Path of Transcendence 1: Ultimatum of the Nameless God (16 page)

After Mark McGuinness and Ryouske Urehara disappeared through the gate, Wendell Jones turned around to find Clarence Jones behind him.

“You sure this won't be a problem?”

Wendell Jones shrugged slightly. “Did you really want to try and stop Mark McGuinness?”

They both started walking back to the computer room.

Clarence Jones shudders slightly, with a hint of something in his eyes that he was unaccustomed to. “No. That fucking prick was so fast I couldn't even follow his movements. Nothing human should be that fast or that strong. Shit, he picked up and threw Smith with one hand. That's just not . . .”

Clarence Jones' words trailed off, when he felt a presence behind him. Clarence Jones was a born killer, one of the few left in America. In the service of his government, he had hunted and killed thousands of men, women, and children, all around the world. His instincts were second to none, when it came to danger.

Wendell Jones looked his partner, who was looking over his shoulder, before turning around. In the alcove where the gate was, a bearded man in a brown robe stood. In his hand, he carried a staff taller than himself, with a blood red crystal in the top. This man was the leader of the priests that the FBI has massacred earlier.

Behind him were arrayed six tall, inordinately slender men in black chainmail, with helmets that revealed only their eyes. Those eyes were so cold, that even the murderous Clarence Jones fell a chill down his spine looking into them. Each of the men had a glaive in his hands.

Floating over them was the translucent form The Nameless God, a slight smile on his lips. “Cha vertruth sen'da coll, hast va coll.”

“What the fuck?” Clarence Jones softy muttered his words, the presence of The Nameless God nearly paralyzing him.

“The DokkAlfar do not speak English. I told them to give you a painful death.”

“FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!” Clarence Jones roared, anger somewhat dispelling his fear. He pulled up the muzzle of his AA-12 combat shotgun and pulled  the trigger.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The 12 gauge slugs flattened against an invisible barrier and fell to the ground.

The bearded man smiled, nastily. “Mark McGuinness is a toad that can be useful, but you are just toads that are in the way. If not for his presence, I would have exterminated you earlier.”

The other member of the FBI assault team came running from the computer room, M-16A5 assault rifles in hand. Forming a firing line next to the Joneses, the waited for orders.

A single DokkAlfar stepped forward, and the invisible shield did not impede it.

“FIRE!” Clarence Jones pulled the trigger on his AA-12 at the same time he yelled.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Brrraaappp!

Brrraaappp!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Brrraaappp!

The heavy 12 gauge slugs once again fell to the ground, after impacting the invisible shield, and Clarence Jones' face turned into a mask of rage. He shifted his aim to the DokkAlfar.

The DokkAlfar seemed to dance forward, swaying and weaving as the hundreds of 5.56mm rounds flew harmlessly past. He seemed to be moving slowly, but in the blink of an eye, he was in striking range of the FBI agents. His glaive turned into a blur, and three agents fell to the ground, with blood spurting from ruined knees and shoulder.

Screams of agony mixed with the roar of gunfire, and Wendell Jones' mask broke, his face twisting with hate and rage. Reaching inside his jacket, he pulled out a thumb-sized cylinder and threw it at the DokkAlfar's feet.

“Flashbang!”

The FBI turned their heads and covered their ears. The DokkAlfar tilted its head, staring curiously at the smoking cylinder on the ground.

“BOOM!”

“Aaaarrrrrr!” The DokkAlfar's scream echoed in the pit. The other DokkAlfar and the priest yelled and covered their eyes.

“Withdraw!”

While their enemy flailed about waiting for their sight to recover, the FBI team grabbed their wounded and fled up the stairs.

When his vision cleared, the lone DokkAlfar lightly ran to the stairs.

“Stop.” The Nameless used the DokkAlfar tongue.

“Lord?” The DokkAlfar's voice was soft and melodious, even when speaking the harshly inflected DokkAlfar language.

“They will not escape. There are iron wolves outside.”

“Lord!” The DokkAlfar knelt on one knee, bowing to The Nameless.

The Nameless waved his hand, and the giant cube reappeared.

“J'Rome, begin the next phase.”

