Val had found them all huddling in one of the buildings the massive sentinel had devastated, forced to play cat and mouse with the Deathbot, holing up when and where they could.
Yet none of them dared trouble Crystal with their wounds as she did everything she could for Mick, eyes wide with a dying man’s horror as he wheezed, his body having been seared completely in half by the sentinel’s lasers. It was only the makeshift tourniquet squeezed tightly about the ravaged remains of his waist and a trembling Crystal’s chanting that had kept him alive even this long.
But he was dying.
And with almost half his body mass gone and zero red potions remaining, Val wondered if even Season’s Restoration had a shot of saving his life.
“Please, help him, Jager!” Jiu implored, her desperate gaze locking with his own.
For an endless moment Val was overwhelmed, the awful certainty that his friends were doomed no matter what he did almost freezing him to worthlessness.
Then he shivered, clenching his fists, eyes alight with feverish intensity. "You have sworn yourselves to my cause. You walk under my banner, and I claim you as my own.” His smile was almost sad at their looks of confusion, growing horror, and disbelief.
Eric trembled. “It’s you! Fuck it, all of this… all of your games… you’re no recruiter. You’re him. You’re Valor Hunter. The player gunning for the throne!”
Val didn’t deny it. “I claim you all as my own. And this ancient dwarven city Stridborg is now your home.”
Dominion Matrix accessed! Do you wish to claim Stridborg for 3 territory points? Y/N
You have chosen yes! 3 Territory points spent. Stridborg is a Greater Territory seized in battle. You have earned 4 Dominion Points. You have earned 10 territory points, bringing your total to 58.
Congratulations! You are now a Level 8 Overlord.
“Jeezus! This cat is glowing. He’s actually glowing!” Bill’s gaze was caught somewhere between awe and horror.
Reed just glared at Val, tears leaking freely from red-rimmed eyes. “I don’t care what the fuck he’s doing! Mick and my brother are dying, and he’s just standing there!”
Val gazed at the powerfully built man who so often wore jaded contempt like armor no one could pierce, cradling the remains of his brother. Having suffered injuries far worse than Mick, Snipe’s lifeless eyes gazed beyond life’s veil, his entire torso blasted through. His twin brother trembled and rocked as he held tight to his brother’s remains, as if unable to bear the thought of letting him go.
And when his brother’s remains began to glow and dissolve, as if he really was little more than digital animation given a gentle farewell, Reed screamed and begged, eyes gazing imploringly into Val’s own. “Help him man, please!”
But there was nothing Val could do.
And if Val didn’t act now, every member of his party would suffer a similar fate.
Jiu’s eyes widened, she started to gasp.
“Jiu? What’s wrong Jiu, talk to me!” Eric cried, even as he began to wheeze, the entire party gazing up at Val in horror.
“Val, what the fuck, man, what the hell’s going on?” Bill wheezed.
“No time! If you would live, accept my Spirit Link!” he implored, pressing his still bloody fingers against Mick’s forehead, the young man’s terrified eyes meeting his own.
Bill’s brow furrowed even as Jiu’s eye filled with sudden relief, her other healing before their eyes. “Guys… I feel better. I can breathe, and my eye isn’t making me want to scream with pain!” She gasped with relief. “Let him in, guys. You know what I mean. Just let him in.”
Greater Salvation embraced! Deliver your people from hardship and woe! Up to ten loyal citizens who receive this blessing shall enjoy days miraculously free of illness or mishap while living upon your lands! 1 Point invested! Your party members are currently Unmoored! Do you wish to anchor them to this paradigm? Y/N
Bill hissed. “What the hell? I’m hearing voices in my head. And what’s this unmoored crap?”
You have chosen yes! Jordian paradigm fully embraced! Jordia is now the chosen anchor point for future incarnations. Warning: Present Spirit Linked companions are not yet stable. Should your party members enter neutral or hostile territory, they risk instantaneous discorporation.
Every point invested in this blessing will affect an additional magnitude of citizens.
How many will you save?
Val’s eyes widened. He gazed at the city all around him, struck by a sudden, terrible hope.
