Chapter 13 - Jane

Daniels was smashed to the side by a ball on a swinging chain. He rolled with the blow and came up swinging. I caught the image of a scarred matte black shield shield in the corner of my eye shading me from the sun and a number of descending arrows. Gerald’s blade was the prow of a ship as he casually cut his way through a sea of humanity. I needed to do something. To help more. Another spell came to mind and I quickly began the proper phrases and gestures before I lost line of sight with everyone. A long moment went by as a final cry rang out.

“Bellare Encantatem!”

The spell spilled out in a torrent, covering each of the party in sight in a red aura that brightened as each of them fought.

You have received a buff: War Cry. Speed, Strength, Dexterity, and Defense are increased by 1% for every enemy engaged during combat and for every thirty seconds that passes during combat for a maximum of 20%.

As I stepped away from Kruhl’s shield I caught one last glimpse of a broadly smiling Gerald as he made his way toward where I had last seen Jackson. A harmony of bladed weapons caught my attention as I saw Blondie scything through a number of combatants, always catching them from the back and sides and never stopping to fully engage an opponent. She focused on attacks of opportunity that was as much elegant as it was methodical. A muscled barbarian type came rushing out and caught her up in a powerful grapple, carrying her away through the crowd. She disappeared quickly but I caught the sight of a broad smile on her face as her knives descended in a blur. The movement of her arms was limited by the hold the man had on her. I fired off three quick fireballs that required nothing more than a flick of one hand and word.

You hit PapaBear for 11 damage!

You hit PapaBear for 13 damage!

Critical Hit! You hit IckyMouse for 25 damage!

You have slain IckyMouse! Experience Received!

The last of the three fireballs was lost in the crowd as Blondie and PapaBear disappeared. I couldn’t even make out the wounded player that I had sent off for respawn. Jackson and I had often played outside and we pretended to fight zombies for as long as I could remember. Most of those games at some point ended up with us surrounded and having to fight our way free of a teeming mass of mindless hunger. This melee was entirely too evolved for my taste. I preferred my hordes to stick to teeth and not upgrade to tool using.

Kruhl was using his sword to good effect and refused to be limited by most peoples interpretation of how shields should work. He hammered the tapered edges into necks, thighs, and knuckles as often as he used it to turn a blow. My mind flashed through the quick and dirty spells from the book. My fingers contorted into a gesture, my thumbs interlocked and index fingers pointed toward Kruhl.

“Incendre!”

The sword and shield Kruhl held were wreathed in flames. His blows now left smoking gashes and even caught clothing and hair alight of some of the more unfortunate players. Between two struggling figures, I saw a man holding a similar book to mine running his finger down the page. Looking up he made a familiar series of gestures, his lips moving in harmony as though reciting lyrics. A tight group of three were making their way toward him, swords swinging loose and casual. They had the look of cats who found a mutt on their territory. The group had made their avatars with scars and tattoos along their faces, their hair and clothes disheveled and mismatched.

The caster finished his spell and lightening snapped across the distance between them. The spell had barely finished casting and sending the bad boys off to a dirt nap when an arrow pierced the shoulder of the man holding the book. The lightening snapped off instantly. An archer dressed in similar bandit garb as the three men had stepped forward into the small ring of space, as though those fighting around wanted nothing to do with what was going on in this small battlefield clearing. I’m not sure why I did what I did next. Maybe it was the sense of connection I had in seeing him with a book so like my own. Maybe it was the unfair nature of the fight, or the look and bearing of his attackers. One thing was for sure, though. I hated bullies.

I sprinted forward, shoving through the crowd. A quick gesture and word flung a dagger of frost leaping from my fingers and embedding itself in the back of the archers head. A curious thought flashed instantly through my head along with the action. I wondered how the physics worked and the allowance for creative spell combinations. The next spell didn’t require any gestures.

“Firian!”

Surprise Attack! Critical Hit! You hit Lobos for 47 damage! (Ice Dagger)

Critical Hit! You hit Lobos for 134 Damage! (Explosive)

You have slain Lobos! Experience Received! You have gained a level!

