Crystal Shards Online Omnibus 1

by Rick Scott

  I dash past Val Helena with a Charge Strike, hitting the wolf, and secure its attention with a War Cry. I’m only just barely aware of the carnage surrounding me as I focus on not taking a bite from the wolf’s razor-sharp jaws. Maxis seems to be holding his own, as well as the other guy—Rembrandt, I think I recall his name was. He kites the wolf to a slow death with his blazing pistols.

  Val Helena releases a Power Attack, and we kill the wolf in quick order, earning another level up for Gilly. We then help finish off the wolf Maxis is fighting; he has it down to 30% just on his own. Then all three of us kill the one Rembrandt is kiting, and finally, the dunes are silent once more.

  I collapse to the desert sand, both from exertion and elation at being rescued. “Thanks. You really saved us.”

  Maxis doesn’t seem to hear me as he stoops down to the corpse of the wolf to examine it. He places his hand on the dead beast and the corpse vanishes, collapsing into nothing as if it were made out of sand. He repeats the process with the other three corpses, as well.

  What the heck?

  Gilly runs to join us, the same time as Rembrandt.

  “You okay?” she asks. “That was crazy scary.”

  “Yeah, it was,” I say, still a bit shook up. “I’ve never experienced anything like that before. Good thing these guys came by when they did.”

  “I’m Val Helena,” Val says, and stretches out her hand to Maxis.

  Maxis looks up at her, but ignores the hand. “Yeah. I know who you are.”

  Thankfully, the other guy shakes it.

  “A pleasure, miss,” he says with an English accent. “Rembrandt.”

  We introduce ourselves to him, shaking hands in turn.

  “You guys are from Nasgar, right?” Maxis says finally. “Is this it?”

  “Yes.” Val Helena nods. “And yes, this is it.”

  He lets out a scoff. “Figures.”

  Man, what a jerk . . .

  “What happened to your third?” Val Helena asks. “The little girl with the big sword? Did she not come?”

  “She died to a sentry a few minutes ago.”

  My blood goes cold. Died . . . ?

  Maxis eyes us one by one, and I see a faint glow behind his shades as he pulls up our stats on his HUD. He pauses at Gilly. “Level 21? You guys must be joking.”

  Gilly turns red, and I feel like giving Maxis a piece of my mind.

  “But hey, at least you got a healer.” He shrugs. “Been awhile since we’ve had one of those.”

  He looks to me. “Ninja?”

  “Yes,” Val Helena jumps in before I can speak. “And he has Shadow Copy.”

  He looks back at me again. “She serious?”

  I feel like I’m being dressed down by a drill sergeant or something. Whoever this guy is, I’m not liking him. “Yeah, I got Shadow Copy. You want me to prove it?”

  He steps back from me, surprised by my response. Then he just grunts. “If you do, we might actually have a shot at this.” He turns his back to me. “I just hope you don’t turn out to be another Aiko.”

  Another Aiko? What does that mean?

  “We need to get moving to a safe zone,” Maxis says. “I don’t think anyone else is making it in. Let’s roll.”

  As he walks away, something strikes me as familiar about him. And then the recognition hits me like a freight train. That walk. I’d know it anywhere. But it doesn’t make sense. Couldn’t make sense. I remove my Ninja mask and scarf before I call out to him.

  “Mike?”

  Maxis stops dead in his tracks.

  He turns, slowly removing his shades, revealing a set of ice-blue eyes that match my own. They search my face, then widen as recognition hits him, as well.

  “Ryan?” he says. His brows pull lower, and I hear my brother’s voice as it rings true and clear. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Chapter 37: Revelations

  I’m so shocked and perplexed to see my brother that I don’t even notice when his fist comes flying at me from ten feet away and pegs me square in the jaw. I hit the ground in a daze, and pain explodes through my face as I lose 10% of my hit points.

  Mike, a.k.a. Maxis, is standing over me in a second, brandishing his fists. “You’ve got one second to explain this, you idiot! How the hell are you here?”

  I rub my face as the pain radiates through my cheek. “Geez, man! What’d you do that for?”