Warning! Causality wave is collapsing!
No! Frantically, Val forced as much of his potential as he could, hoping, praying, his power could do what it implied.
That he could actually bring Stridborg back from the blink of oblivion. Not only the city, but her lost people as well.
But it wouldn’t be that simple, he suddenly realized.
If his desperate hope was truly to have a shot of success… he had to take it on faith that the ancient masters of this city had been just as blessed with forethought as Ava’s own clan had been.
Not only brilliant enough to catalyze an infinity matrix, but prudent enough to house a massive cryogenic facility as well.
Smiling like a madman, he could see that massive, beautiful facility sparkling brilliantly in his mind’s eye, Val flooding the rivers of causality with all the potency of one who dared to walk the Path of Kings.
Halcyon Restoration cast! Your 5 point cost has gone up one order of magnitude!
What you’re doing breaks all the rules, Val.
50 points spent.
For causality flows both ways in the quest for quantized harmony.
“What the hell?” Eric whispered before crying out with something between agony and ecstasy, gazing down at his arm, reforming itself before his very eyes, hardly flinching as Val touched his brow.
“Plenis Curatio,” Val whispered, feeling the mana drain from him, his relieved smile spoiled as his spell nearly burst out of control, grimacing as he suddenly understood. With all of reality in flux at that moment, he was now at risk of catastrophic spell failure, as well as inconceivable success.
Fortunately, it looked like Eric would be just fine.
And he was hardly paying attention to Val at all. He, Jiu, and Bill were all gazing upon the city transforming before their eyes with expressions of sheer disbelief, the shattered masonry and scenes of devastation replaced by buildings whole and new, a thousand years of dust and grime gone as if it had never been. Buildings scarred by blasterfire and countless centuries of automative treads were now in perfect repair once more.
As they had always been.
“What the fuck just happened?” an awed Bill whispered.
“The city reset itself. It reset itself completely, without crushing us. Somehow.” Eric said.
But Jiu was slowly shaking her head, pinning Val with her thoughtful stare. “No, Eric. The city didn’t just reset. It renewed. Completely. All those versions of itself finally collapsed into one reality. I don’t think this city will ever reset again.”
Bill gave an angry shake of his head. “Yeah, that’s cute and all, but Mick’s still dying!”
An exhausted Val turned to spot Crystal on the verge of collapse, Mick dying in her arms, despite Val’s potent magics.
It just needed one final push. Val centered himself, praying that the extra time he spent, focusing on pouring the golden stream of energies coalescing inside him directly into Mick’s soul, might avert critical disaster.
He exchanged a single nervous glance with Crystal, her Spirit Link and widened gaze making it clear she suddenly understood.
“Do it. Without you, he’s as good as dead.”
You have successfully cast Season’s Restoration! Your friend might actually live! Good thing you didn’t muck it up!
Mick’s eyes widened as he began taking desperate gasps, writhing and screaming, his limbs thrashing as if suffering the most horrific pain as his entrails seemed to s
uck themselves back inside him of their own accord, bone and blood, skin and meat, all of it knitting itself into being as if from the very ether around them. His legs slowly reformed, inch by bloody inch, Mick thrashing them as wildly as his arms, eyes rolling with agony as his howls rocked through the party entire, until at last it was done.
All of them gazed at Mick for a silent moment as he sobbed in exhausted agony, his gaze as naked and vulnerable as Val had ever seen, whimpering and trembling as Crystal gently rocked him back and forth, kissing his brow. “It’s okay, Mick. You’re safe now. It’s going to be okay.”
Val caught Reed’s agonized gaze. He alone, out of all the party members, had been marked by the horror of ultimate loss, his brother no more.
“I’m sorry,” he softly said.
Reed’s gaze was a desperate plea. “Are you a programmer? Is this real? Is any of it real?” He shook his head, swallowing, taking in the city now looking as glorious and pristine as it had a thousand years ago. “What I mean to ask is… can you bring him back?”
Val lowered his head. “I’m sorry, Reed.”
