The Once King

by Rachel Aaron

  “What’d he say?” Tina asked eagerly, dropping her ready-to-tackle stance.

  James quickly recounted the conversation to the room at large. When he’d told them everything, CincoDeMurder slammed his fists together. “Hot damn!” the Berserker cried, turning to Tina. “This means I was right! If you and I get our raids together and head for the Dead Mountain, we can crush that smug fucker! We’ll hold him down and beat him until he finds the mana to send us home!”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Assets snapped. “Even during the game when we had rezzes, no friendly fire, and instant communication via voice chat, no one ever defeated the Once King. Also, since you clearly forgot, the Dead Mountain Fortress is on the opposite side of the planet. How are you even going to get there? Build a boat?”

  Cinco glowered dangerously, but Assets had already dismissed him, turning to speak directly to Tina instead. “The smartest course of action is to band together and defeat his undead army here. After this kingdom’s peace is restored, we can return to Bastion and use the Room of Arrivals to portal directly to the Deadlands. King Gregory would fall over himself to send you there with full logistical support. If you’d just be patient, you can have everything you want.”

  “You know a lot about patience, Lord Assets,” Cinco snarled, forcing James to jump out of the way as the huge Berserker stepped forward. “You didn’t make it a day before selling out to the locals, and for what? You were the one reading the damn numbers. You know this is an unwinnable fight. I thought you greedy Wall Street types were supposed to be smart!”

  “It’s not unwinnable if we all fight the enemy instead of each other,” Assets snapped. “Our best chance of survival is to stay together. That means fighting with Bastion, and if I’m going to be the hero of a kingdom, I’m damn well going to get paid for it.”

  “What’s the point of sticking together with an army of cannon fodder?” Cinco argued back. “Windy Lake’s level what? Twenty? Maybe thirties? That’s nothing. I could sneeze and kill a whole squad of those low-level bastards. We don’t need a worthless kingdom providing worthless troops. Three high-end raids and the Once King at our feet, that’s what we need!”

  “And where am I supposed to live once he’s sent you all home?” Assets said, fearlessly jabbing a finger into Cinco’s burly chest. “What’s left of this continent is about to be swarmed under! Windy Lake will be a literal ghost town before you can even make it to the coast. Why should I sacrifice my chance to live as a rich lord in this beautiful new body just so you can go back to your life as an internet tough guy living in his mother’s basement?”

  “I don’t live in my mom’s basement!” Cinco roared. “I have my own place, and it’s fucking sweet. That said, my body is lying there alone right now! I’m dying of dehydration as we speak. We don’t have time to fuck around!”

  “You think I do?” Assets snapped. “I know exactly how high the wall we’re up against here is, but I also know you don’t throw out all your backup plans on a long shot. If you leave all of Bastion here to die while you go storm the Once King’s castle, and you can’t beat him, then you just sacrificed the whole world for nothing. And while I’m fine with you being stuck in a hell of your own making, I don’t want to be a zombie forever because you’re an elitist meathead who can’t think past his own immediate needs!”

  “Guys!” Tina said, too loudly for the tent, but at least it stopped the fight. “Shut up for a second. I just had a great idea.”

  Both Cinco and Assets glared murder at Tina. Just being in the same vicinity as that anger made James want to wilt by proxy, but his sister didn’t seem to care at all. She actually looked excited, putting her armored hands proudly on her hips in a way that reminded James of when she’d first figured out how to beat him at cards when she was nine.

  “I think Cinco is right,” she announced. “We should attack the Once King as fast as we can.”

  Assets looked appalled. “You can’t be serious—”

  “I can and I am,” she said. “You can spin shit into gold for the NPCs all you want, but we all know the undead army headed our way can’t be beaten. We already fought it with our best and burned the city to a crisp with windfire powder, and we still lost. Now we’re stuck out here in the planes with tons of refugees, no resupply, and no castle, while they have all of Bastion’s dead. Face it, staying here in the current circumstances is suicide, but what if we could destroy that army before it even gets to us?”

