Sword

by Byron Kings

  “She needs our help,” Morgana said. “Let the chips fall where they may.”

  “I’m with you,” I said.

  She followed as I hopped over the railing and climbed down the rope ladder. Once on the ground, we ran toward where the dragon had landed. A fresh wave of Xin Jang’s soldiers arrived from the north, swarming around the green dragon. I kept running in that direction, wishing my horn sword had activated. Would I even be able to damage this one? Morgana overtook me, presumably another effect of her sword.

  I slowed then stopped, watching in awe as she leaped into the air a dozen feet away from the dragon. She came down with the tip of her sword leading the way. My pierce tore a chunk out of the dragon’s left wing, grounding it. Several soldiers ran toward her. I jumped back into action, able to take them out easily even without an activated horn sword. The fight was on.

  As Morgana battled the dragon, slowly weakening it, I took out as many of the low-level soldiers as I could. Harper and Newton helped, each in their own special way. When the dragon went down, gasping its final breath, the enemy’s morale broke. They turned and fled back toward the Forbidden Kingdom.

  Newton ran over, grinning. “Should we follow them?”

  I shook my head. “We need to protect our land.”

  “Status of the walls?” Morgana asked.

  A cuerno ran up to report. “They’re breached in three places.”

  “Get to work fixing them,” I said. “Temporary is fine for now. We’ll look at replacing them with stone as soon as things stabilize.”

  “Yes sir,” the cuerno said then ran off.

  “How did it go down below?” Harper asked as she walked up.

  “We killed another dragon,” I said.

  “Fucking A,” she said. “We did good today.”

  “King Gerald is sending us help too,” I said.

  “Was that another horn sword I saw?” Newton asked.

  I turned to Morgana. “Put that away.”

  She opened her temporal hole and secured the sword in the other dimension. Another dragon landed nearby as she finished up.

  “I come bearing news,” the blue scaled beast hissed. “King Gerald requests your presence. Do not resist.”

  “We’ll get there as soon as we can,” I said. “We just got attacked.”

  “He wants to see you now. I’m here to protect your appointed lands. My name’s Charles. Yes, it’s a human name. No, I don’t want to talk about it with strangers. Got it?”

  I grinned, liking him.

  “Fine,” I said. “Anything you can tell us?”

  “Tell King Gerald the truth,” Charles said. “Or you’ll die. Do you agree to allow me to teleport you?”

  I glanced at the others. “Yes. Let’s do this.”

  “Great,” Charles said. “Smell you four later!”

  The dragon chanted then moved its tiny hands. We blinked away then reappeared in King Gerald’s inner throne room. The king sat on his wooden throne, leaned forward.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” he said.

  “King Gregor and Xin Jang attacked us,” I said. “We’ve been busy.”

  “I know about that,” King Gerald said.

  Two men in white robes stood slightly behind the throne, whispering to each other. King Gerald continued.

  “I didn’t think you’d have the guts to come and tell me about the stolen horn sword,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked without pause.

  “Someone stole a sword from the League of Twelve,” King Gerald said. “It wasn’t mine, thankfully, but the owner wants it back, and I’m bound to help him. The sword in question was seen in use at the recent battle you took part in. Do you have anything to say for yourselves?”

  “It’s a fake,” Morgana said.

  King Gerald nodded. “Let me see it.”

  “The damn thing broke during the battle,” she continued. “A red dragon melted it right down.”

  “My spies tell me it wasn’t a fake sword,” King Gerald said. “They saw it being used in battle. A horn sword doesn’t break so easily, not even with dragon’s breath.”

  “No disrespect, but they must be mistaken,” I said. “Things were chaotic. I want to thank you for helping me become the one true ruler of the badlands.”

  King Gerald nodded. “I’m not sure yet if I’ve made the right decision about you, to be honest.”

  “You have, your majesty,” I said. “Trust me.”

  “I want to trust you,” King Gerald said. “You remind me of myself when I first came into Battle Empire full time. If you haven’t stolen the sword, you need to keep an eye open for it. There’s a reward for any information leading to its recovery.”

  “We’ll do that,” I said. “With your assistance and blessing.”

  I hated kissing his ass, but it was necessary for my long-term plans.

  “You’ll have my support,” King Gerald said. “Just don’t mistake my kindness for weakness.”

  “Never,” Morgana said.

  Had we gotten away with it? One of the two men in white whispered in the king’s royal ears. The scent of sulfur wafted from behind the throne. Had they been casting? Did they know I was lying?

  “Are you sure?” King Gerald asked.

  The man in white nodded. “Right about...now.”

  As he said the last word, a game notification appeared.

