Raine VS The End of the World (22 page)

At long last, the glowing, rune-covered incantation circle surrounding the druid culminated in a flashing ball of light, and he tossed the stone into the air.

“In our hour of need we call on Valhalla for aid! Come forth, Odin!” Soren cried, and lo and behold, an old, bearded, eyepatch-wearing warrior descended from the heavens on the back of an eight-legged horse.

He was one of the most magnificent things Raine had ever seen. Odin rode straight down through a hole in the cavern’s roof on a rainbow path, his wide-brimmed hat flowing in the vacuum of air that formed around him, scepter held high and glowing with the power of the Gods. Odin reared his great steed, and tossed a spear right through the Necromancer, pinning him to the ground. Two ravens and two wolves came forth from the scepter in Odin’s other hand and tore away at Robert’s cloak.

Odin then recovered his spear, stabbed the Necromancer once more for good measure, then took his steed by the reins and rode back up the rainbow through the ceiling. He was gone in seconds.

The Necromancer, now on his knees, shook off the approaching Thaddius and Samuel with a Wind-based spell that knocked both back ten meters. Finally alone, he tore off what was left of the tattered cloak, revealing the throbbing runes set into his spinal column. A bauble of wild lightning enclosed Robert as he levitated, stirring up an electric whirlwind on the dungeon floor.

“This isn’t the usual fourth form! What’s happening?” Samuel cried, before being lifted off his feet.

Raine, her friends, and what little was left of the undead minions were spirited off the ground, being drawn into a black hole that materialized in the Necromancer’s chest.

Valerie reached for Soren’s hand, but to no avail. The druid was sucked straight through the abyss, his body spaghettified as it unraveled into strings vibrating in the darkness. The ninja clung to and jumped from various swirling weapons and debris, making her way back to the dungeon floor.

Soren’s ghost appeared on the ground by his comrade.

“Ah, well. I’ll meet you guys back in town,” he said with a shrug, teleporting out of the dungeon. “Have Sammy hang on to my brass knuckles for me.”

Thaddius’ Iron Leg technique kept him grounded while he and Chance shot pockets of highly compressed air through the Necromancer’s vortex, trying to slow the tornado now spinning all around them. Now that they’d lost Soren, there would be no more relying on his buffer spells, or his summoned beasts. This had to end now.

“May I borrow one of your chain-whips?” Thaddius asked Valerie, who nodded and tossed him one of her weapons. The monk wrapped his sash around the chain and lashed it out towards the swirling tornado. Gerrit spotted the flailing fabric in his peripheral vision, and activated his time-slowing macro as he stretched out towards it. It was fast approaching, but would he reach?

In mid-spin in front of Gerrit, Raine took him by the arm and swung him closer. Gerrit snagged the cloth at the end of the whip, and Ricard soon followed suit, taking Raine’s hand. He held his sheath up in the air for Cooke to catch. Completing the daisy chain, Cooke reached her arm out for Samuel, who looked like he had been knocked pretty badly on the head.

Thaddius, Valerie, and Chance pulled the warriors out from the vortex towards the dungeon floor, but they all had to cling to Thaddius to avoid being absorbed into the black hole of doom.

“Well, that escalated quickly,” Duke Stabbington jested.

“Raine!” yelled Cooke over the commotion. “Let’s combine our Divine Justice spells!”

The girl nodded, extremely grateful to Cooke for giving her a chance to do some damage. Both magicians held their staves up high in concentration. Raine felt an immense amount of energy coursing through her body. It was electrifying. Once the spell was fully charged, they fired directly into the Necromancer’s chest. The dark energy swirling around the room stuttered until it waned, faltering as their opponent’s eyes blazed with a blinding light.

“Now!” Gerrit yelled, leading the party into a fierce melee.