  “Answer me, dick weed!” he bellows. “How are you here?”

  Val Helena steps in and gently presses a hand again Maxis’s chest. “Whoa, take it easy there, tiger. You two know each other?”

  Maxis breathes heavily through his nostrils, his stone-cold eyes never leaving mine.

  “Yeah,” he says, and then he spits the next words out like they taste bad: “He’s my kid brother.”

  Val Helena’s jaw drops. She looks down at me, and her eyes widen like she’s seeing me for the first time. “Maxis is your brother?”

  I’m still trying to come to grips with the idea myself. “Yeah . . . I . . . I guess so?”

  Val Helena stares at me a moment more, then throws her head back with a goddess laugh. Gilly is looking at me, as shocked and confused as I am. I can only give her a helpless shrug.

  “This is too rich,” Val Helena says, still laughing. Finally, her mirth ends with a long sigh. “Well . . . that explains the reflexes. Hot damn, Reece. How did you not know this?”

  I shake my head. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “I swear, I’m so pissed at you right now, Ryan,” Maxis says. “If we were back home, I’d drag you down to the hub and throw you in the doggone vats!”

  “Okay, okay,” Val Helena says. “Let’s not get carried away.”

  “Oy, Maxis,” Rembrandt cuts in. “As much as I hate to break up this family reunion, might I remind you that we’re still in the center of a wild zone?”

  Val Helena looks over her shoulder. “He’s right. We need to get moving before more sentries come.”

  Maxis pauses a moment more to replace his shades, and then thrusts a finger into my face. “This is not over. As soon as we’re to a safe zone, I’m getting the truth out of you. Even if I have to beat it out.”

  He turns and stalks away. Rembrandt follows after him.

  Gilly rushes to my side and casts a heal spell on me, which soothes my face immediately and restores my HP. “Whoa . . . you weren’t joking. Your brother really is a dick.”

  “Tell me about it,” I groan as I sit up.

  “Why is he here, though?” Gilly says. “Is this what he was planning to do?”

  “I have no idea. None of this is making any sense.”

  My mind is aflutter with conflicting thoughts and emotions. Every conversation I’ve ever had with my brother replays in my mind, but in a totally different context now.

  “Is he always so intense?” Val Helena asks as she stares after him.

  I sigh. “Pretty much.”

  “Wow,” she says absently. “An older version of you with attitude . . . ? That’s kind of hot.”

  Gilly and I both balk at her. “What?!”

  “Does he have a girlfriend?”

  * * *

  We stay in a tight group as we run across the desert. Rembrandt stays in front, since his mirror shades give him some kind of night vision. A few times, we stop to change direction, according to what, I presume, is him spotting sentries, and then we skirt around them to continue on.

  We travel for about half an hour, and keep talking to a minimum.

  Which is just fine with me. I’ve got no idea what I’m going to say to Mike, anyway. I have a feeling I’m bound to have more questions for him than he has for me. How is he Maxis? Why is he in the game world instead of on the surface? Unless this test Shard, or whatever it is, is somehow connected to it? My mind is so confused I’m not sure what to think. Maybe I heard the conversation entirely wrong that night.

  Maybe I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.

  We stop o
n the crest of a ridge, and my brother curses.

  “What’s wrong?” Val Helena asks as she sidles up next to him, dwarfing him with her eight-foot-frame.

  “We’ve got watchtowers between us and the safe zone,” Maxis says. “Plus dogs.”

  I scan the desert below, and while it flattens out in terrain, I faintly make out tall metal structures that look like lamp posts spaced every hundred yards or so in a straight line. That line is about the same distance from the edge of what appears to be forested woodland as it from us. Patrolling in between the lampposts are packs of sentries, five and six strong.

  “No bloody way are we getting around that, mate.” Rembrandt tucks his hands into his trench coat as he scans left to right. “Looks to go on for miles.”

  “So, how do we get past?” Gilly asks.

  “That should be your job, Mage,” Maxis says with a hint of disdain. “But you’re probably too low-level to be any use.”