  << BATTLE EMPIRE ALERT >>

  << WARNING // WARNING >>

  << A hacker has entered the game and is permanently removing full-time players. While there’s a small chance he may be able to kill your body in the real world, rest assured we’re working hard to capture this menace. Instead of shutting down the game and facing lawsuits, we have decided to continue Battle Empire and restrict people from leaving the game. The risk of the hacker escaping without punishment is too great for ECNEP corporation. We hope you understand. If you stick together, you’ll be safe from the hacker. Capture or providing any information about the hacker that leads to his apprehension will be rewarded in-game significantly. (Have you ever wanted your own planet in the Battle Empire universe? We’re not even kidding!) The risks the hacker poses are high, so we thought the reward should be at least as earth-shattering. Please play safely as we work to give you the best Battle Empire experience. Thank you. >>

  “Fuck…” I glanced at the others.

  “Some players got the message earlier today.” King Gerald stood. “This news changes everything.”

  “I want to get back to my kingdom in the badlands,” I said. “Do you mind? Or do you need my help here?”

  The king waved his hand, not even looking in our direction. Hopefully the hacker would keep his attention enough for him to not question us more about the stolen horn sword.

  I cleared my throat. “We do need a way back.”

  The king sighed and turned.

  “Transport them back to the shit lands,” he said.

  One of the wizards in white turned in our direction and waved his right hand. Another noxious cloud of stench filled the air around us. We blinked out of existence, arriving just outside the wooden wall surrounding the swamp. I saw several cuernos diligently working to repair the extensive damage to several sections of the primitive barrier.

  “That message,” Morgana said. “What do you think?”

  “It’s fucked up,” Harper said. “I’m in here full-time, but I don’t like the idea of not being able to leave if I wanted, you know?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “We need to keep our eyes open and concentrate on taking over the badlands. I really doubt a hacker like that would bother to come to the armpit of Gardonia.”

  “All we have is NPC cuernos,” Harper said.

  I nodded. “We do need more players. They’ll come.”

  Over the next week, many low-level players did come to us, tired of all the bullshit between King Gregor and Xin Jang. A few higher-level characters also came our way, pledging to help me for future rewards.
With no way out of the game until the hacker got caught, things were about to get very interesting. Seven days after battling to keep my kingdom, I sat with Harper, Morgana, and Newton in our underground war room.

  “Another hacker did the same thing about a year ago,” Newton said. “They tried to keep it quiet, but some of us believe it happened.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know,” I said, leaning back on two legs in my chair. “This could all be some sick marketing play or something. Maybe they’re going to roll out a pay-to-play hacker class or something. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

  Morgana smiled, nodding. “Could be. We’ve managed to hang onto our fledgling kingdom. King Gregor and Xin Jang are both struggling to hang onto power. If this hacker person doesn’t come mess with us, we’re in a really good spot.”

  “Doesn’t the fact he could kill us in real life scare any of you?” Newton asked.

  “Nah,” I said. “They’re probably lying. If that ever happened, they’d have to shut down the virtual worlds and that’s never going to happen. They make ECNEP corporation too much money.”

  “It would be nice if we had more than two fucking corporations in the whole world,” Harper said.

  “That’s why we came to Battle Empire,” I said, settling down onto all four legs of the chair. “We kicked ass recently, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

  “You’re making me horny,” Harper said, grinning.

  Newton rolled his eyes. “You guys are insatiable.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” Morgana asked.

  Newton wandered toward the door.

  “Just don’t fuck on the meeting table anymore, okay? It’s gross.”

  “Sure thing,” I said, walking over to Morgana. “Shut the door on your way out.”

  ┍━━━━━━━━━━━━━┑

  CHAPTER 24

  ┕━━━━━━━━━━━━━┙

  Birth of a New Kingdom

  After using the horn sword to kill every day for twenty-one days, the damn thing finally activated. I woke before the others to check out the stats. The abilities and powers the weapon granted me were legendary. With the horn sword, I had no excuse to not form my own kingdom in the game. Dozens of players had already joined me, but the new powers would bring more.

  << Horn Sword — Excelzion >>

  << +50% chance to hit >>

  << +50% damage >>

  << +500% damage on critical hit >>

  << xp modifier: 5x >>

  << +100 Magic Points >>

  << +200 Health Points >>

  << +50 Sexual Energy>>

  <
  Cone of Cold – 25 MP

  Fireball – 25 MP

  Charm Person – 100 MP

  Sunburst – 150 MP

  The stats flew around my brain as I got up and headed toward the main tunnel to check on the progress. We’d already added a dozen more rooms to the ever-expanding complex. I stood near the wall and watched as horn-beings and players walked back and forth. After watching a few moments, I headed to the other side of the tunnel.

  We’d fortified ourselves and were in a better position to finally defeat King Gregor and Xin Jang with the help of King Gerald, but I was thinking about my long-term future in the game. I glanced to the left then right before activating a hidden button. After part of the wall slid away, I slipped into the tunnel on the other side, walking swiftly.

  The door shut behind me. I walked a good half-mile before stopping in the construction zone. I stopped in a tunnel even wider and taller than the one leading to Yusgood. This one went north, toward Gristle. Eventually, I wanted to have deep underground tunnels leading to all the city states in the League of Twelve. That would be power.

