Auction of Souls: Fantasy GameLit RPG Series (Pixel Dust Book 3)

by David Petrie

  “Well now,” the hatchet’s ghostly voice spoke in her ear, “it seems that you have been targeted. You could try asking politely for your enemy to let you live.” Its words were vague, like it was reading from a script and didn’t actually know what was happening.

  Probably an NPC, like the ones back in Lucem.

  Seven reached for the strange weapon with the intent to hand it over to the swordsman, maybe being polite was the way to go. The hatchet disagreed.

  “On second thought, you’ll probably be killed. What will you do?”

  Seven tensed up, pulling the weapon from the floor boards as it continued.

  “Of course, there’s always my way…” The hatchet’s voice trailed off, making the implications of its suggestion clear.

  The swordsman stepped closer, his hand outstretched. “Give it and you might live.” The look in his eye told her he was lying.

  “Sure, take it!” Seven lobbed the hatchet expecting it to bounce off his armor harmlessly.

  It didn’t.

  The man’s scream blended with a haunting laughter that swam through Seven’s mind. That was when she realized that she was laughing too. The hatchet had flown straight at his head as if guided by a wire, like the NPC ghost inside was helping her out.

  Seven held out her hand, just as Dalliance had done during the auction. She braced as the possessed weapon dislodged itself from the swordsman’s skull and twirled back to her hand.

  “Big mistake!” The man clutched one hand over a crimson streak that lit up his forehead.

  There was no turning back. Seven swept her hand up to open her spell craft menu and cast a pulse that threw him off balance. Then she let the hatchet fly. This time it hit her opponent in the leg, combining with the impact of the pulse to knock him over. Seven didn’t hesitate, calling back her weapon only to throw it again and again while he was down.

  He didn’t get the chance to recover.

  Seven’s chest heaved as she struggled to comprehend what she had just done, the evidence staring her in the face as the man’s body began to shimmer. He was dead, and she had killed him.

  All by herself.

  There was no happy little chime to signal a level up like there had been when she’d pushed Cassius off the ship. Must not have been a high-level player. Seven watched as the sparkling cloud drifted away.

  “Nice job.” A voice came from the stage where Nix offered a slow clap.

  “Whatever.” Seven rolled her eyes and beckoned her hatchet, catching it as she made a break for the door.

  Jumping through a curtain, she exploded into a hall and took off at a sprint. She weaved to the side to avoid a player running another through with a sword. Then threw her hatchet at another blocking her path. It struck him in the head, giving her enough time to slip by. Without looking back, she threw her hand behind her to call to the weapon. It had stopped talking now, apparently out of dialogue.

  Seven ran through the theater’s lobby and kicked open the door to the deck only to find herself staring down the barrel of a gun.

  “Ah, hello Piper,” she awkwardly greeted the last of Lockheart’s stowaways, while trying to ignore the pistol in her face.

  “Seven.” The reynard lowered her gun. “What are you doing out here? With everything I’ve heard happening inside, I thought you’d be–”

  “Dead?” Seven finished her sentence.

  “Pretty much.” Suddenly, the girl’s ear pinned back and she shoved Seven to the side to put three bullets in a player that was sneaking up behind her.

  Just then, Kegan and Corvin burst through a pair of doors further down, being chased by a full party of Boars. Apparently they had left the safety of the buffet table.

  “Do something, Corvin!” Kegan shouted.

  “You do something!” Corvin argued back.

  “Like what? I’m out of arrows.”

  Seven reacted without thinking, stepping past Piper to throw her hatchet and cast a pulse. The Boar in the lead took the hits, causing the rest to topple over them in a heap. Seven swiped open her spellcraft menu as she beckoned to her hatchet with her other hand. This time she skipped past the pulse spell and selected the glyph for poison, targeting the Boar in the back. She cast it again on a second target.

  Corvin took the opening she had created and spun on his heel. He slid his fingers down the back of his sword and said something that Seven couldn’t hear as he sliced through the empty air before him. Her jaw fell open when two translucent currents of air flew from his blade, slashing crimson streaks through the party of Boars.

