Spear of Destiny: Revised Ch. 1 (Draft 4)

The self-styled Emperor of Archemi was a lot bigger than I remembered. Close to seven feet tall, dressed in silvered armor that reflected the desert sun with a radiant aura that made him seem even larger. His face was shielded by a greathelm that resembled an eagle’s beak, complete with piercing jeweled eyes. He looked like a paladin out of legend, someone to inspire awe and terror. 

Like most other things about Baldr Hyland, the appearance of heroism was a lie.

“Jeez.” I sighed, let go of my dragon's wrist, and dropped back down to our arena: the enormous prone expanse of Withering Rose. The great machine lay face-down in the desert sands, steam still pouring through the cracks of her armor. "One minute, I'm celebrating my victorious rediscovery of part of Archemi's history, and the next, I'm looking at Hitler’s biggest fan. The fuck do you want, asshole?"

“Everythang I ever wanted’s right here, ‘cept for one important little detail,” Baldr drawled. “You’re still drawing breath in MY world. So I figured it was time to pay you a little visit. See if we can sort things out, man to man.”

“You have to take me to dinner at least once before any man-to-man stuff.” I turned to face him, and as I did, I opened a telepathic link to my stunned, frightened dragon. "Karalti. Get out of here."

"No!" Karalti sucked in a deep throatful of air, swelling her neck, and gaped her jaws wide. “I won’t leave you!”

"He's going to kill me, and neither of us can stop him. Go home. NOW. Warn the others."

Karalti hissed, mantling her wings and flaring her horned crest around her face. "I'm not leaving you! You saw what he did to Violetta, and my brothers! He won’t just kill you! He’ll do something terrible!”

"Aww, well ain’t that the cutest damn thang. Puttin' her back up like a kitty." Baldr pushed the visor of his helmet up so I could see his face. Hard cut, handsome… pitiless. The Trial of Marantha, the mutations that had turned us both into dragonriders, had sucked the melanin out of Baldr’s skin. He was as pale and heartless as a Roman sculpture, a lock of white, feathery hair flickering in the gusts of searing desert wind. “Our new Queen is a trim little gal, isn’t she?”

A fierce spike of rage surged up through my body. “Whatever he’ll do to you is worse than what he’ll do to me. Go! NOW!”

Karalti flinched at the force of will behind the last word. Baldr laughed, thinking he'd insulted her, then froze with a small frown as the dragon's body warped into a dark nimbus and then vanished.

“She can teleport?” Baldr suddenly… changed. His body language, his posture, the way he used his face. The man's deep Kentucky drawl was gone, replaced by a cool neutral tone that sounded like it had come from somewhere in the far north of the UNAC. Canada, or Minnesota. “That’s useful. The dragons she produces through breeding will all gain that spell. Usta – her mother – never was able to teleport of her own accord. The Knights of St. Grigori use magic items to fast travel. Did you know that, Park?”

Stomach crawling, I shifted into a fighting stance. “Man, it’s gotta be real crowded in there with two people sharing half a brain.”

Baldr’s – or should I say, Ororgael’s – lips twitched into a small, wry smile. It was eerie to watch the same face express an entirely different person, but somehow, even the light in his eyes was different.

“Steven Park’s kid brother,” he sighed. “He always said you were funny. I see he was wrong about that, too.”

“Steve didn’t really know me that well. So, do you go by Baldr or Ororgael now? Orbal? Baldo?” 

“'Your Majesty' works. Capital 'M'. I can hear the difference.” The big man cocked his right hand near the pommel of the broadsword sheathed on his hip. “I know where she is. The Admin Panel shows her co-ordinates, and everything else about her.”

He's lying. An inner voice - hard, dark, quiet - whispered from deep inside me. He didn't know she could teleport.

“Whaa? No way. It’s not like there was a global system message announcing that I was the new Voivode of Myszno or anything." My voice was level from behind my helmet, calm as still water. The tension - the fear - churned in my chest. "But I've got it on good authority the Admin Panel is inaccessible to you and the other Devs on the server."

Ororgael’s eyes darted from side to side, as if looking at something. “Mmm… let’s see here. Dragozin Hector, Level 25 ‘Dark Dragoon’, whatever that is... 3728 EXP to next level, only 69 Strength? You’re running behind.”

An icy chill seized my guts like a cold hand.

“Hmm, hmm, hmm… Oh? You’re half Nasaku now? That’s interesting.” The big man’s brow furrowed. “I guess that answers some questions I had.”

Somehow, this motherfucker could see my character stats. He could see my fucking sheet. I swallowed down the fear – for Karalti’s sake. She was back with my allies by now, and I trusted them to get her to go somewhere she wouldn’t be found. "Wow, super. I guess you know everything. Maybe you should ask your magic eight-ball how I kicked your ass in Cham Garai, then Taltos, and then Myszno."