  I watched the golems Harper had constructed for the task. With the magically animated beings doing all the work, the tunnel network would be our secret. Newton might be a weak link and spill his guys if he got too drunk, but I’d warned him of the consequences if that happened. After defeating cancer in the real world, he had no fear.

  “Speak of the devil,” I said as Newton walked in.

  “I saw you come back,” he said. “Everything okay?”

  “You better not be spying on me in that invisibility suit of yours,” I said.

  He grinned. “No, I was fighting with Alondra and walking around, and I saw you come to this side. The new tunnels are the only reason you would be over here. I just got news which is why I came to find you.”

  “Oh? Everything okay?”

  “Probably not,” he said. “King Gerald is dead.”

  I blinked a few times as I digested the information.

  “How? What happened?” I asked.

  “The hacker got to him,” he said. “That’s the rumor, anyway.”

  “Fuck,” I said. “Maybe they weren’t lying about him.”

  “Doesn’t seem that way,” Newton said. “I thought you should know.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “With him dead, we need to be ready. The new person they appoint to lead Gristle might not be so keen on helping us tame the badlands.”

  “Yeah,” Newton said, nodding. “It could be bad. Even worse, I heard the hacker is headed for the badlands. He told some people he’s coming for you.”

  “What?” My head flinched back. “Why me?”

  “You can be an asshole at times,” Harper said.

  She and Morgana walked into the tunnel.

  “You heard?” I asked.

  “About you being an asshole?”

  I smirked. “Very funny. I meant the hacker.”

  “Yeah, we heard,” Morgana said. “I thought we should call a meeting.”

  Newton shook his head. “If he could take out someone like King Gerald, what’s to stop him from killing all of us?”

  “You can leave if you want,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t do that to you, man. You three were there for me when I needed you. Fuck this hacker if he’s trying to kill people in the real world.”

  “The corporation is probably lying,” Harper said. “They always do.”

  “You don’t think he can kill people in the real world by hurting them in the game?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Too dramatic and potentially dangerous to their bottom line.”

  “You know the young hackers these days, though,” I said.

  “We’ll be fine if we stick together,” Morgana said. “Unlike King Gerald, we’ve got a tight-knit group and two horn swords at our disposal. We’re lucky they announced the hacker when they did. I thought King Gerald was going to figure out we do have the real horn sword the League of Twelve is missing.”

  Harper grinned. “That was a hell of a heist.”

  “I can’t believe you gave it to Morgana instead of keeping it,” Newton said.

  Harper shrugged. “She’s better at poking things with swords.”

  I took a deep breath. My short time in the game full time had not failed to be exciting. With a horn sword of my own and Morgana’s purloined one, we had a fighting chance to make something of ourselves in Battle Empire if the hacker didn’t get us.

  “Yeah, fuck this hacker guy,” I said. “We’ve worked too hard to get booted from the game. I say we send spies out to get information on the hacker’s identity and his location. Getting our very own planet for capturing him would catapult us to the top of the game’s all-time leader board and cement our place in the history books.”

  “Now you’re talking.” Morgana smiled and nodded.

  We stood in the unfinished secret tunnel and plotted our next steps in the game. Getting two horn swords hadn’t been easy. Holding onto them would be even more difficult. With luck and some hardcore grinding, my future inside Battle Empire looked bright.

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  Epilogue

  ┕━━━━━━━━━━━━━┙

  - 2 -

 
“Drake!”

  I opened my eyes. A cloaked virtual figure floated in my line of sight.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Who are you?”

  “I’m from THC,” the ghost said. “I’ve got bad news.”

  “Worse than you guys blackmailing me?” I asked.

  “Hunters are coming for you in the real world, and your code isn’t working right. We need you to go into Battle Empire and find out what’s wrong.”

  I sat up. “No way.”

  “You need to listen to us. If not, your sister—”

  “No,” I interrupted. “You leave her alone.”

  “If you don’t listen to us, we’ll make her life a living hell.”

  “That’s not going to work anymore,” I said. “While you guys were busy, I set up a dead man’s switch on your core server. If anything negative about Piper is published, I’ll take your entire operation down.”

  No reply.

  “Are you listening? Do you understand?”

  “We understand. Here’s what you don’t know. Your sister is in the game. If you don’t fix the problem with your code, we’ll shut everything down.”

  “That’ll kill everyone inside the game. You can’t…”

  “We can, and we will unless you go into the game and fix the code you snuck in on your clone.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “We’ll send you coordinates to a place where you can enter the game safely.”

  “No. I’m going in myself. And I swear, if anything happens to Piper, you and everyone in your crew will pay.”

  “We need to control—”

  “No,” I repeated. “Give me a few days.”

  “You don’t understand. The time dilation hack in our code is not working correctly. A day out here is a year in the game. If you wait too long, we’re not sure what might happen.”

  They had a point. AI from the game battling the AI I had inserted into Battle Empire through my clone could get messy.