Reed closed his eyes, holding back tears, their group paying silent respect. Only Mick was not gazing his way, shaking with the horrors of his own healing, still in Crystal’s tender arms.
Reed gave an angry shake of his head. “Can you at least tell me why we can’t fucking parachute out of this hell hole?”
Val solemnly nodded. “Ramos Aldieren.”
Bill’s nostrils flared. “What the fuck does that fool have to do with any of this? He either got overrun by those revenant motherfuckers or parachuted out. What, does he hold some fucking quest key we need to contend with?”
Val gave a sad shake of his head. “He had you all killed. Back on Earth. So there would be no way you could escape.”
Bill’s eyes bulged. “No way, man. No fuckin’ way I’m going to believe that shit!”
Jiu sobbed and rubbed her once-more restored eye, already accepting the horrid truth. “He was one of those shadow killers, wasn’t he? Those… Dauda. Like fucking secret gestapo police. You read whispers of them on Readit. How Caesar brought those bastards to Earth to make sure all the players play by the rules.”
Eric nodded. “No one takes it seriously. But just in case… no one goes out of their way to piss off a Highlord. Not that they care about what treasure hunters do, or if we mess with civilians or serfs, but if anyone is actually stupid enough to brag about fucking with a Highlord, they just… disappear.” He angrily shook his head. “That’s the real reason why almost no one signs on to that damned war! If anyone breaks their mercenary’s oaths on Jordia or refuses to follow orders, the Highlords promise to punish us back on Earth. Idiots just made it so 90% of players won’t bother with it at all.”
“Fuck!” Jiu cried. “If Ramos was really one of those gestapo assholes, if some Highlord lied about us, put a contract out on us, and this really is all real, it explains so much. How he could always just disappear, that obnoxious little smirk that said he was playing us all for fools. And we thought he was just an arrogant ass.” She shuddered and sobbed. “We always thought, worst case, we can just parachute home. But now you’re saying we’re dead. That there is no home. That we’re stuck in this game. And when we die… we disappear in sparkles and mist. Because that’s what always happens when our Synth bodies die.”
Bill angrily shook his head. “No, man. The minute we die back on Earth, we should have just been gone! But we’ve been fighting for our lives nonstop since we entered this place, none of us fraggin’ off with our brains expiring back home.”
Eric’s eyes widened, catching Val’s gaze, sensing enough through the Spirit Link to aid his own intuition. “That’s because we’ve been in a high mana area this whole time.” He licked dry lips and swallowed. “Um, you all know that high mana areas are often host to horrors and undead shit, right? Well, technically what we are is...”
“Don’t say it,” Crystal begged.
“Undead.”
Bill buried his head in his hands. “Fuck, man. This just gets better and better.”
Val gave an angry shake of his head. “No. You’re all here now. You’re anchored. You might not be entirely stable, yet, but you are anchored. You don’t have to be in a high mana territory to live.” He flashed a rueful smile. “Just one of my territories.”
Jiu blinked. “One of your territories. Because now we’re bonded to you. Because you really do walk the Path of Kings.” Her brows furrowed. “How did you even manage that? Wait… Get a load of his stats, guys. He’s level 25!” Jiu suddenly paled. “And he’s Dauda.”
Crystal trembled. “A Dauda Assassin.”
Val held Crystal’s frightened gaze, refusing to deny it.
Mick, eyes haunted by all he had endured, managed a flicker of a smile. “And a Level 8 fucking Overlord. I won’t even ask what Arcane Reaver stands for. No wonder you didn’t want to link up with us.”
“Just like Ramos,” Bill spat, eyes crackling. “No wonder that bastard always refused! When I get my fucking hands on him...”
“Would you like to know exactly what went down? After all that you’ve gone through, you deserve that. But I’m warning you, it isn’t pretty.”
Jiu glared. “That’s a stupid question. Just show us what happened.”
Val took a deep breath, Mindlinked with his party, and did just that.
Alteration successful! Your clan’s Psionic potency may be among the weakest of Highlords, but your mind is still far more powerful than your formerly Terran friends!