Valerie hooked the Necromancer with two sickles attached to her chains and pulled him down to the floor. Chance froze his ankles to the hard ground. Samuel knocked poor Robert onto his back and beat on him with Soren’s brass knuckles until the stones beneath cracked and the Necromancer’s Barrier spell shattered. Thaddius got him back on his feet and performed combination punches, knocking the conjurer back against a wall. At last, Gerrit and Ricard stabbed him in his stomach and heart, respectively. They twisted their blades within his body, triggering an instant death.

Raine watched, startled, as Robert scorched and smoldered, tremendous hellfire, screeching demon voices, and scores of adorable bats erupting from within until there was nothing left but a small pile of ash.

“The prize… is yours…” Robert’s ghost said, reappearing over the ash, looking perfectly normal as if this were the kind of thing that happened to him every day, which it did, often dozens of times. He removed a key from one of his many necklaces and tossed it to Duke Stabbington, who’d delivered the killing blow.

A boulder covering what looked to be part of the back wall rolled to one side, revealing a chamber with a gigantic chest in the middle.

Raine’s eyes went wide with wonder.

“We did it!” Gerrit yelled, fist-bumping Samuel and Thaddius.

The Duke was no less enthusiastic, a look of liberation on his face. Everyone took the opportunity to exchange hugs and high-fives, and swapped highlights. Raine was congratulated on a good run. But something still seemed very wrong to her.

“As Duke Ricard Stabbington the Third, royal steward of this province, I hereby declare that I have the right to first pick of the treasure,” he ruled. “Would anyone like to challenge the motion?”

“Wait,” Raine called, and all eyes turned towards her. “Are you sure it’s not a trap?”

On any other day, the hunters might have laughed. But the girl had a point.

“Now you’re learning,” Valerie said with a nod. “Shall I inspect it first?”

The Duke considered this for a second. He motioned for her to proceed and tossed over the key.

Valerie loosed a poisoned bolt at the chest, in case it was a Mimic.

No reaction. Good.

She scanned the area around it for explosives or traps. Nothing.

Pulling out a futuristic-looking device from her lock-picking set, she pressed a button, triggering a pulsing sound. She tested the lock for any triggers. It was clean.

Clicking open the lock with the Duke’s key, Valerie carefully opened the lid.

To everyone’s surprise, the chest was empty, save for one green microchip.

A bounty.

Valerie took the small chip and held it up for all to see.

“That’s it?” Samuel roared. “One bleepin’ bounty! Are you kidding me?”

Cooke plopped down on a rock, defeated. Valerie consoled her.

Thaddius stood silently with his arms crossed, unreadable.

Gerrit held Raine tightly. “When I say run, you run,” he whispered.

Ricard just laughed. “Truly an odd scenario! We are left with no real loot to speak of. Either of three explanations is possible. Let’s calculate the odds, shall we? A - a conniving thief has beaten us to the treasure and left their contact info, chance of one to ten thousand against, B – a few naughty Developers are having a grand laugh at our expense, chance of three to one against, or C - this must be one delicious bounty, the odds of which even I can’t imagine! Oh, I’m excited!”

Gerrit and Raine laughed nervously. Raine thought she saw Ricard’s eyes on her. If he could see through her mask, what else might he know?

Ricard motioned for Valerie to toss the bounty over to him. He placed a pair of aviator shades onto his head, set the visor to expand and share, and slotted in the chip.

A holographic display suddenly materialized in the center of the room.

The names were
“rainorshine23”
and
“NinjaMageKnight99”.

Their status was “Rebel terrorists. Armed and extremely dangerous.”

The bounty on the holographic avatars was G 150,000,000 for Raine and G 200,000,000 for Gerrit, dead or alive.

Each of Ricard’s team looked at Raine and Gerrit like pieces of meat. They were completely surrounded. The health bars disappeared from their vision; the party had disbanded.

“Care to explain, Gerrit?” the Duke offered.

“You guys gotta believe me. I don’t know what that is. I don’t know why they want me. You don’t understand. Neira’s innocent, but I need to keep Raine alive. For the future of this world.”

“I’d torture her location out of you,” the Duke continued, then shot Raine a look. “But that would be a waste of time. Your name isn’t Neira, am I correct?”