  I feel like socking him one for that, but I get a PM from Gilly that almost makes me laugh instead.

  Gilly: Geez, your brother . . . D: You sure he’s worth saving?

  I suppress my laugh with a grin. The last thing I need is Mike going all crazy on me again.

  “Is there some way to disable them?” Val Helena asks.

  “Not without alerting everything,” Maxis says.

  “Wait a minute,” I say, and recall one of the scrolls I bought earlier. “I think I have a spell that could help.”

  I check and find the spell named Shadow Wall.

  Shadow Wall

  Use your power over shadows to create an illusion that masks your party’s presence.

  Cast time: 10 seconds

  Duration: 1 minute

  Recast: 2 minutes

  Cost: 10 TP

  I cast it and dust rises up from the desert floor to surround us until we each disappear from view.

  “Nice one, mate. Your brother’s got tricks, Max.” With that, Rembrandt runs ahead, his form an undulating piece of glass as he moves. “I’m scouting.”

  We trail after him down the slope of the dune and stop when he pauses, waiting for a group of dogs to pass.

  “This only lasts a minute,” I say through the party chat.

  “Got it.”

  We move on and pass beneath one of the lamp posts. Thankfully, nothing happens.

  “Thirty seconds,” I warn when I note we’ve still got a good hundred yards before we reach the forested area.

  Rembrandt halts as a sentry wolf about fifty feet away stops and perks its ears.

  Oh crap . . .

  “Hey, numb nuts,” Maxis says in party chat. “Was that spell Sneak and Invis, or just Invis?”

  “Er . . .” Dang, I really hate my brother sometimes. “I’m not sure?”

  “Ah, to hell with it,” Maxis says. “Run!”

  We all take off. The wolves bark and growl in our direction and start to give chase. My heart hits my throat as we bolt for the tree line, and I grab Gilly’s hand to make sure she keeps up with me. The spell wears off about thirty feet from the edge, and the watch towers sound the alarm with a klaxon wail and red lights as we phase into existence with a flash of dust.

  “Keep going!” Maxis yells. “Don’t look back!”

  I have the pressing urge to do just that as a savage growl sounds. It sounds like it’s coming from right behind my head! We cross onto lush grass and behind me, I hear a series of yelps and thuds. I look over my shoulder then, just in time to see one of the wolves run straight into a barrier of some kind. A honeycomb latticework becomes momentarily visible as it impacts.

  The beasts yelp and growl a bit more—some even shake off a momentary daze from running into the invisible wall—but soon enough, they lose interest in us and return to patrolling between the watch towers.

  “Geez, that was close,” I say, my heart still pounding. I look to Gilly. “You all right?”

  She nods, winded, her hands resting on her knees, but otherwise, she seems fine.

  “Close one, thanks to you,” Maxis says, already heading deeper into the tree line. “Check things out more carefully next time. And come on, you’ve got some explaining to do.”

  * * *

  I mutter a cuss under my breath as we follow Maxis deeper into the woodland. The air is cool here, and I notice that the sky is not actually as dark as it was in the desert. While it’s not broad daylight, the sun is at least visible in the sky. It looks like its about to set in a few hours. Birds sing as they fly from tree to tree, and tiny insects buzz in my ears.

  “What type of world is this?” Val Helena says, looking up at the pine trees that tower over us a hundred feet in the air.

  “Fantasy, probably,” Maxis says. “Don’t know if it’s Nasgar-based, but close enough.”

  “Brilliant,” Rembrandt says sardonically. “Means I’m piss out of luck for upgrades, then.”

  “We’ll get you some,” Maxis says. “Even if it means hiking back through the wild to find a tech world. We’re both going to need to upgrade to pull this one off.”

  “Pull what off?” I ask.

  Maxis fumes as he looks back at me. “I’m asking the questions first.”

  We travel a bit further, and I hear the burble of running water as we approach a stream that runs through the forest. The water cascades over moss-covered rocks and flows back the way we came, toward the desert. As soon as I see the crystal clear water, I experience something I never have in-game before.

  I’m thirsty.