"I know exactly how you pulled those things off.” Ororgael shrugged. “Because I let you.”

“That’s one of the Top Ten Things a Loser with No Admin Panel would say.” I cracked my neck from side to side. “Now, put up or shut up.”

He let out a short laugh of disbelief. “You really think you stand a chance?” 

I shifted into a low, wide stance, bracing the Spear of Nine Spheres along one arm. “What’s the worst you can do? Kill me?”

“I can destroy you.” Ororgael drew his sword. The weapon he pulled from the sheath was not a steel blade: it was made of glass, and as soon as it was free, the blade burst into incandescent white flames with a shock of power that nearly forced me back a step.

Welp.

"You won because I let you," he repeated, slashing the blade down through the air. “But I’m done tolerating your viral, corrupted piece-of-shit code. That spear is mine. The Queen is mine. This Warsinger is mine. I won’t let you stop me from saving this world. It’s the only one we have left.”

“Uhh…” I actually lost my focus for a second. “Umm… what?”

Baldr’s pale pink eyes turned dark and hard. “You're not supposed to be here, Hector. You're not supposed to exist. You're a virus crafted and executed by them, and I won’t let them take anything else from me again.”

I stared at him in astonishment. “I… what? You’re the one who set up a virus inside of a quest so you could hijack a player and turn into… uhh… whatever the fuck you are now. Are you fucking tripping?”

“You ain’t gonna pull one over me.” Baldr's Southern accent bled back in briefly, before it was stamped down again by Ororgael's greater will. It was creepy as hell to watch two people struggle for supremacy in one person's body... creepy in the way that made you stare in horrified fascination as a parasite burrowed under someone's skin. “Your Seed Code is hanging right here in front of me. Your viral, corrupt piece-of-shit code.” 

"Right, so let me get this straight," I said, pulling for time. Baldr-Ororgael here was anywhere between Level 30 thru Level 100. I needed to buy time for my allies to prepare... something. "You're about to try and perma-kill me, an actual human, because you're afraid of some made-up alien space dragons? And you think I'm doing their bidding because I have a weird character code. Is that it?"

"You really don't understand what they are, do you?" Baldr's voice turned low and urgent as he took a step toward me. "You should know what the AI is doing to us by now. If you don't... then why did you agree to help Steven?"

"Help him with what? Dude, I had about an hour's warning before Steve suckered me into being here. We hadn't spoken in like, five years before he offered me a chance to perma-load into Archemi. I was dying from HEX. All I wanted to do was to stop drowning on my own fluids and play a fun fantasy game, okay? Treasure, dungeons, my own personal dragon. That's it. That's all I came here for. I barely spoke to Steve for five years because of how he used to treat me. I didn't agree to shit."

"He... manipulated you into being here?" Baldr's brows furrowed, but it was really Ororgael who was staring at me: the developer formerly known as Michael Pratt, my brother's coworker. 

"Apparently." I frowned back, confused by what I was seeing. Not just the bodysnatching thing. A new expression crossed Baldr's features, an expression I'd never have expected from the Big Bad Evil Guy.

Pity.

“Steven WOULD do that.” He sighed. "This just adds another element of tragedy to the whole mess."

The point of his sword dropped slightly, and I glanced at it. Was there a possibility that I could actually talk him down? Reach him, somehow...?

No! The voice of warning flashed into my head, just in time.

Baldr lunged at me almost faster than I could follow. I desperately parried the blazing flurry of blows, startled to find that I could actually keep up. Every blow was powerful enough that, block or no block, I took about ten damage with each hit. Breathlessly, I dove out of the way of his next slash, ducked as he teleported above me and flew down, then blew apart into a cloud of shadows around the blade that struck the spot I'd been standing. The Godslayer cleaved a new blazing scar into Withering Rose's armor. When I whirled back around to face him, Baldr looked as surprised as I felt. Neither of us had expected me to be able to trade blows.

I laughed, a harsh whiskey bark. "Okay, Gaebald. Tell me one thing: if you've got access to the Admin Panel, why don't you just fucking delete me and be done with it? Go on. I dare you."

"You can't just delete players!" He snarled. "The system doesn't allow it!"

I threw my arms open. "Then spawn one of those player-killer swords! Oh wait - you can't. Because it’s bullshit."

"Those won’t kill you. Because you’re not a player: you’re a virus." Baldr's voice seemed to blur back and forth between the original player and Ororgael.

I fell back into stance. "That's another thing a loser who doesn't have access to the Admin Panel would say."

Baldr closed in again, stone-faced. I was faster, driving the blade of the spear at his exposed face, then switching to thrust it toward his armpit. The weapon clashed off the flaming blade with an impact that made my fingers vibrate. I spun the spear around, bringing the heavy butt up and around to smash into his head. The blow crashed into his jaw, nearly knocking the fancy eagle helmet off his head. He staggered back a step, eyes wide with disbelief.