  “What do you mean?” James asked.

  Tina’s face split into an even bigger smile. “I mean, what if we took the problem out at the source? I’m not great at lore, but I know all the ghostfire in the world rises from the Great Pyre at the top of the Dead Mountain Fortress. That is an exact quote from the DMF loading screen, and if it is actually true…” She looked at Leylia, who nodded. “Then we don’t have to beat the Once King at all. We just have to get past him long enough to smash the Great Pyre where all the ghostfire comes from. If we do that, all the undead in the world will suddenly become dead-dead. It’s an instant and total win!”

  She finished with a flourish, but Assets was already shaking his head. “It’s a nice dream, Roxxy, but the Once King and his vaunted source of ghostfire are still in a castle on the other side of the world. Even if you could just walk in and stomp the flames out, we’d all be months dead before you got there.”

  “I still think Tina’s on to something here,” James said excitedly. “We’re in trouble because the Once King sent his entire army to Bastion, and now that army’s on its way to us. But if all the undead in the world are marching our direction, that means the Once King is alone in his fortress right now.”

  “Exactly,” Tina said, flashing him a proud smile. “You saw what we fought in Bastion. Every damn raid boss, elite guard, and undead-whatever in the world got dragged through the Room of Arrivals to come fight us. But my Roughnecks killed almost all of those assholes yesterday, and there’s no more respawning. If that’s all true—and we know it is—then the Dead Mountain Fortress is empty. We won’t have to battle our way through five terraces of two-skull patrols and giant intelligent raid bosses! We can just walk right in and go straight up to the Once King. He’s never been more vulnerable!”

  “But that plan still requires sacrificing Bastion,” Assets said testily. “I wish you all would stop treating that part as inevitable and start thinking of ways to win here. The DMF will be just as empty after we save the biggest and most important kingdom in the world.”

  “But it is inevitable,” Tina said, exasperated. “Seriously, dude, wake up. We can’t win here, but we might be able to stall.”

  “Not for months,” Assets said.

  Tina shrugged. “Who said anything about months? The Deadlands are on the other side of the world, but I was there just three days ago. Fuck sailing—this is a world full of portals! There has to be a way to get to the Deadlands fast. If we can do that and you guys play good defense here, there’s a chance we can destroy the Great Pyre and/or force the Once King into submission before his army even arrives!”

  Assets clearly had not considered that angle. Cinco looked impressed as well, though not sold. “It’s not a bad plan,” he admitted. “But how does it get us home?”

  Tina punched her hands together. “Easy. The Once King’s stupid powerful, but he’s still just one guy. All we have to do is get past him to the Great Pyre. We’ll hold the ghostfire hostage until he agrees to send us all home. Once we’re sure we’ve got our way out, we betray him and destroy the pyre anyway. Win-fucking-win.”

  “Sounds great to me,” Leylia said, making the others jump. “Just one problem: this world isn’t actually full of portals. One of the reasons the city of Bastion was so powerful in this world is that all teleports here rely on the network that runs through the Room of Arrivals, and that’s kind of overrun with zombies.”

  “Minor detail,” Tina said, reaching over to pull James to her side. “I’m sure my brother can figure it out.�
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  James cringed in her hold. “I can?”

  “You got us a portal out of Bastion,” she reminded him. “And you know the back ways to get around this game better than anyone. If anyone can think up a way to get to the Deadlands without using the Room of Arrivals, it’s you.”

  Desperate as he was to live up to his sister’s unprecedented vote of confidence, James was drawing a blank. The anywhere scroll he’d used to evacuate them from Bastion had already been a super-out-of-the-box solution that someone else had thought up, and it had cost him his entire vault. He didn’t exactly have another pile of treasures lying around. Even if he did, there wasn’t a Schtumple Bank in the Savanna. The only branch he knew of outside of Bastion was in the ichthyian capital a mile under the Western Sea, not exactly convenient. There had to be something, though. He was wracking his brain for every tidbit of fast travel lore when Leylia swooped in and saved him.

