, and so quickly? First time I've ever heard of that happening."
Val frowned, not quite sure what to make of Dirk. He seemed so welcoming at times, and at other times so suspicious.
Dirk had turned to introduce the large man behind him. Pale complected with blond curls, the guy was built like a Viking hero or a pro linebacker, flashing them all a friendly grin. "Name's Chris. So we got a few more mages in our unit? Fantastic. I can't cast a single spell myself," he chuckled, "but I'm happy to guard your back, or your front, in any case. So who's up for some training?"
Val smiled, holding out his hand. "Name's Val. It's a pleasure to meet you. Sadly, I have to get going. Promised to meet up with my dad, and I'm running late as it is, lost in trying to figure out the ins and outs of all this magic." He turned to Dirk. "Thanks again for having me, and here's to hoping I don't forget how to cast that fancy shield I only now just barely understand."
Dirk dipped his head. "Enjoy your day, Val. Training starts at 9 tomorrow. I hope to see you there. Julia? If you could show Val the warp stone?"
With a final wave to a grinning Yin, already chatting up the newest arrival, Val followed Julia as she led him to the obelisk they conveniently had in the heart of the compound. Julia squeezed his hand and winked. "We call them warp stones or save stones because you can warp to any stone you've ever touched when you jump back in the game. You'll also be able to sense the stone your party is at. It's what allows us to adventure from area to area without spending all our days in the velimobile, realistic as that would be. Of course, you and Yin are just starting out, so I guess it's back to traveling!" She chuckled. "But that's okay. It's like I'm on safari when we explore this word. Now tell me you didn't get the kick of your life, feeling the rush of mastering that magic, Val."
Val grinned. "You know I did, Julia. Thanks for training me for so many hours."
She flushed and smiled. "No problem. I'm heading home as well. Mother loves that I love the game and that it seems to be helping. The mornings are mine, and the exhilaration of casting magic really helps with the cravings. But after two, she calls the shots with her study routine." She shook her head ruefully. "Now that she has hope that my brain's recovered enough for medical school, the kid gloves are off," she grinned, Val smiling back.
"That's fantastic to hear, Julia. If that's your dream? Chase it with all your heart." His own gaze grew thoughtful as they stared at the obelisk that seemed to glow with perfect blackness, resonating with a hum Val was certain only PCs could hear. "I sort of suspend my belief when I'm here, but if this game really can enhance people's talents just by them raising imaginary ability scores... I say go for it, but carefully. Still, enhancing yourself with a genius level memory could really help you make your way through modern life, so why not give yourself that gift?"
Julia nodded. "Exactly. And don't worry, I was careful, only boosting my scholarship a point at a time. I really do feel dizzy and disoriented for a week afterward, which alarmed my mom so much the first time it happened that she forbade me jumping in at all!" Julia shuddered at the memory. "But by the second week, my head felt clear. Clearer than it had been in a very long time. She gave me the strangest look when I said I had brought up my score, and then the oddest smile. I swear it was like she was proud of me. Fiercely proud. Now she's decided that jacking into the game is good for me, and she even forgives me if I'm in the game for the entire day when I'm running missions with Dirk, as long as I give her a blow by blow account of my adventures. But I make sure to study under her most days, so she doesn't lose patience with me."
"That makes sense if you really seem to be improving," Val acknowledged. "And friendships are valuable. Especially friends who could save your life, and facilitate you growing beyond anything you could achieve in college."
Julia nodded. "You're right. That's probably why mom is so interested in my online friends and why she's more lenient about long gaming days, as long as it's spent directly helping my friends during an adventure. Now I think it's time I put another point in Scholarship and really wow my mom, especially since Yin with her 17 showed us the possibilities of learning magical arts at a hyper-accelerated rate, to say nothing of your own odd gifts."
Julia gazed intently at Val, squeezing his hand. "Just be careful to take your own advice when it's your turn to level up. There are reasons why no one puts more than one point in any given stat per level."
Val nodded. "Makes sense. It might put a strain on our bodies, having to change too many things too drastically. A single point boosting Scholarship, Quickness, and Strength might be a lot gentler on the body than going for a drastic 30 point boost in IQ."
Julia smiled. "Scholarship's not really a proxy for intelligence, even if I was downing myself in front of Yin because I got depressed for a second. It does encapsulate the ability to memorize new material quickly and effectively, however, which is vital for school. But the genius of creation is much more related to Insight, I think, which for some reason we are not allowed to boost at all. But pretty much everything else we can improve. Even Dirk and Chris, totally focused on personal development, follow the rule of no more than one point per level in any one stat, so their brains and bodies can safely adjust. And the thought of damaging my already fragile brain any further..." she shuddered.
"Baby steps," Val agreed. "Far better slow and steady than racing ahead and risking irreparable damage."
Julia's beautiful green eyes stared up into his. Val swallowed, acutely aware of her hand in his own. "If you ever want to, you know, meet up outside the game, give me a call." She grinned, whispering her number into his ear then darting into the portal before he could say a word.
10
Val frowned as he took off his helmet.
Something was wrong.
