Goblin queen, p.21
Goblin Queen, page 21
“We ain’t got forever!” Maxis shouts as another giant footfall brings the monster closer.
I check the bearings on my minimap. We aren’t too far from where we first entered the zone from the wild. Plus the surface is flat here. No trees or hills.
“Just run until we get to the barrier. The Wild is Neutral Affinity. It’ll spawn much faster there. Go! Go!”
I don’t even wait for anyone to respond before I take off, willing them to follow after me with my quick action. It works. My friends are following me no questions asked. It’s what I need them to do, because I know they’d try to stop me from what I’m about to do next.
I slow down purposely, letting my friends overtake me.
There’s no way we can outrun this thing.
Not without help.
I change direction on a dime, using Charge Strike to launch myself halfway up one of the crystal columns closest to the Other. I burn off my cooldown using Wall Run and cast Shadow Copy as I dash up the column to the height of the Giant’s head. I launch myself at it with Charge Strike again, brandishing my Zanbatō.
You use Charge Strike!
You hit the
Holy crap! 90% damage mitigation?
“Reece! What are you doing?” Gilly suddenly yells through the comm.
I half wonder that myself, as I use Retreat in mid-air to distance myself from the giant monster. I land on one of the columns and cling to it by stabbing it with my blade.
“Just keep running! I’ll lead it away for a bit!”
“Stop playing the damn hero, man!” Maxis shouts. “That ain’t no normal monster!”
As if to emphasize his point the Other belches a stream of heat and flame from its throat.
Your shadow absorbs the attack!
I waste no time getting the heck out of there, using a combination of Charge Strike, Shadow Step, and Retreat to volley myself through the air over fifty feet before landing on an adjacent column. The giant does just what I hoped it would do and turns to follow me.
“Just keep going!” I shout through the comm. “I got this!”
I keep its attention with a Shuriken Strike and a healthy War Cry before dashing away to the next column. I keep up the pace, pushing my cooldowns to their limits as I keep barely one step ahead of the monster. I glance intermittently at my minimap and breathe a bit easier when I see my friends have made it a good half-mile away already.
I can’t believe how strong this thing is, though. Even an LM wouldn’t be able to stand against it. I think back to my use of Zenkai on the Goblin Queen and wished I hadn’t now. Still, if just the possession of a normal LM could produce monstrosities such as her and the Shadow Lord, it was no wonder the Ozoku, in their purest form like this one, would be so tough.
A new howling wail fills the air as yet another Ozoku emerges from within the crystal forest not more than a hundred feet away.
Oh crap...
I change direction, ping-ponging off the pillars in rapid succession, distancing myself from the both of them. Then all at once as if magically drawn to me, more of them begin to appear. Before I know it there are at least a dozen of them.
“Guys, please tell me you’re there already!” I shout through the comm.
“We’re here,” Gilly says. “The buggy is forming. Where are you now?”
“I’m on my way!”
I rebuff with Shadow Copy and Shadow Haste as I switch from luring the monsters to just plain running away from them. I use Shadow Step every chance I get to propel myself far ahead of them, blinking between the columns and the shadows that line their sides. After about a minute, my stamina is nearly gone, but I see my friends just ahead on the minimap, just beyond where the crystal forest ends and the familiar-looking dunes of the Wild begins.
“Bloody hell, why are there so many of them?”
“I kicked the hornet’s nest, I guess. Be ready to take off in that thing, I’m coming.”
I spot Rembrandt standing just outside Lexi’s tubular framed buggy. The mere sight of it brings back memories of her and how she first saved us in the wild from that towering Omega. My brother is already behind the wheel, while Val Helena is in the back, shouldering a massive gun, mounted in the back of the buggy.
The muzzles flashes and a split second later comes a bang!
Val Helena uses Turret Gun!
The HP bar doesn’t even appear over its head, to register the damage.
“What the hell are these things even made of?” Val Helena laments.
“Hurry up, Reece!” Gilly cries for me, leaning out the back of the buggy. “Those things are right behind you!”
She’s right. I gauge the pace I’m going and the speed of the Other as they go from simply walking to stumbling forward. If one of them ever got the ability to run it’d be game over. But even with them just walking there wouldn’t be enough time. It was like being in a relay race and trying to pass the baton. No way were we all going to escape these things if they waited for me at a standstill.
“Guys, take off!” I order through the comm. “I’ll catch up to you on the fly.”
“Reece, no—!” Gilly starts, but I cut her off.
“Just go now! Or we’re all gonna die!”
Rembrandt sees the logic and instantly hops onto the side of the buggy slapping the top. “Gun it, Max! Go!”
My brother uses Punch It and kicks up twin rooster tails of nanodust as he takes off. “You better get here, bro, or I’m gonna flipping kill you!”