  “You guys need the Timeless Tunnels,” the brunette said cheerily.

  James gaped at her. “I’ve never heard of those.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” she said smugly. “Because they were never in the game. They’re part of this world’s actual history, but I’ve been dream-walking in this place since I can remember. I know way more about it than I was able to cram into FFO. The Timeless Tunnels are one of the bits that never made it in, mostly because the dev team thought a super-fast subterranean global transport system would unbalance game play. They absolutely exist, though, and bonus, the Bedrock Kings are extremely anti-undead. I’m sure they’d help if we asked.”

  “Cooooool…” Tina rumbled.

  “Sounds awesome,” James agreed. “How do we contact them?”

  Leylia made a face. “That’s the bit I’m not so sure about. Game-wise, I was planning to bring in the Bedrock Kings as key figures for expansion nine, the one after the Deadlands. We were gonna have a big opening event where some boss-ass ancient Naturalist used a stonekin general to summon them, but that’s all developer stuff that bends the lore to match the game. Now that things are really real, hell if I know if it would actually work.”

  “Well, we have Naturalists and a stonekin,” James said hopefully. “I’ll get with my mentor Gray Fang and see if we can figure something out.”

  “I’m on board,” Tina said, flashing them a marble-toothed grin. “If this works out, we can get people home in a timely fashion and save the world from an undead apocalypse! That ticks all the boxes I needed for my people.”

  “I like it as well,” Assets said, making a show of cleaning his super-rare ruby shades. “I like any plan that saves Bastion, and I agree that beating one raid boss alone in his home is a much better proposition than taking on that ridiculous army a second time.”

  Tina nodded and turned to the other guild leader in the tent. “Cinco, how about you?”

  The red-armored Berserker shrugged. “I already said I’d go along with whatever you did, and kicking the Once King’s ass was my plan first, so count me in.”

  James breathed a sigh of relief. The trio of guild leaders had come here angry and combative, but now they were all wearing grins-of-future-ass-kickings, which seemed to be how they bonded. He was still wiping the nervous sweat off his brow when Tina suddenly leaned forward to loom menacingly over Assets.

  “There’s one more thing I want.”

  “Yes, Miss Anderson?” Assets said, slowly backing away.

  Tina stopped that by grabbing the elf by the lapels of his faux-designer suit. “Just because we’ve got a good plan now doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what you did in that war meeting,” she growled in Assets’s face. “I know you and that Water Born cat were in cahoots, and while I can’t speak for the Roughnecks, I can speak for myself. You’re going to get James’s wedding canceled, or I’m not tanking shit.”

  “My what?” James squeaked, looking at Tina in a panic.

  “Your cat-dad is marrying you off to try to force me into staying and fighting here,” his sister replied.

  “It’s a good marriage to a wonderful girl that James should at least consider,” Assets choked out as Tina lifted him off his feet.

  “But I can’t get married!” James said frantically, wringing his tail in both hands. “I don’t even know her! And I have to go home and pay off my debts. I can’t leave a wife behind! But if I break the engagement, her family will be insulted, and the Claw Born will be horribly dishonored. This is a disaster!”

  “Don’t worry, bro,” Tina said, baring her teeth at Assets, who was frantically trying to get away. “The new Lord of the Treasury is going to fix this for you. Aren’t you, Baron Assets?”

  “But—” Assets tried to say.

  “Would you rather I fixed it?” she asked, giving the slender elf a shake. “’Cause I’m in a mood to solve the fuck out of this problem.”

  Assets began rapidly waving his arms. “No, no! Definitely not!” he cried. “I’ll get this taken care of even if I have to marry her myself!”

  “Glad we could come to an agreement,” Tina said, letting her victim go.

  Assets fell three feet to the ground. He landed with typical elven grace, but his hands were shaking as he frantically smoothed out his hair and suit. “Well,” he huffed when he was decent. “I’d better get on that, then. Shall I inform the king of our plan?”

  “I’ll inform him, after I’ve talked to the Roughnecks,” Tina said. “I think they’ll like it, but it’s not a done deal until we vote.”