J'Rome, the bearded priest, bowed low. “Yes, My God!”

Above, the FBI agents ran out of the building and stopped dead. In a huge semicircle three ranks deep, more than two hundred iron wolves silently waited.

“This is very bad, Special Agent Jones.” Clarence Jones checked the number of rounds left in the drum magazine on his AA-12.

“... Jones, do you copy?”

“I copy, Agent McCormick.” Wendell Jones spoke into a mic attached to his larynx.”

“Sir, I've been trying to warn you, but you weren't responding. About five minutes ago, dozens of those drones began closing on the complex. Then, they formed that circle and stopped moving.”

“Clear a path to the south for us.”

“Yes, sir!”

RRRoooooaaaaaaarrrrrr! Brrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappppppppp!

The Predator drone swooped in from the north, its chain-guns tearing apart the bodies of the iron wolves.

The FBI agents began to run as fast as they could, but the iron wolves immediately charged after the fleeing FBI agents. Constructs cannot feel emotions or be surprised, there was no delay in the iron wolves response.

Brrraaappp!

“Aaaarrrrrr!”

Brrraaappp!

Brrraaappp!

“Aaaarrrrrr!”

Clarence Jones looked over his shoulder and saw Agent Carstein hauling one of the wounded. The rest were all dead.

The Predator spun about hovering on jets of blue flame.

Brrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappppppppp! Brrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappppppppp!

More iron wolves were shredded by the chain-guns. Dozens were already destroyed, but over a hundred remained.

“Carstein!”

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Agent Carstein spun letting go of the wounded agent and raised his M16A5 to his shoulder.

Brrraaappp! Brrraaappp!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The iron wolf's front legs were blown off, but it pitched forward and tumbled wildly. Agent Carstein tried to dodge, but the spiked shoulder caught him in the side, sending him flying.

“Aaaarrrrrr!” Slamming into the ground in a bloody heap, he did not move again.

The remaining iron wolves scattered, weaving and make abrupt changes in speed.  Agent McCormick began to have difficulty hitting the swift agile targets, even with the high rate of fire of the Predator's chain-guns.

Wendell Jones checked the fallen agents, finding all of them dead. Appropriating an M16A5, he began to jog to the south, with Clarence Jones at his side. The had just reach the top of the ridge, when the Predator abruptly accelerated.

RRRoooooaaaaaaarrrrrr! BOOM!

The predator crashed into the ground, pieces of metal and plastic flying in all directions.

The iron wolves, that were running around randomly, converged on the last two FBI agents, forming another semicircle between them and the facility.

“Some bastards must have killed Agent McCormick. This has gone from very bad to we are completely fucked, Special Agent Jones.”

Clarence Jones stared at the complex they just fled. The light of the dawning sun had painted the concrete building bloody red. “It's not all bad, that fucking bastard god has taken that fucking prick back to that Taereun wold. The first time in the hospital, when that prick McGuinness stared at me, I nearly drew and fired. I don't know why, but he's got the eyes of someone who's killed so many times that he's forgotten how not to kill. I've only seen a few men with eyes like that. Him or the god, at least one of them is gonna die.”

Wendell Jones looked at the complex, as well. “How very true. I sincerely hope that if only one dies, it is the god. It has been a true pleasure having you as my partner, Special Agent Jones.”

Clarence Jones turned toward Wendell Jones, a rare grin on his face, and clasped the offered hand. “Yeah. It's been a pleasure knowing you too, Special Agent Jones. I'm not going down like a bitch. Let's destroy some of those constructs, and see if we can make it to that fucking priest.”

Wendell Jones' smile reached his eyes. “Yes. Let us do that, Special Agent Jones.”

The ruddy light of the setting sun, illuminates the tunnel ahead. It took a bit longer than I expected to find the exit from the goblin lair. After all the subjective years between my first expedition and now, I could not recognize the which tunnel was which. The goblins made over a dozen attempts to kill us, but between Jinmu and myself, they were slaughtered every time. Without an orc king to drive them into battle, goblins lack the balls to push an attack, where they lack an overwhelming advantage. Their scouts are still audible, prowling the tunnels behind us, watching and waiting for us to let our guard down.