He showed them everything, up to and most especially including Ramos’s grisly death, sparing them only his enemy’s mocking taunts about butchering their families in cold blood, which he prayed had been said for his benefit alone. At least it brought closure, if his friends' fiercely approving nods and hard expressions were anything to go by. And perhaps there was something he could do to lift their spirits as well, feeling his city blossom with what seemed limitless possibility, shaking free the shackles of a doom avoided by the same unlikely twist of fate that saw Val living and breathing when he should have been reduced to quantum flux, long ago.
“At least that bastard paid!” Bill snarled. “I would have dearly loved to see his face when it shriveled like a prune.”
Mick nodded. “Damn right. The important thing is that we’re here, now. However crazy things have gotten, at least we still have each other. And I intend to do all I can to protect you all from whatever crazy shit this world throws our way.”
Crystal wrapped her arms around Mick, who smiled fondly down at her. “I think Jager, or Valor, wants to show us something.”
Jiu grinned. “Yeah, I sense that too. Come on, Valor. Show us something that can wipe at least some of these horrors away.”
And Val did just that, leading them to the very heart of the city, smiling at the expressions of rapt awe upon their faces as they gazed upon the prize he had fought so hard to claim.
Even Reed stopped to stare, just shaking his head in bemused disbelief.
“Jeezus!” Jiu said. “That ship! It looks just like. I mean, it’s not, but just looking at it, I think...”
Mick smiled. “It’s the Argo.”
Jiu’s brows furrowed slightly. “No, it’s the Yamato.”
Eric, eyes lit with inner fire, chuckled softly. “Same thing. And my god, it’s incredible! But it’s not really what I remember. But it is in spirit, you know? It’s what the battleship would look like if they did a CGI cartoon today and included, well...”
“A dwarven sense of design?”
“Yeah, Valor. Hell, I bet it’s why we call spaceships built for war battleships anyway... Hey, where are you going?”
Something in his gaze had all of them looking at him oddly. “I’m going to check on the cryogenic chamber.” Without another word, he turned and raced along the corridors, somehow sensing exactly where the dwarven equivalent of elevators leading down to that highly fortified and deeply buried
quarter of the city would be.
Looking exactly like something out of his dreams.
Val chuckled softly to himself, refusing to think too deeply about it, surprised to see everyone save Reed racing up to him as he entered the elevator.
“Val. You’re not actually going to do what I think you’re going to do… are you?” Bill whispered.
Val grinned. “What do you think I’m going to do?”
Bill just stared, unable to say the words.
Val’s smile grew. “Hop on board, guys. See for yourself.”
Val did his best to ignore their pointed stares, the weight of grief and awe they were all feeling. At least, if nothing else, the wonders Val was showing his new friends might serve to numb the worst of the horror they were experiencing. But it wasn’t Val’s place to say anything at that moment, trusting in their oaths to keep safe this moment of awe and wonder they could all share together.
Val did his best to still the awful churning in his gut. The desperate anxiety beneath his smile.
Hoping against hope. Having burnt 50 points that could have shaped reality in wondrous, unfathomable ways… all on a fool’s dream.
But for the sake of Ava’s people, Avelina’s people…
“Val, man, I think we’re here, buddy. You okay?”
Val blinked, realizing the descent had finally stopped, a soft chime washing over them a third time. He caught Mick’s gaze, relieved once more to see him looking hale and healthy, bemused grin on features that had been twisted in a dying grimace, not that long ago. “How are you feeling?”
The younger man’s eyes held a bemused warmth. “Fantastic for an undead guy, Val. And hey, if I didn’t say it before, I’m beyond grateful that you saved my ass. You and Crystal both,” he said, flashing a smile at a suddenly blushing Crystal who was bold enough to smile back, despite the gentle flush to her bronze cheeks.
“So you say,” Crystal teased. “One of these days, I’m going to have you prove it.”
Bill smirked at that. “End of days has someone feeling feisty.”
“I think it’s adorable,” Jiu said, giving her beau’s hand a soft squeeze. “I always thought they’d make a cute couple. It’s just that in the real world...”
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