My brother’s crazy, love-filled threats causes an inward chuckle, but as I near the edge of the forest I wonder if he actually might have to make good on that promise. I’m moving fast but not as fast as the buggy.
And the Others are moving faster than both of us.
I have one last idea.
I use Wall Run to gain height on the columns as I leap between them.
As I near the edge, I materialize a small keychain in my palm and will it to activate. I jump from the very last pillar with a combination of Retreat, Charge Strike, and Shadow Step, lunging through the barrier and into the Wild. My heart flies into my throat as I sail through the air with no safety net, the gray dunes of the wild rushing upwards to meet me.
Please work…
I have no idea how fast the Buggy took to materialize in the Neutral Affinity of the wild, but I pray that however long it took, a motorcycle would be even faster. As if to answer my prayers the handle bars of Gilly’s Gift begin to form between my palms. The bike continues to materialize from thin air and nano dust as I descend and the Others continue to lumber behind me. I glance back at them, expecting to see them slam into the invisible barrier of the safe zone at any moment.
But they run right through.
The sight shocks me a moment, but then it makes sense.
Just like us…the Others are not a part of this world.
I turn about to refocus on the fast-approaching dunes. I spot the buggy zig zagging ahead of me trying to slow down, but I wave them ahead. I brace myself as the bike fully forms beneath me and I prepare to take the brunt of the fall. Luckily for me, I’ve performed this maneuver once before, and know just how to mitigate the fall damage.
Removing one hand I quickly cast Shadow Copy.
The motorcycle slams into the leeward side of a dune and I lose a shadow.
The suspension strains and the tires sink into the sand, but as I hit the throttles my vertical descent turns horizontal and I blast forward, quickly catching up to the buggy.
Skill Up!
Your Motorcycle skill increases by 0.8!
“Heck yeah!” I release a holler of victory and relief as I fist pump the air.
I see all my friends in the buggy, waving to me, some of them shaking their heads.
“Please don’t do that again!” Gilly says through the party chat. “Geeze you’re so reckless!”
I laugh as I pull up alongside the buggy and blow a kiss at her.
She shakes her head but smiles all the same.
Aiko however blows me a kiss back.
“I think we’re losing them,” Val Helena says, facing backwards as she stays on the turret. “Man, that was close.”
She then looks over at me. “You gonna stop to get in or what?”
I smile at the giantess and can’t help but feel a strong sense of nostalgia.
“It’s almost over, Val,” I say.
“Huh?”
“The journey we started together. We’re nearly at its end.”
She laughs with a goddess laugh. “Stop getting sentimental. Are you going to answer my question or not?”
I gaze out at the strange world of gray sand and crystal sky. The old world where our civilization first began and fell. The world where giant demons of smoke and fire now walk in search of souls. Souls I’ve now vowed to protect.
“No, let’s keep going,” I say. And then I pause as a smile of gladness spreads across my lips as joy fills my heart. “Citadel is just beyond those dunes. We’re almost home.”
* * *
Beneath the shifting sands of the barrier, Xantheus marveled at the tenacity and speed at which the Kono-Zemsu fled. Had the thralls not been the lumbering oafs that they were, perhaps the outcome could have been different. Or perhaps he should not have tried to delay his passage through the barrier itself by relying on his talents of influencing yet again.
Xantheus warped through space and time, traversing the void to find another thin space in the barrier at which to not just influence…but cross. He connected to the flux and every atom of his being screamed in defiance, resisting the unnatural flow of the celestial retuning to the mortal plane. How Lord Xuba had endured this torment and humiliation he did not know, but he was certain of one thing.
He would make his time here as brief as possible.
Chapter 27: Questions in the Dark
Bruce found himself in the dead of night in some kind of field.
As he looked down at himself, he had another surprise. Gone was the normal dad gut, replaced instead by a well-defined torso clad in the thick leather armor. He chuckled. His wife would surely approve. He scanned further and found himself holding a massive axe in his right hand. How he’d not noticed he was holding something that heavy baffled him.
He was just about to try to make sense of the information hovering over his vision when a violent scream made his heart jump. He turned just in time to see a man in animal skins charging at him with a crude spear.
Bruce screamed in response, his fight or flight mechanism kicking into high gear. Surprising even himself, he lashed out with the axe and embedded it in the man’s shoulder. The man cried out as a bar appeared above his head and instantly depleted to zero.
“OP strength build bull–”
His words cut off as he fell to the ground and then burst into a flurry of sparks. New words appeared before him.
Congratulations! You have slain Rockeasy23
14 hunters remain
You autoloot Rockeasy23
You find a Crude Spear
You find a Wolf Skin armor
You find Jerky[3]
What was all this junk?