  Piper piled on, firing round after round with careful accuracy. Seven launched her hatchet another few times as the three of them surrounded Tusker’s men. It didn’t take long to finish them off, and this time, that happy little chime returned to her ear.

  Another level.

  “Well shit, Seven, where did you get that?” Piper gestured to the hatchet as she reloaded.

  “It sort of found me.” Seven held it up before tucking it into her belt beneath her robes.

  “So where’s this backup of yours?” Kegan jogged over.

  She froze, realizing that she had ended up right in the situation she was trying to avoid.

  “I, ah…”

  As if on cue, a transport ship swooped over the deck, not bothering to land. Cassius dropped from the craft, landing in a crouch with his spear held out behind him. At least he didn’t wear the helmet this time.

  “Hey, that’s the guy that attacked us earlier!” Corvin drew his sword.

  “It is?” Piper took aim.

  “Yeah, just look at his weapon.”

  Cassius raised his head with a fearsome glare. Seven’s heart nearly exploded from her chest as everything fell apart. She was running before she even knew what she was doing.

  “Wait wait wait!” She threw herself between them with her arms held up. “He’s on our side. This is Cassius, my backup.”

  “You mean the dude you offed earlier?” Kegan stood with his arms folded, still out of arrows.

  “Yes, he’s the First Knight of my house.”

  “That makes no sense.” Piper shifted her aim to Seven’s chest.

  “Ah, yes, yes. That’s true. But I didn’t know who he was earlier. I didn’t recognize Cassius with the helmet on and I had only met him once. I just thought I was in danger, because I’ve only been logged in for, like, three hours and I don’t know anything about anything.”

  “At least you’re honest.” Cassius let out a laugh. “In truth, our house, the Silver Tongues, would like to be on good terms with Lockheart.”

  “Then why did you attack us earlier?” Corvin didn’t lower his sword.

  “My team stowed away.” Cassius shrugged. “You walked in on us. That made you loose ends.”

  “We were stowaways too.” Piper shifted her aim back to Cassius.

  “Well I didn’t know that at the time. The three of you ran before I had time to think about it.”

  “So, what you’re saying…” Kegan tapped one finger on his chin and casually stepped into the middle of the conflict alongside Seven. “…is that all of us here…” he swept his hand around the group, “…are all just really dumb.”

  Silence fell across the deck, leaving only the ship’s engines to fill the void. Seven‘s heart raced as she waited for someone to speak.

  “Okay, that tracks.” Cassius nodded.

  “Yeah, we’re not the brightest.” Corvin sheathed his sword.

  “Speak for yourself.” Piper holstered her pistol.

  Seven released the longest breath of her life and sunk to her knees. “How the hell did I get here?”

  “I don’t know, but welcome to Noctem.” Kegan offered her a hand back up. “Now that we’re all friends here, how ‘bout we go back in there and help everybody else make nice too? You know, before Max and the others destroy the place.”

  Seven took his hand and pulled herself back up.

  “Why not?”

  Chap
ter Fifteen

  “Tusker!” Max roared through the Mantle of Death that covered his face like a bandit’s mask. Smoke wafted from his pistols as swirls of translucent blades swatted arrows and bullets out of the air around him. He stood atop a mound of broken chairs while the bodies of two players dissipated at his feet.

  Alastair stood to his right, a glowing circle of power hovering in the air above his caster. Luka, the federal agent turned Breath mage, bracketed Max’s other side. She swiped her fingers down the selection column of her spellcraft menu, casting a regenerative spell around Max to stop his Reaper sub-class from draining his health. Farnsworth held the frontline, her claws glowing with stolen life.

  The fighting in the theater slowed as all eyes turned to the conflict at its center.

  “You think you can stop me?” Tusker shouted as his Knight and Archmage rushed to his sides. “I have allies all over Noctem ready to seize each city once I’ve killed their rulers. The empire of the Boar will rise in one fell swoop.”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it.” Alastair swept his hand to the side dramatically. “I made this world, and I’m not about to let you take it.”