Terrified, Raine backed into a corner.

The Duke approached her, swatted Gerrit aside, and yanked her mask off.

Raine’s body and armor shrank as she aged back down to her usual self. She felt stark naked, but worse, she felt like a liar.

Everyone let out a collective gasp. Raine had deceived them.

Behind that innocent face could be anyone. A master of disguise. A person who made their living by stealing the identities of others.

“Criminals!”

The Duke threw the mask to the floor and crushed it.

“No!” Gerrit cried. He was in the middle of drawing his sword when one of Valerie’s paralysis arrows went through his arm, sending him twitching to the floor. The other hunters were approaching, weapons drawn.

“You two are worth more Gold than any of us will ever get on our own!” Samuel yelled. “So you better have a damn good reason!”

“R-R-Raine is more than just an ordinary girl,” Gerrit began. Seeing that he had a captive audience as the hunters stopped mere feet away, the boy pressed on.

“S-she’s come from the outside world. It’s a place of real life and death. Our true avatars are not forged in the Network. We’re physical. We’re born, grow old, and die. Like flowers. All of us, we’re… trapped in this game, for some reason. Made not to question why. Made not to r-r-remember things. That way, we won’t know that we can grow to be a hundred years old, or that we can work together to accomplish great feats. Maybe she can show us a way out of here, t-to our true homeland.”

“It is as I had suspected. She is the Chosen One,” Thaddius boomed, clearing a space in the middle of the arena with a blast of air. He calmly walked between Ricard, Gerrit and Raine, and the other hunters. With a quick wrist flick, he disarmed the Duke.

“Get off, then. To the other side,” he said, grabbing Ricard’s wrist in a death grip. “I press my index finger down, your vein explodes. Better hurry.”

The Duke backed away. Thaddius then placed himself squarely in front of the two younger players, as if he had long seen this coming.

“Impede her in her mission, and you doom the rest of us to an eternity of slavery.”

“No,” Ricard replied. “You must be mad to believe these tall tales, old monk! This girl is the suspected cause of multiple malfunctions and glitches in our system! She’s probably some rebel hacker spreading conspiracy theories, looking for a handout! For all we know, she wants to cause chaos so she can cash in! Why else would they be giving out such a high reward for her? Obviously she’s a server-wide threat! Monsters like her don’t belong in my home. Her whole existence here is an error!”

Raine felt each of his words stab her in the heart. He had seemed so nice, too.

Am I an error?

Discreetly, she charged up a spell. Readied its hand movements.

“The only things erroneous here are your priorities,” Thaddius replied. “An hour ago you called me your brother. Now that I exercise my right to think, I am a madman. Duke, you may work for the Developers, but they have you on a tight leash. If you only knew what’s going on in the higher realms--”

“What higher realms?” Samuel cried. “For Smith’s sake, we’re wasting time! This bounty could go public any second! Let’s just kill them and get this over with!”

Sam gave a sharp battle cry and charged at Gerrit, but Thaddius spun the cyclops tank around in a flash and tossed him against an opposite wall. The others, not wanting to miss their opportunity at collecting the bounty, went straight for Raine.

“Run!” suggested Thaddius.

Raine’s heart skipped a beat.
Move, feet. Go!

Gerrit was first. He sprinted towards the opposite end of the room, through the tunnel, pulling Raine around a corner of falling stalactites with his good hand. The right side of Gerrit’s body faltered: Cooke was electrocuting him, making mobility even harder.

“Haste!” Raine cried out, holding her wand up high. A green glow spread around her body, and time slowed to a crawl. Boosted agility allowed the girl to pull Gerrit in tow, light as a feather. She dodged Cooke’s energy bolts in slow motion, watched them soar by her like water balloons.

“If you have one of those portal thingies, now’s the time!” called Raine.

Just as Gerrit reached into his bag, Valerie’s chain-whip caught him by the foot and brought Raine down, flat on her face, doing significant damage and cancelling her Haste effect.