  “Whatever you want,” Assets said, hurrying out of the tent so fast he was practically running.

  “Chump,” Cinco snorted, flashing Tina a cocky grin. “I’m going to go tell my guild what’s up and that we’re on guard duty.” He jerked his head at Leylia. “Mind keeping an eye on her until my boys arrive?”

  “Sure,” Tina said. “I need to talk to my brother anyway.”

  Cinco blew her a kiss and strolled out of the tent. When he was gone, James turned to his sister, tail still clutched in his hands. “Thank you,” he muttered. “Thank you thank you thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” she said, reaching down to mush his ears with her huge hand. “Honestly, you were just a good excuse. I’ve been wanting to scream at Assets all morning. So how long until you can summon me some Earth Kings?”

  “I can get moving on the research immediately,” he said. “Leave it to me.”

  “Fantastic,” she said, petting him again. “Thanks, J.”

  “No problem, T.”

  Cinco’s guards arrived shortly after that. Once they knew their jobs—namely, murderize anyone who tried to touch Leylia—they settled in to watch, and Tina left to go inform her guild of the new situation. James watched her go with a hopefulness he hadn’t felt in a long time. Scary as it had been, this whole incident had been the most positive interaction he’d had with his sister since he’d left for college. He was still basking in the warm glow of not being hated by his only sibling when he suddenly remembered something else he was supposed to be doing.

  “Shit.”

  James whirled around, searching the small tent while Cinco’s killers watched in amusement. No matter how hard he looked, though, there was no sign of movement in any of the shadows, which meant SilentBlayde was gone.

  “Craaaap,” James groaned, lurching out of the tent. Tina seemed surprisingly okay, but that was how Tina was. When shit got bad, she buried herself in work until she was too busy to think about anything she didn’t want to. SB was the opposite. He brooded, badly, and right now—deeply depressed, sleep deprived, and barely out of his last breakdown—the last place he needed to be was alone.

  Unfortunately, the whole point of the Assassin class was being hard to find. No matter where he looked, James found nothing, but he wasn’t going to give up. Tina was trusting him to get on this Bedrock Kings problem, but he couldn’t focus until he knew SilentBlayde was okay. Not that he really thought something bad was going to happen, but the last time James had blown off someone in SB’s sit
uation, he’d been left with a wrong that could never be undone. He’d sworn he’d never make that mistake again, so even though daylight was sliding through his fingers, James turned away from the Naturalists Lodge, where Gray Fang would be, and went off instead in search of his friend.

  Chapter 3

  Tina

  Typically, gathering the Roughnecks together for a meeting was akin to herding cats. This time, however, there were no such problems. The moment Tina walked back into camp, raiders started popping out of the tents like prairie dogs. Even Zen was up and about despite the fact that she couldn’t have gotten more than two hours of sleep. The only Roughneck Tina didn’t see was SB, but that was probably for the best. Today had been hard enough already without adding her stupid emotions on top of the heap.

  “Is everyone here?” she asked when the group gathered around her looked about the right size.

  “Everyone who counts,” Killbox called back. “What’s the plan, boss?”

  The trust in his voice made Tina both giddy and terrified. Looking out into the sea of expectant faces, Tina realized the crowd had divided itself into two groups. On her left were the people she knew wanted to stay—Frank, Anders, and several others. On her right were people who wanted to go home, starting with NekoBaby, who was right up front. Some, like Zen and Richard, were floating in the middle, but the crack in her guild was already clear. Even divided, though, they were all still looking at her. Looking for salvation. Tina just hoped she had it.

  “All right,” she said, keeping her normally booming stonekin voice down to make sure only her guild could hear this. “I know we’re all anxious as shit, so I’m going to skip the pep talk and get straight to the point. I’ve got good news and bad news. Good news is, I think I’ve found us a way home.”

  A squeal of glee went up from NekoBaby’s area of the audience. The others weren’t so optimistic.

  “What’s the bad news?” Zen asked.