  “That why you’re standing alongside the house that stole millions from your company?” Tusker smirked. “A little desperate, if you ask me.”

  “I’ll work with whatever lowlife I have to in order to protect what I’ve built.”

  “Hey!” Max glowered at Alastair. “Little harsh there, man.”

  “Pshaw.” The vampiric-looking mage waved away the complaint before whispering a response. “Just keeping up appearances. I can’t go about letting everybody know how close we are. Think about the optics.”

  “That’s fair.” Max saw his point.

  “Yes, anyway.” Alastair returned his attention to Tusker and hooked a thumb at Max. “Lockheart’s hoodlums might be the scum of Noctem’s underbelly, but they’re clever, and I have to respect that much. You, on the other hand, well, you’re just an opportunist looking to take the world in some poorly-conceived smash and grab.”

  “Okay, I would hardly call us scum.” Max whacked Alastair with one of his pistols.

  “Oh relax, I called you clever, didn’t I?”

  “What’s wrong with you two?” Luka stomped one foot. “Get your crap together, we have bigger problems.”

  “Sorry.” Max took aim at the Lord of Boars. “Enough talk, it’s time to end this.”

  “This won’t be like last time.” Tusker readied his sword.

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” Max held his arms wide and narrowed his eyes. “Farn, kill him.”

  Everyone froze.

  “Umm, I can’t.” The Shield looked back at Max awkwardly. “The Death Grip can only instakill a player once. I already used it on him months ago in Torn, when we broadcast that message to Nix.”

  “Oh shit.” Max dropped his pistols to his sides realizing how foolish he looked standing there in all his glory while everyone stared at him. “I forgot that.”

  “Ah ha!” Tusker pointed at Max with his broadsword. “See, it won’t be like last time.”

  “Okay, yeah, it won’t.” Max pulled the Mantle of Death down off his face, letting it return to being a plain scarf.

  The class emblem on his hand shifted from the Reaper’s coffin back to his normal Fury icon. It didn’t make sense to keep the sub-class active since Tusker and his top housemates didn’t use guns or bows, and it would do nothing to protect him against magic. It looked cool, but it wasn’t worth the continued drain of 30 hit points every 3 seconds.

  “Ah, what now, Max?” Alastair fidgeted in place.

  Farn flexed her glowing claws. “I could punch him real hard if you like.”

  “New plan.” Max took aim at Tusker and switched his pistols to full-auto. “Unleash hell.”

  Alastair immediately activated the spell he’d been brewing, firing a pillar of super-heated steam from his hand as Max unloaded both guns. Farn let out a growl and charged in to finish the attack. The Death Grip shone with crimson light as she thrust her fist forward. A thunderous crack struck the air as the impact blew away the lingering steam in an instant, revealing the Boars, all safe behind a massive energy barrier. The blast had only pushed them back a few feet.

  Max’s mouth dropped open. “What the fu–”

  “Nice try.” Tusker cut him off.

  Farn leaped back to Max. “It’s the tower shield from the auction. They must have snatched it during the commotion!”

  “That’s not all.” Tusker laughed as his Archmage stepped out from behind him with his hand placed against a fully-charged overcast sigil. Max gasped. Whatever spell was coming carried one hundred percent of the mage’s mana.

  Farn raised her gauntlet, its meager barrier blinking into place just as a pulse spell exploded into existence. It didn’t matter if it hit her or not, the amplified spell hit them all like a grenade lobbed into their center.

  Max’s world went white and silence engulfed him as the energy blast overpowered his virtual senses. Everything seemed to slow as his vision returned, his body launched backward into the wall.

  Farn, Luka, and Alastair all flew in opposite directions, their forms spiraling through the air. Farn crashed into the theater’s seats, bowling through the built-in chairs like a wrecking ball. Luka was more fortunate, her body tearing through the curtains at the back of the stage. Max didn’t see where Alastair landed; he was too busy falling to the floor with the wind knocked out of him. It had taken everything he had just to hold onto his guns. He checked his health, finding it down only thirty percent.