Exiting the mouth of the tunnel, we find ourselves on a ledge. It is wide enough to allow three people to stand comfortably abreast between the cliff wall and the drop. Maybe two hundred feet below, a river winds through a valley, until it reaches a curtain of silvery distortion and disappears.

“That silver distortion is a zone boundary?” Jinmu looks questioningly at me.

“Yeah, haven't you seen one before?”

He shakes his head. “Never one like that. All the zones I have been in seemed to be either entire worlds or giant continents that, appeared to be floating in space.”

“Many of those 'worlds' were not worlds. They were really a patchwork of zones, crammed one against another giving the appearance of worlds. Most players never cared so it became a little known game legend, but some caster players figured it out a long time ago. I don't know how they managed to do it, since I only learned about it third or fourth hand.

“Let's get away from this cave, and make camp near the boundary. I don't want to cross until we've had a chance to rest.”

Jinmu looks toward the shimmer, his face impassive.  “Is it dangerous on the other side?”

“Usually, it's not, but it can be. It's another pocket zone, like this one. I want to cross it in one shot. This whole area is really nothing but little pocket zones.”

I start down the path, and Jinmu quickly catches up to walk at my side. We travel quickly on the relatively smooth path. The passage of feet, over untold years, has long since worn down any significant impediments in the red sandstone.

“Where should we go from here?”

“Bogwater, we practically have to go through it to get out of here anyway.”

Jinmu frowns. “That name sounds like one I have heard before.”

The canopy of trees, similar to oak and elm, rises to our left. The deep green of the leaves and the heat in the air, look and feel like the middle of summer, but my understanding is that this zone always looks and feels like this.

“The bag quest. You never did it yourself?”

Jinmu chuckles. “I only played the game to test out my martial arts in situations that felt as close to real life and death combat as possible. Rakhir, my character, his physical abilities so far outstripped my own, that once I trained his body for using the Urehara Style, I became almost unbeatable.”

“The Bag Quest, as it's called, is really just collecting rare monster parts for this . . . guy, who makes a variety of dimensional storage devices: backpacks, shoulder bags, belt pouches, jewelry, and who knows what else.”

“This . . . guy?”

As the path veers away from the foot of the cliff, we enter the forest. The sun is already below the horizon, and the verdant canopy of the woods closes over our heads. The calls of nocturnal birds, animals and insects fill the air.

I cannot help but laugh. “He looks like a giant humanoid frog. His nasty disposition, lecherous nature, and venomous tongue are almost as famous as the quest.”

“Lecherous nature?”

“That frog has a fixation with fucking human and Alfar women. I hear that he even gets his fair share of humans, by giving them free dimensional storage devices.”

“I find it hard to believe that women would lower themselves to have sex with a frog, no matter what the rewards.”

“You haven't been to an American high school lately. Sex is just another form of currency, and it's one they don't have to threaten mommy or daddy with a Child Protective Services call for.” I do not bother to try and keep the disgust out of my voice.

Jinmu is silent after that. His face has almost no expression, but he still has an air of someone deep in thought.

The path through the woods ends in a clearing, bordering on the silver energy curtain that is the boundary of this pocket dimension. At the base of a small spur of rock, a tunnel leads into the ground. There are nine stone circles with the remains of ashes, from past camps. This used to be a popular farming zone, because of the raw gems. Sometimes, there would have been upwards of a hundred people here at a time. Its relative inaccessibility caused the Four Bones Goblin Lair to lose popularity, when better places were found to farm wealth.

Jinmu points toward the tunnel. “That is the way out?”

“Yeah.”

“What is so dangerous about it?”

“Spiders. There's one straight tunnel about ten or twelve miles long, with who knows how many branch tunnels along the sides. The side tunnels are a maze that is the home of giant spiders. Legend has it there's a humongous queen spider in there somewhere, but I never heard of anyone seeing it. Usually, you won't find many spiders in the main tunnel, but sometimes they'll put up webs to block it and attack anyone going through.

“We'll camp here and start out fresh in the morning. We can tickle some fish along the banks of that river and save the freeze-dried food that's left.”