I gave chase, not giving him a chance to recover. The spear whirled in my hands, a blur of bluesteel and black fire as I activated Blood Sprint and rushed him with a series of blows too fast for the eye to follow. He blocked the first four strikes flawlessly, but slipped up on the fifth. The point broke through his guard, screeched along his breastplate, then pierced the chain protecting his underarms. I followed through, ripping the links and the flesh beneath in a gush of…

Air?

There was no blood on my weapon, and no arterial spray. There was an invisible distortion that blasted into the air like hot gas. He flashed me a mocking smile, and vanished for a second before he reappeared right in my face. The blade of his sword came up from below, flashing toward my gut. I twisted away and blocked the follow-up strike on the haft of the Spear, straining as an energy shockwave swept over us. 

Something invisible struck me from the side, sending me tumbling and skidding over the Warsinger’s back. I tucked my head and shoulder in and rolled out of it, barely leaping away from the swipes of Baldr’s sword. I teleported behind him, but he was ready for me, bringing his weapon around in a slash that forced me off balance. I carried the wobble into a Jump, but as I flew through the air, Baldr’s eyes and mouth flew open and a boiling bolt of raw force exploded from his face in a roaring inferno of light. My eyes widened, but there was no getting out of the way. The blast blew my helmet off, peeling me with heat so intense I felt like my body was melting. I threw my hands up, watching in horror as the leather stripped away and – briefly – my own bones were visible through my palms.

[You take 1100… Light…]

[…]

[…You are immune...]

I crashed onto Withering Rose’s back like a falling star, crying out as my bare skin sizzled on the searing hot metal surface. The blast had destroyed my armor, instantly rusting the metal and turning the leather into a sticky, tar-like substance that reeked like week-old corpse. The Raven Suit, Masterwork-quality armor gifted to me by the King of Vlachia, hung in tatters over my limbs. I felt like I was burning up from the inside and the outside at the same time. Worse, I was blind: there was nothing but dazzling light in all directions. I called the Spear to my hand anyway, and thrust it up and forward as I scrambled back along the boiling Aurum surface.

Baldr didn’t crow his victory. There was only the heavy thump of his boots on metal as he strode toward me. I felt something cut through the air above, and reflexively threw up the haft in a two-handed block. The bluesteel haft shuddered and bent under the pressure.

[Warning: Weapon integrity is dangerously low!]

“You can’t win.” Ororgael was back in the pilot’s seat. The man’s voice had a hollow ring to it now, like it was coming from far away. “Nothing can stand against the light! NOTHING!”

“What… the fuck are… you?!” My vision cleared enough that I could see him, leaning his blazing sword into the spitting, crackling haft of the Spear of Nine Spheres. 

“I see them in your eyes.” There was a mad, feral energy in his face now. “I see the darkness laughing at me. Mocking me, telling me what they’ll do to me. And I WILL not let them win!”

“You’re nuts,” I spat, and twisted the Spear aside. The Mark of Matir was throbbing with cold fire on the back of my right hand – and as I noticed it, I knew what I had to do. Baldr plunged his sword down, and I rolled to the side. Fresh pain seared through my arm, but I swung back, the nails of my fingers distending into needle points. I jammed them deep into the gash I’d left in his armor, sinking them into the join of his arm and torso, and activated one of my Mark abilities.

Despite its name, Shadow Lance worked with any weapon – including the stiletto nails I’d gained from my failed transformation into a vampire. It wasn’t a class ability tied to my use of a spear. Ice coiled through my flesh and thrust into Baldr’s body like a three-foot spike of darkness. It burst out through the other side of his abdomen, sending splinters of flash-frozen steel flying through the air. 

[You deal 3762 Darkness damage!]

He sagged onto my fist, mouth gaping. His eyes lost focus as he slumped down onto me, pinning me to the burning metal. I snarled in pain as my back burned, writhing, trying to escape from underneath the huge man’s bulk. But as I shifted, his head snapped up. I froze as his gaze riveted on me, and his skin, eyes and teeth inverted like a photo negative. Pinpoint black pupils stared out of blazing white irises, which in turn glowed against the blackened whites of his eyes. His face bent light the wrong way, sucking it in around us. He reached down to squeeze my wrist in a crushing grip, keeping it locked inside the grisly wound I’d made.

“I… will… win!” He pressed me down, black teeth bared in a snarl. Trickles of seething energy leaked through them, dancing and frizzing like television snow.

With twenty HP left to my name, I did the only thing I could. I rammed my head into the bridge of his nose with all my strength.

The world detonated like a nuclear blast, an explosion I heard only for an instant as the blinding light swallowed me into the void of death.