  “Thank god pulse spells don’t carry much damage.” Most of it had come from his impact with the wall. As to why Tusker’s mage had decided to dump all of his mana into a spell like that was beyond him.

  Unless… it was a distraction. Max staggered to his feet, coughing, as Tusker rushed him.

  “Shockwave!” the Lord of Boars screamed as he swept his sword through the air. An arc of energy flew from his weapon, hitting the theater seats to create a tsunami of furniture.

  Max crossed his arms in front of his face in a feeble attempt to mitigate damage. The wave hit him at full force, slamming him back into the wall.

  Tusker didn’t give him a chance to recover. The Lord of Boars came at him with a downward chop. It was all Max could do to raise his empty pistols up to block.

  “Now you die!” Tusker shouted as Max crossed his guns in front of his face to catch the falling blade.

  “Do, you mind, not, spitting at me, when you shout, generic bad guy lines?” Max braced his arms with everything he had as Tusker pressed down, his blade inching closer to Max’s face.

  “Joke all you want. It won’t matter when you’re dead.”

  “What will killing me even do? I’ll just respawn.”

  “It will make me feel better after your house embarrassed me in Torn. Sometimes a Lord has to save face.”

  “I’m sorry we killed you, okay? It was nothing personal. We just needed to send a message. You have no idea what’s really happening in Noctem.”

  “I know exactly what’s happening.”

  Max clenched his jaw. There was no talking to the guy.

  He glanced at his health. Thirty percent left.

  There was nothing he could do to hold Tusker back. There was a reason why Furies didn’t fare well in PVP, after all. Once they were out of ammo, that was it. Max’s arms shook, the slides of his own pistols shoved in his face to hold back the attack.

  “Where are your jokes now?” Tusker angled his sword so that its edge dug a crimson line into Max’s forehead.

  “Sure, I got, one more for you,” Max relaxed his arms just enough to let his guns rest against the bridge of his nose, close enough to activate his class skills. Tusker’s eyes suddenly widened, clearly realizing the threat. It was too late. Max had already whispered a command.

  “Last Stand.”

  The slides of his pistols snapped back into place,
ready to fire rounds crafted from his remaining hit points. He didn’t have much to work with but, with a little luck, it would be enough. With that, Max dipped to one side, pushing Tusker’s blade away with one gun while pumping two shots into the man’s gut.

  Tusker staggered back, giving Max a chance to check his health.

  Twenty percent left.

  Tusker covered his vitals with his arms, taking another bullet in the stomach.

  Fifteen percent, then ten, then five. Max fired off all but the last of his health.

  “Damn it.” It wasn’t enough.

  Tusker lowered his arms, revealing a smug grin. “What’s wrong? Finished already?”

  Max stood there panting as the Lord of Boars rose to his feet. He struggled to think of a way out, circling back to one regretful thought.

  If only Kira was still here.

  She always had been. Always. Max shook his head, trying to bury the truth away. Kira was gone. Tusker drew back his sword and readied a thrust. Max let his guns fall to his sides and closed his eyes.

  Damn it.

  Then, warmth spread across his skin, tingling like pixie dust. Max opened one eye a crack, finding Echo hovering between him and his enemy. She spread her arms wide, as if to say, ‘you’ll have to go through me first.’

  Of course, Max remembered the system was still using their memories of Kira to animate her empty avatar. His thoughts must have pushed Echo into action.

  “Get out of the way.” Tusker raised his sword to her throat, unaware that there was nothing he could do to hurt the error.

  She ignored him and glanced back at Max with a cheerful smile that made his heart ache. He glanced at his health as it ticked back up from the effect of her dust.

  “Even now, you’re still here for me, aren’t you?”

  Tusker motioned to grab Echo’s arm, but Max moved faster. Pulling the fairy back for protection, he fired another few rounds into the man’s chest. Crimson light filled the air.

  The Lord of Boars dropped to one knee, supporting himself on his sword just before toppling over. He let out a shocked whisper as light began to sparkle across his body. “My empire… I had it all planned.” He vanished a moment later.