Old instincts took hold and he froze to stillness, doing his best to become one with the room he knew so well, one with the shadows, his room dim and gloomy with the overcast clouds rumbling overhead. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The thunder had stopped, or he had somehow muted it, feeling instead the vibrations of strange footsteps creeping below, his father's muffled voice, and another voice as well.
Radiating malevolent thoughts hostile and vile, oddly potent, as if thoughts alone held weight and substance. Weapons of a tyrant, and perhaps the only resistance was not to resist at all. But to flow through them, past them, nothing but shadows and darkness as Val flowed downstairs and across the grand hall to his father's office, noting the grim looking man standing sentinel, hands behind his back. A bored expression upon heavy features now cracking a yawn, seeing nothing but shadow.
And Val could feel it then, a weight of force conveyed by sibilant words, a sharp contrast to his father's strangely vulnerable reply. Trapped in the coils of a serpent no Terran could possibly resist.
Val felt a dark rage boiling within him. Quickly fading to a bleak coldness as the sibilant voice broke off, a hot beam of thought probing for him, sensing nothing but shadow.
And sibilant words once more burrowed into his father's mind as military secrets were pried free, one by one. A frisson of terror, that bit of corridor known as Val somehow tasting his father's tripping confessions, a mind open to him, even as the other was closed like a trap of steel.
"Your son, Valor. What does he know? Which House is he working for?"
His father groaned. "Val. Val, he was sick... my son was in
a coma. Why, what are you doing? How, how the hell did you get in here?"
Val felt the blast of the stranger's rage washing over him, even the guard wincing, for all that his father was the target.
"Our last orders were to prepare for our mistress's arrival, that the bounties of this city were open to your son! Why? Why was he given such privilege? How has a mere human boy captured the interest of the Overlord's Court? And not a single further message until months after disaster struck! Now there are new pieces on the board, and no one knows their place!"
An angry fist pounded the table. "I want answers, human! Restraint we have shown with those parting orders for three months while your insignificant son rotted in his coma, only to disappear without a trace, having the savvy to vanish with a killer's grace, taking out enemies and making alliances as if he had not been dead to the world the day before." Dark ugly laughter at the wave of confused fear Val could somehow sense coming off his father. "Oh yes, we know, human. It was nothing for us to glean carefully hidden secrets, with your Terran minds wide open. And to here he has fled, away from battles he has long forgotten, but his enemies, my tools, have not! I know he is here. I taste it in your mind. But all you see is your innocuous son who has confessed nothing to you. Nothing to point to greatness, nothing to say he was anything but one of our drones. What are you hiding, Johnathan Hunter? Tell me what you know!"
To the guard it meant nothing as the shadows nearby seemed to waver, the man idly checking his cell phone, and the moment Val tasted his enemy lashing out at his father with his mind once more, shadows suddenly wrapped around the guard's throat in a modified Hadaka jime as Val pivoted and arched back before twisting and rolling, careful not to wrench the neck too far as he applied deliberate pressure to the carotid arteries.
Shocked and stunned, the man's thoughts flowed into a roiling panic that soon flickered to blackness as consciousness was lost. Val slid his arms free, massaging the man's arteries for a brief second, then expertly plucking the 40 caliber Glock from the fallen man's shoulder holster before hugging the wall once more, a wave of hostility blazing through the shadowy corridor. "Vilem!"
Val closed his eye and almost imagined he could feel what was going on in the room beyond, the furious glare from the same man who had been circling their walled home just the night before, now grabbing his captive's shirt in his clenched fist, dragging Val's confused father forward. "Are you one of the rare hybrids able to hide things with your ape-like mind? Look into my eyes! What games are you playing at, Johnathon Hunter?"
Val's hand squeezed the grip of the Glock in his hand, but somehow he knew it would avail him absolutely nothing against the figure before him, his gut all but screaming warning that to strike now with the paltry weapon he held would spell his death as sure as the sun would set.
Val could all but taste the deadly man's ire as he shoved Val's father back into his chair, only now blinking his eyes and gazing about in confusion. "Bah. You know nothing!" Serpentine eyes locked upon his captive. "Forget this conversation, mortal. You are luckier than you will ever know that we still choose to show restraint!"
Val flowed back into the shadows as the man slammed open the study door, preceded by a beam of hideous crackling darkness that extended three feet beyond him.
Psiblade his mind screamed. Val gazed at the weapon in wide-eyed disbelief as the intruder peered around with his hot crimson glare, eyes Val averted from instantly, gazing instead at pale blue lips that curled into an ugly snarl as he kicked his slumped-over henchman. And the way he moved, his trench coat hugging his frame so oddly, Val suddenly had no doubt the man was wearing a full suit of body armor. Then Val blinked, wonder quickly swallowed by the darkness creeping into his soul. That wasn't just armor. There was a forcefield generating from it! That's why the trench coat is stretched so oddly, and the top of his bald head shimmers! What the hell is going on here?
Val swallowed, his mind both shying away and oddly attracted to the yard-long sliver of oblivion that he was suddenly certain nothing could stop.
Nothing at all.
The grim-looking figure smirked at his slumped-over guard. "Is your mind truly so weak, fool? That the barest taste of my shout has completely stunned you? Pathetic. Now get up and honor your contract. You were paid in gold to serve, now serve!"