The results were more spectacular than I had imagined. I had used a fire spell from the book. Instead of a somatic component, the spell required you to direct the heat with your intent. It was difficult to focus my mind in such a narrow spectrum, but the thought and the doing had come to me all at the same time. I used the spell to suddenly reverse the temperature of the ice dagger, picturing the spell affecting the entire dagger all at once. The rapid change caused an explosion while the dagger was still inside the player. His upper half distorted in an explosion of pixels as he collapsed. The three players turned to look at the commotion as I began flinging combinations of fire and ice that weren’t particularly deadly singly, but which chipped away at their health pools and caused them to scatter. I laughed at the exhilaration of it all. This game was amazing. I could fight for and alongside the weak and afraid not stand back and watch the strong walking over everyone else. I kept pouring spell after spell into the dodging and hiding group. Just a few more seconds and they’d begin to fall one by one.

A strange lethargy came over me then. My spells began to falter, the words coming thick and slower in my mouth, and my breathing began to labor. I felt like I had run a race I hadn’t trained for. Not with my body, but with my mind.

“Her mana is finally running out! Looks like she’s finally run out of mana potions if she’s cast that many spells.” The leader of the three stated. I had their full attention now. All three of them had straightened up or come out from behind cover. “She’s definitely one of them. Take her out.”

I began to back away from the three. Before they had taken a second step toward me a lance of lightning struck the leader in the back. He had been trailing behind the other two. Light illuminated him and rose to a crescendo over the next couple of seconds before exploding. All three of the bandits were blown away from each other and into the dirt of the arena floor.

The man I had seen with the book stepped through the clouds of smoke and dust. He was handsome. I had expected that. When you can create any face and body you wanted to, I knew that the game world would be flooded with unrealistically attractive players. I wasn’t prepared to meet his gaze, however. His eyes were an icy Alaskan sky.

“You guys really shouldn’t turn your back on an enemy.” The caster spoke as he walked towards me. “Thanks for the assist. Those guys really seemed to have it out for me and spell casting takes some getting used to. I’m Gandhi, by the way.”

“Gandhi?”

“Yeah, well. It started out as a joke in first person shooter games we’d play. I’d always go with Gandhi so that it would say ‘you’ve been killed by Gandhi’ in the text chat, and well… you know. The guy’s a big pacifist and all that. It seems kind of stupid now, but I’m pretty much stuck with it. I can’t really see myself using any other handle anymore.”

A noise caught our attention. I began to scan the crowd. I realized that the amassed crowd I had been in before had been the largest group of those fighting, making it feel more George Romero than fantasy RPG. I could clearly see now, that the group of what I had assumed were a thousand players had been decimated. There were maybe a hundred players standing and the skirmishes had grown in intensity as the more hardcore or seasoned warriors fought each other. More relevant to me, however, were the fallen enemies that had gotten up. They had also added two more to their number from somewhere. I turned to look behind me and saw the two new-comers slow from an apparent sprint into a walk as they closed ranks around us.

I felt Gandhi press his back against mine. “You take that side. I’ll get this one.”

“I can’t do anything. I’m out of mana.”

“What? I thought you had more potions.”

“I don’t have any potions. That guy was an idiot. I never used one.”

Despite the danger from the men around us I felt him turn his body toward me.

“You didn’t use any? How—? Never mind. If you haven’t used any you have five in your pack. It’s part of your starter kit. Take one out and drink it. Fast.”

I mentally slapped my forehead. I hadn’t had time to even look at my character screen much less search my inventory. My mind flicked to thoughts of opening up my inventory screen, and there it was. I focused on the slot with the blue mana potion and mentally reached for it. To my surprise, as the thought occurred, my hand reached into a pouch at my belt and withdrew a blue vial. I drank it down quickly and was pleased to see my mana bar replenish from 4% to 54%. I dismissed the screen with a mental flick. I began running through my spell options when my eyes caught a blur of motion.

A lone arrow arced over the heads of the crowd.

I followed its trajectory back and found Jackson. His bow was still tilted forward at an angle as it did after he shot, his eyes focused past me. I looked back at the arrow, my mind doing the kind of instinctive calculation it does when someone tosses something to you when you aren't ready for it. I knew where it was going. My eyes tracked to Zion. He was looking straight at me. At our outnumbered standoff. He had a half-smile and a fiery glint in his eyes. He continued to hold my gaze as the arrow closed in. Then, time slowed.

