Chapter Thirty Nine – Safe Within the Flames

I only had a moment to dash towards Amy before pushing her out of the way of Red Thorn’s dagger, but it sunk deep into my arm instead. Only instinct guided the action. Not the Instinct, but long ingrained memory of how Red Thorn acted. She attacked the weakest bugbears first.

Angry as I was at Amy, I didn’t want her to die any more than I’d ever wanted Bugbear to.

“Bellcandy! Duck!” I shouted through the pain in my arm, knowing that Red Thorn wouldn’t stay anywhere near where my shocker might touch her.

“See reason! She’s an A.I. and she wants to kill me! Who knows what she might do if she’s allowed to–” Red Thorn spoke but was cut off mid word, forced to dodge an arrow from Dull Beauty.

She reappeared in a blink, staring at the archer.

“I’m level twenty seven you know. I’m currently ranked the seventh best player in this entire game. Are you sure you want to make an enemy of me? For it?” She hissed.

I breathed a sigh of relief as Amy’s healing magic flowed over me. I shot her a grateful look before it morphed into a glare. She and Iron had both called Red Thorn. Messaged her about me! Why were they trying to defend me now?

“Uh, not really,” Bellcandy said before turning apologetically towards me. “No offense, Gell.”

“I certainly do,” Dull Beauty interrupted with a glare towards Bellcandy. “If you gained all that power from farming a glitched mob, then you don’t deserve it. Also, if Gell is an A.I. like you assume, why in gods name would you want to make an enemy of her?”

“She won’t listen! I’m sorry for what I did, but if she’s going to try to kill me anyway then who knows what she might do!? What if she gets out of the game, huh!?” Thorn shouted. “If we incapacitate her now, we can keep her from learning more, until the developers delete her!”

‘Delete me? Was that different than killing?’ I thought, catching my breath.

“Then why dig yourself a deeper hole!?” Beauty said as she drew back her bowstring, arrow poised to fly.

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here!” I screamed, before reaching as fast as I could for Red Thorn, my fingers sparking with a prepared shocker.

She sidestepped as if I were moving in slow motion and would’ve stabbed me in the gut if not for the arrow that forced her to back away.

I hissed at her, wishing I were fast enough to just shut her up…

Wait.

I pulled up my status screen, staring at the unspent status points and began dumping them all into dexterity. Extra health wouldn’t help me. She’d just strike more if the first hit didn’t kill me. Luck might help but it was nebulous and fickle. Dexterity though. Dexterity might give me that extra bit of speed I needed to at least see what she was doing. Long experience had told me that if I could just tag her once with my shocker she would go down. She was so fast now. How many cycles had passed since I’d last seen her? Four hundred? Six?

I didn’t remember.

“Gell… please. It doesn’t have to be like this. I don’t want to put you back in your cave, but you’re not leaving me much of a choice!” she insisted.

“You’ll see your angel and headstone first,” I sneered, before darting towards her. “I knew your apology was full of garbage!”

She vanished again, but this time I was fast enough to see where. I diverted, running back towards Amy who was again defenseless. Red Thorn reappeared in a blur, swinging her dagger down towards Amy but I got there just in time to shove the dazed healer out of the way and to catch the dagger on one of my Seashell Pauldrons.

“You’re faster,” Thorn commented, just before stepping backwards out of the path of arrows from both Iron and Dull Beauty.

The rogue tsked, and threw something at me. A bottle that smashed into the ground. It would’ve soaked me but either her aim was off or I was just fast enough to dodge it. I assumed the first. A silvery liquid splashed across the ground where I had just been, but did nothing except sizzle and fade away.

“Sleeping Toxin?” Dull Beauty asked before firing another arrow that Red Thorn dodged with grace.

Our party setup was not normal. We weren’t like a regular group of invaders. A healer, an archer, two all-rounders who didn’t have classes but were fulfilling roles as another healer and archer, and… me. I supposed that made me the tank then.

Our only chance was for me to engage Thorn and hope that Iron and Dull Beauty could land a hit. Even near the end of her visits occasionally all the Bugbears were able to at least hold their own if they managed to swarm her. Perhaps we had a chance.

The rest of the group was spread out in an incomplete circle around the invader. Once, seeing the bugbears arrayed around her like this would’ve made me believe we had the upper hand. Not now.

I dove for her, arm outstretched. Instead of using my shocker though, I grabbed for the beautiful dagger in her hands.

Her eyes widened in shock as I managed to snag the item from her, even as she placed her hand on my head to bound over me. She jerked in shock at the theft, almost losing her balance as I stumbled under her. So I’d been able to surprise her. Good.

A brief notification of “Exquisite Ebony Dagger of the Hawk equipped,” flashed through the air as I used it to slice at her face. Of course she dodged, too fast for me to hit.

Instead of pressing her advantage, she backed away, beseeching my friends. “Don’t you see? That dagger was soul bound to me! How do you explain her stealing it! Players can’t do that! She’s fucking with the game itself!” Red Thorn exclaimed the next time she stopped between myself and Dull Beauty. “I know she already changed your names! Aren’t you afraid of what else she might be able to mess up!?”