Groaning and rubbing his skull, the oblivious bodyguard righted himself, stumbling only momentarily and earning a crack with gloved fist that nearly sent him stumbling over again.
"Sorry, sir," the man muttered in Slavic.
"Your weakness is appalling. We are done here. Now go."
Val stood motionless, one with the shadows, ignoring his racing heart as the terrible being and his assistant made their way out of his house, slamming the door so loud the frame shook before heading to their car, the shaven-headed man shouting and cursing at his assistant long after Val felt the hot, bitter glare of the man's terrible mind slowly fade away with distance.
A final fact gleaned, the most chilling of all.
Government plates.
Only then did Val shake himself free of the strange dark trance he seemed to have slipped into, now not quite sure how the hell the man had missed seeing him. Gloomy as the corridor had been, he had only been feet away.
But more importantly, his original plan of tracking them down got a whole lot riskier. No matter how good his internet protocols were, no one went after the government without expecting to be taken down. For all that he thought he was a ghost to any third party, not even TOR was safe from the incredible computing power and dedication of the NSA. Hell, whatever people claimed, Val was halfway convinced they controlled all the exit nodes.
At the very least, the most dangerous man Val had ever seen would know someone was on to him.
Far better he think Val's father a clueless patsy and Val himself a lucky idiot. The worst thing Val could do, the absolute worst thing, was to risk flagging that man's interest when he had just finished dismissing Val's father as a dead end.
Two different threats, two different sources, and now they were connected, even if they hadn't been before. Val's curiosity was burning, but if that being could actually read minds? He knew he couldn't risk putting his father in the line of fire by bringing attention to what had just happened to him. Anything his father did or thought might be exposed.
Damn it. All he could do was keep this to himself, focus on the threat actively trying to kill him, and keep a very discreet eye out for any further clues regarding this deadly stranger that Val could only hope had lost all interest in them.
"Dad!" The relief Val felt upon seeing his father awake and alert was beyond words. He peered carefully at his worried-looking dad. Good, no damage. Val blinked, not sure how he knew, knowing it was impossible, just like the terrible weapon that intruder had held. Val slowly pulled his mind back, absolutely refusing to violate his father's thoughts, knowing such was impossible anyway.
His father gave a dazed smile as he patted Val in return for his fierce hug. "Are you alright, son? I seem to have dozed off." He chuckled softly. "I got caught up with work, I'm afraid, and here I've been promising myself to spend more time with you."
Val grinned. "It's okay, dad. I was playing my game a bit longer than I had meant to as well."
"Ah. Exultius, was it? That's the game Julia's playing, right? And the VR helm. Damn. Shame on me for not checking on you earlier. But no side effects I take it?"
"None at all, dad," Val said with a relieved smile, one thumb nervously touching the other, surprised again to feel no trace of the cut he had woken up with at Julia's, having healed to nothing after a single night's sleep. But a cut there had definitely been, washed and bandaged with his stop to the bathroom that night. "It was great. I got to meet up with Julia, and we've joined the same guild."
His father smiled. "Why don't you tell me about it over lunch, Val? It's been awhile since we barbecued together." He frowned, looking outside. "Strange, I don't remember that storm front. How ab
out we order a pizza?"
Val frowned, hating that it was not convenient for him to go out during the day, for reasons they both understood. A powerful hand gripped his shoulder. "Don't worry, son. I'm doing what I can."
Val raised his eyebrow at this.
His father's gaze turned thoughtful. "I've made a lot of contacts, working with defense. Let's just say sometimes friends can put the word out to other friends that it's in everyone's best interest for misunderstandings to be resolved amicably. Profitable for everyone, in the end."
Val flashed a smile too dark for his father. Suddenly ashamed, he looked away. His squad had called it a 10 for 1. If someone had been made on one of their assignments, sometimes vigilante assassins or snipers would be assigned by unhappy parties to try to take them out. If they were among the targets Val was after anyway, his team would strike faster and harder, always on the move, leaving no survivors behind. None. Any birds chasing after would come home to burnt nests, they themselves taken out when they desperately regrouped, trying to save who they could.
It was a desperate, ugly game they had played, what now seemed a lifetime ago. And for all the dark joy Val had once felt, destroying his enemies body and soul, now that he was back home with a sweet life waiting for him, he couldn't help but feel a sudden flicker of shame. Of course he had done what was necessary. Terrorists had been stopped, and countless lives saved. All the same, sometimes he keenly felt the weight of the things he had done.
Save when he embraced the shadows, then he felt no regret at all.
A 10 for 1 had been the other side of the coin. Unfortunately, neutrals would sometimes get caught in the crossfire. More likely, a neutral family who had a son playing for the other team. It had only been a problem once. They had hired a real pro. Val had been smiling and laughing with a new member of their unit, getting some much needed R&R, when a cold bolt of dread had flattened him to the ground. And before he could even slam his newest member down, the kid's wide-eyed look of confusion had turned to a sudden cloud of blood and brain.
Endless Online: Oblivion's Price: A LitRPG Adventure - Book 3 Page 19