It was an odd feeling. My body moved slowly, but my mind operated like normal. The moment was stretched like taffy for everything except my thoughts. I saw Zion’s eyes flick to the arrow, his smile still in place. I saw him smoothly shift his body, intentionally allowing the arrow to graze him. There was no other explanation. The movement was too smooth and calculated for it to be any other way.

I couldn’t explain what was going on. I could only assume that Zion was doing something. My mind continued to race. I could use this. I had to trust that Jackson knew what he was doing—or, that he was an idiot. Either way, I couldn’t help him. But maybe he could help me.

My head and shoulders moved as though they were suspended in a thick oil, my hands already coming up as I leveled my fingers in an arcane gesture toward the two men. Gandhi’s original spell had given me an idea. It was a channeling spell that required only a thought to trigger, but you had to keep your focus. That wouldn’t do here. I would be wasting the opportunity that this moment was giving me. Instead, I concentrated on casting spell after spell that only required the thought to activate. It was a similar alternating combination of machine gun like fire and ice that I had used earlier, but this time concentrated and stacked up one onto the other. My mana bar plummeted as the spells left my fingers, pointed toward each of the two men.

My mana hit zero.

I turned my head toward Jackson, already forgetting about the two dead men. One hand was slowly, ever so slowly, reaching into my belt pouch for another potion. I had turned in time to see Zion and Jackson, moving and talking normally. I saw a flash of red lightening and Jackson scream. Zion pulled his sword free from where it hung on his hip, and with casual strength brought it down onto my brother. In the moment before the blade struck my stomach sank with a lurch. Calen had lept in front of the blow, trying to protect him. Even from here I could tell it was too late. Light blinded me at the point of impact. My hand completed its movement in a blur, as time’s heartbeat restarted. I pulled another bottle free with a thought and angrily drank it down as a thundering explosion and the sounds of shattering ice hammered the air behind me.

You hit Spike for 217 Damage! (Flame Shock x 8, Ice Lance x 9)

You have slain Spike! Experience Received!

You hit Doberman for 198 Damage! (Flame Shock x 7, Ice Lance x 8)

You have slain Doberman! You have slain Spike! Experience Received! Double kill! 2x Experience bonus received. You have gained a level!

I glared at where Zion stood, my fingers shaping a spell, funneling my emotions into a white hot core. My mind refused to shape the words and actions into something familiar from the book, but I continued on, heedless. My mana began to drain once more, pouring more and more into the spell until it sizzled and hissed. Gandhi was forced to take a step away as he shielded his eyes. Stupid! He was so stupid! It was one thing destroying himself, but now he was taking others down with him.

I threw the spell.

Critical Hit! You hit Nightwolf for 506 Damage!

You hit HowlyMcHowlFace for 151 damage! (Area of Effect)

You hit BigBad for 147 damage! (Area of Effect)

You have slain Nightwolf! You have slain HowlyMcHowlFace! You have slain BigBad! Experience Received! Triple kill! 3x Experience bonus received. You have gained a level! You have gained a level!

Congratulations! You have unlocked a Hidden Ability: Retribution. Upon the death of a member of your group, you may cast this spell. Its destructive capability is determined by your level and the amount of mana invested into the spell.

The bandit leader’s body was blown back as his two henchmen were once again blasted to the floor, their bodies disintegrating into pixels a moment later. Jackson had proven that attacking Zion was pointless. He had also proven which side of the--knowing what he was doing versus being an idiot fence he fell on.

I turned to see Gandhi’s mouth hanging open as he stared at me. “What? How did you—”

A thunderclap shook the arena, followed by another, and then another. We all looked up to see Zion, floating there above us, clapping his hands together.

“Well done, cubs. Well done. You who still stand have passed the initial trial and will enter into your studies with honors. Do not forget that though you stand at the top today, each of the other Sojourners will be gaining in strength and will be looking to topple you from your positions as Harbingers. Enter, and find your rest, warriors. You have earned it.” His hand swept through the air grandly and lightening illuminated a doorway into the keep.

Gerald, Daniels, and the rest came jogging up to me as I headed toward the doors. The odd sense of fog on my mind from the mana drain was very disconcerting. My legs felt heavy and tired. I was breathing heavily. When had that happened? Our missing party members didn't go without notice.

Gerald looked to me and then out and around at the crowd of people. His brow furrowed in a question.

I shook my head and continued to make my way toward the door. After a pause, everyone followed me inside.