The archer responded with another arrow that Thorn almost casually blocked with yet another dagger.

“Oh, why am I even arguing with you people,” she sighed. Her eyes suddenly lit up, glowing a hollow, demonic red. “Death Knell.”

A sickly black ring suddenly expanded from her body in all directions. Eldritch symbols appeared on the ground as the glyph spread far wider than even where Bellcandy stood at the far end of the path.

I ran for her, trying once again to engage. The wind sprayed into the air behind me as I ran, newfound agility allowing me to move faster than I ever had.

Not that it helped.

Red Thorn dodged the arrows aimed at her from both Dull Beauty and Bellcandy before almost sliding away from me, her body leaving behind strange echoes as if light couldn’t keep up with her.

A menacing sound filled the clearing. A dead laugh that came from the world itself.

‘What is this?’ I thought, staring in horror at the ground.

Red Thorn looked at me with her glowing red eyes looking uncharacteristically sad before she vanished. She was not gone for more than a split second before she appeared behind Iron only to stab him straight in the back. His scream drew my eyes and I only caught a glimpse of her red hood before it disappeared again.

“No! You leave them alone! They didn’t… they did nothing to–!” I screamed, horrified. It was happening again. It was all happening again.

Dull Beauty at least managed to parry the first strike, whirling around and blocking the dagger with the wood shaft of her bow, but the second strike was too quick for her. Red Thorn took her in the throat with another dagger in her left hand.

“Stop! Stop it! I’ll go back! I’ll go back! Please don’t hurt my family again!” I screamed, desperately trying to look between Amy and Bellcandy.

“They’re not hurt, Gell. They’re players. We don’t feel pain, and they’ll be alive in town in no time,” she said, her voice sounding weirdly compassionate. “I’m not being needlessly cruel but I’m not just going to let some rogue A.I. who wants to kill my family just go. My family doesn’t respawn.”

“Please… stop,” I begged, staring at the dead bodies of Iron and Dull Beauty when Red Thorn disappeared again.

It didn’t matter. Bellcandy was frantically searching for where Thorn would next appear when she was suddenly right in front of him, stabbing for his chest. He didn’t get the time to scream before he slumped to the ground, body fading in favor of an angel and a headstone.

I dashed towards Amy, hoping against hope that I could protect her. Before I could reach her though, she looked at me with a very real fear in her eyes. “I’ll find you Gell. I won’t let her do this to you.”

She suddenly vanished. Not like Red Thorn did, suddenly blurring into motion, or even teleporting. No. This was more like when she left the world. An array of dazzling lights erupted through the woods before fading into darkness. Leaving me alone with the headstones of my friends and Red Thorn.

I shuddered. I might as well have not even left my cave. Nothing changed.

“Emergency logoff? Really?” Red Thorn scoffed sarcastically as she reappeared. The black glyphs faded from the forest floor, but I was under no illusions that I had any chance of beating the unholy rogue. “Great friends you made there, Gell. Great family.”

“Shut up!” I hissed. “J-Just… why!? Why are you so… evil?”

She winced at that. “I”m not, really. I honestly feel pretty shitty about this whole thing. But these things have a habit of going a specific way. A.I... they can’t live with people. It doesn’t work.”

“Ay Eye, Ay Eye! You keep spouting those letters like they mean something! What even is that!? Some excuse to justify killing anyone you feel like? Don’t you see that I just want to be free of you! I just want to be free to live!”

“Yes. I get that. I really do. You just want… to be free. And that is something no sane human should ever allow. I’m sorry Gell. Really. Hopefully they delete you soon,” she said while coating her dagger in some sort of strange green poison. “Nighty, night.”

I trembled, tears trailing down my cheeks as Red Thorn held the dagger to my arm.

Suddenly though, she stopped. She jerked and went rigid, her body spasming. I blinked as I saw a glowing white light emanating from behind her and… and… a spike protruding from her chest?

“Son of a…” the girl said darkly, grabbing at the bloody horn sticking straight out of her dark clothes.

I finally managed to peel my eyes away from the terrifying rogue to look just behind her. There standing proudly was a shining Unicorn. It tugged its horn out of Red Thorn’s back with a sickening squelch and the rogue dropped like a sack of bricks.

“I-Impossible,” she breathed, stunned.

Internally, I agreed.

Disabled and apparently unable to move from some sort of stun effect, she turned her head to look up at me. “Gell… please. I’m trying to do you a kindness. If you live, you’ll only get to see everyone you think you love come to hate you. It’s… how these things go.”

I snarled at her crumpled body.

“Fuck these things.”

I didn’t waste another moment. I touched the fallen rogue and shocked her. To my own surprise she still didn’t die, but paralyzed and bleeding, a final stab through her chest with her own weapon finished the job.

Her headstone decorated the clearing and the angelic woman hovered above, there for her just as she was for my friends. There was hardly any satisfaction in killing her though. Finally.

Instead, I just felt hollow.

I collapsed, sobbing uncontrollably on the dirty path. Why? Why did it always have to be like this? I just…

I just wanted a family.