  And apparently, I’m not the only one. Both Maxis and Rembrandt cup their hands to the flowing stream for a drink. Gilly and I follow suit, as well as Val Helena. The water is cool and refreshing, and tastes better than anything I’ve ever drank before.

  Maxis points to a large granite rock at the edge of the stream. “Sit, and start talking. Tell me how you got here.”

  Before I can say anything, Val Helena jumps in. “He’s here because of me,” she says. “I gave him the money to fix his legs, and I forced him to fight the world boss and come with me afterward. If you want to be mad at anyone for him being here, it’s me.”

  Maxis looks up at her with a grimace. “He’s just a damn kid!”

  Her eyes soften. “I know . . . I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, I’m not a kid,” I protest. “And I have Shadow Copy. That’s why she needs me.”

  Maxis runs his hands through his dark hair—which, in this world, is full at the top and braided on the sides instead of being shaved. Looking more closely at him, I realize he still pretty much looks the same as in real life. He even has his goatee hiding beneath his scarf.

  “I still can’t believe this,” Maxis says. “You’ve been lying all this time? About this job of yours? About your legs? How long have you been playing the game?”

  “Me lying?” He had to be kidding! “What about you, man? I was thinking you’re in some gang or something, and you’re really Maxis, the top PvPer on the Shards? What’s up with you always downing me out about playing my ‘stupid’ game, when you’re a freakin’ pro at one? How can you be such a hypocrite?”

  “Because they are just stupid games,” he snaps. “All of them. They’re nothing like here.”

  “Um . . .” Gilly says. “Where is here, exactly?”

  “Who are you, anyway?” Maxis asks Gilly dismissively.

  “She’s my girlfriend, okay?”

  Maxis looks back at me like that’s even more impossible than seeing me in the game. “Well, I’ll be . . .”

  “What?” Gilly says. “Is that so hard to believe?”

  Maxis scoffs. “If you knew him like I do, yeah.”

  “You really are a jerk, you know that?”

  His brows rise above his shades at Gilly’s retort. “You’ve got moxy, I’ll give you that. But this is a family matter, so please stay out of it.”

  “I’m not staying out of anything!” Gilly snaps. “I’m here just like you, and I want answers. What is this place?”

/>   I want the answer to that one myself. Mike said he was going to the surface. But it just doesn’t make sense. “Yeah, I want answers, too.” I look to Val Helena, as well. “From both of you. Where are we? Is this even still in the game?”

  Val Helena defers to Maxis. “He might be able to answer that better than me.”

  I look back to my brother. “Well?”

  He pauses for a long moment as if trying gather his thoughts. Finally he looks at me and says, “Yes and no.”

  Yes and no? “What the heck does that mean?”

  “It means that, yes, this is the real world, Ryan. But it’s changed. It’s not what you think it is. It’s different than what you learned about in your education feeds.”

  I’m not understanding any of this. “Huh?”

  He sits down on the rock and lets out a sigh. “It hasn’t been two hundred years since a nuclear war. No one knows how long it’s really been. It could be thousands of years.”

  My stomach lurches.

  “What are you saying?” Gilly says, her face growing pale.

  “I’m saying that this is the surface. This is what the world looks like now.”

  I feel a bit dizzy. “What?”

  “That’s as much as I’ve been taught, anyway,” Maxis says. “About the truth we still have of our history. In the game, when you transfer to the surface, they call this place Citadel. But in actuality, the place we live, our city, that’s its true name. Citadel.”

  “Is it really underground?” Gilly asks.

  “What about the radiation?” I ask. “Does it still exist? Isn’t that how Mom got sick?”

  “Yes, it’s underground. Yes, there is still radiation above us. And yes, that’s how Mom got sick.”

  “Then how are we not dead? How is all of this not dead?” I say, looking about at the trees and wildlife around us. “How are we even here? As our game characters? In the real world?”

  “There’s no radiation because we’re not in the same location as Citadel,” Maxis says. “When you transfer to the surface, you’re placed randomly.”

  “What?” Gilly says. “Why?”