It didn’t matter. He needed to find Cedric. Still, he couldn’t deny the strange sense of exhilaration rushing through him now. Bruce was a peaceful man by nature and getting into a fight was out of the question, especially in the real world. But killing that…player just now?
It was like nothing he had felt before. Terrifying yet liberating.
He was beginning to understand why people gravitated towards these types of games.
Focus, he told himself. Find Cedric.
Connecting to his link to the outside world, Bruce patched a message through to Carl.
Carl’s response appeared as text before his eyes.
Carl: Cedric’s player name is Messiah. His starting position was just north of you.
Messiah? Oddly fitting for a delusional prophet, Bruce supposed.
Carl: No idea which character he might be. But I wouldn’t put it past him to know exactly where Cedric spawned as well. Better get moving.
Using the compass on his display, Bruce orientated himself and booked it through the forest. The screams of other players unnerved him as he made his way through the dark. At the top of his vision a player counter which started at 15 was now down to 12. A ring on his map labeled “death zone” kept growing smaller and smaller as well. All those things combined to send his heart rate skyrocketing. He needed to get to Cedric sooner rather than later.
Another message then appeared from Carl.
Carl: Hey… be careful in there. The failsafe limits have been deactivated.
Bruce recalled seeing that message before he entered the game.
Carl: Dennis has changed the settings. In this game there is something called insta-kill involving headshots. The feedback from that can cause actual head trauma if that limiter isn’t in place.
Carl: The bigger question is why. I’d get out of there, Bruce. I can call Evelyn and have her shut down the whole thing. It’s not safe.
Bruce paused to think a moment. This was exactly the setup Dennis wanted, an easy opportunity to take Cedric out. But Bruce already knew that. He needed to get to Cedric before that happened. Before Dennis found him. Breaking into a run, Bruce sent another message to Carl.
* * *
Wind presses into my face as I stare out at the rolling dunes.
We’ve traveled for over an hour now and my heart beats faster as the distance ticks down on my minimap to the coordinates of Citadel. We’re all in the buggy, silence reigning as we’re each lost in our own thoughts. Gilly’s green eyes stare into the distance as she sits next to me and I wonder what she’s thinking. I send her a PM.
Me: You okay?
She turns and smiles and then speaks to me instead of sending a PM. “Never better.”
“Kind of surreal, isn’t it?” I say, looking at my minimap. “Being this close to home?”
“I know. I can’t wait to see my mom and dad,” she says. “Can’t wait for this to all be over.”
I only nod as I imagine being able to see my own mother again.
Almost there, Mom.
But for me, the battle is still far from over. Saving Citadel is just the beginning.
“There it is!” Rembrandt suddenly cries. “I see it!”
We all stand up in our seats, peering in the direction the cyberpunker is pointing.
There just faintly on the horizon is a domed structure sitting atop the dunes. I can barely believe it. “It’s there, guys! We found it!”
A roil of cheers and laugher ring out as we celebrate.
“Holy crap, we made it, man!” Maxis says, and I swear I can see tears in his eyes. “All these damn years. We’re finally bringing this nano home.”
“What do you think it’s going to be like?” Val Helena says. “Going back home like this? We’re still in our avatars, right?”
Crap, I hadn’t given much thought to that.
“Maybe when we reach the terminal, we can all transition back into the shards?” Becky says with a shrug.
“That sounds plausible, love.” Rembrandt gives her a nod. “It should be a hardwired connection when we get there.”
“Who says I even want to change back,” Aiko says with one of her cackle laughs. “I like being like this.”
“That makes two of us,” Val Helena says with a deep sigh.
I look to the giantess and elf questioningly. I never really considered what going back to the real world would be like for them. After all, they have literally been inside those nano bodies for years. As if to emphasis the point, Maxis suddenly laughs as he points at me.
“Mom would totally freak out if she saw you like that, Bro.”
“Yeah,” I said, realizing that as normal as we all felt, we were still in these synthetic superhuman bodies. “Mom still doesn’t even know that I can walk aga-in, much less seeing me as a nin––”
My words cut short as the world suddenly turns upside down.
Screams and the groan of twisting metal fill the air as the buggy flips over, sand stinging my face as we tumble across the dunes. I lose count of the number of times we topple end over end before we finally come to a jarring stop that takes a few HP away.
My head is spinning and hurting from the pressure being upside down, I realize.
“Everyone alright?” Rembrandt says with a cough. “Max, what happened?”
“I don’t know. I think something hit us. It just––”
Our world goes spinning again as something strikes the buggy a second time and on my HUD I see its health go from 40% to zero. What’s left of the buggy’s frame collapses into nano dust as we’re tossed into the air and spit out into the desert like eggs falling from a carton. I break my momentum in a chaotic roll, losing a couple more HP in the process.
