Warsinger - Chapter Two

 Myszno, Vlachia: Five Days Earlier

"Suri didn't know where Al Asad was. And if she did, she never told me. But if what Vash said is true, Cutthroat should lead us to her." I moved around Karalti with the stiff, efficient motions I'd learned in the army, tightening straps and preparing Cutthroat’s new travel harness for its cargo. Said cargo was waiting about fifty feet from us, digging furiously at the moss growing between the flagstones and snapping at the beetles fleeing the destruction of their home. Cutthroat was muzzled in preparation for her first airlift, and the steel clanged and banged off the wet flagstones.

Karalti moaned in exasperation. “You know that’s like the thirteenth time you’ve explained that, right?”

“I’m sorry. I’m just wound up.” I let out a tense breath. “It’s just… we don’t know where she is. I can’t get private messages through, I can’t invite her to my clan or assign her a role at the castle, and it’s just…”

"If we don't know where she is, maybe we should gather more information about Al-Asad before we leave?" Karalti's telepathic voice hummed with nervous energy. She fought to stay still while I suited her up, her wings flexing stiffly by her sides. By moonlight, the opalescent flash of her scales were subdued, glinting now and then as I moved around her. The parts of her in shadow were invisible. "How far is the Bashar Desert, anyway?"

I sighed. "According to the maps in what’s left of our War Room, about a thousand miles due south, give or take. At your current level and flight speed, it should take a couple days."

"Over the mountains? The air's really cold and thin up there. You need to pack special clothing. Like fur clothing."

"I'm a big boy. I'll deal."

Karalti inflated her throat and then let the air slowly hiss out through her nostrils. Her flexible crown of back swept horns flattened against her skull. "Hector, if there's a storm - and you KNOW there's gonna be a storm - I have to fly over it. It'll be in the deep minus degrees, plus the wind and shear. And you're wearing metal."

“I can cope with temperatures down to minus twenty. I’ll be fine.” I scowled and jumped off her shoulder to the ground. Just before I hit the stone, I called one of my workhorse Dark Lancer abilities, Shadow Dance, and passed into smoke before reappearing to drop lightly on my feet. "We don't have time to find cold weather gear. Suri's been stuck in that hellhole for a week. She’s suffering every single day we aren’t there."

"Yeah, but you're not gonna be able to help her if you freeze to death and forget who she is." The dragon snorted a cloud of hot, acidic steam into my face as I gathered the harness straps at the front. “Do you remember what happened the last time you died?”

"It’s fine. If I die and respawn on top of you, I'll get my memories back."

Just as I was about to connect the buckles, she lowered her head and nudged me away with her snout. My little Tidbit's head was now roughly the size of hatchback car, and the love tap almost sent me flying.

"Go find some Cold Weather clothing." She rumbled aloud, lowering her neck to glare at me with piercing violet eyes. "Or else I'll-"

Whatever she'd been about to threaten me with was interrupted by a purring chirp from my Head's Up Display. A flashing red holographic exclamation point pulsed in the corner of my vision. Before I could dismiss it, my HUD screen jumped open.

[You have one High Priority Message: <Blank><Admin>]

[You have a New Quest!]

“Wait, woah. Hang that thought, Tidbit.” I swiped through to the Message Center. Yup. The sender was indeed listed as <ADMIN>. There was no message title. I got a creepy, prickly feeling up along my spine, and was suddenly aware that we were the only ones standing out here in the courtyard of this cold, darkened castle.

“Ororgael was an Admin,” I muttered. “What are the chances this is a Valentine’s Day letter from Baldr?”

“Uhh…” Karalti paused, confused. “I dunno?”

“On second thoughts, let’s open that after checking out the quest.” I uncomfortably brushed the message screen to one side with a thought, and opened the Quests display instead:

New Main Quest: The Second Drachan War

As requested, this is a revision of The Caul of Souls quest I attempted to issue you at the Gate of Endless Night.

The fallen Architect known as Ororgael has possessed the body and mind of a Starborn player, the self-proclaimed Emperor of Artana, Baldr Hyland. With Ororgael's ambitions and his knowledge of our world meshed with Baldr's strategic intellect, he is a formidable foe. Worse, he is the Harbinger of the Void: the Drachan, Archemi's ancient demonic enemies, whisper in Baldr's ears with some unknown temptation. Whatever they are offering him, he must release the Drachan from their icy prison in the Northern Wastes to obtain it. In doing so, he acts as their servant.

To free the Drachan, Baldr must destroy the Caul of Souls, the magical barrier which seals these horrors of the void and keeps them torpid. One option we have is to try and repair the Caul to keep the Drachan sealed. However, as you pointed out, the Caul is already dissolving and the cost of keeping it integral may be greater than the alternative. I have confirmed that its magic has not prevented the Drachan from contacting their Harbinger. The Caul has also not prevented the release of lesser Void Horrors, such as those called by Andrik Corvinus, and the leaks are escalating.

The other option - the one which you argued for so passionately - is to defeat the Drachan and either exterminate them or drive them from Archemi once and for all. This is a global undertaking, one which will require you to unite the nations of Archemi against this single enemy. You must do this while fending off Baldr and his gathering armies, and also while maintaining the Caul for as long as possible to avoid unleashing the Drachan on an unwary world. When the time comes, you must open the Dragon Gates, free the Nine, and in doing so enact a controlled demolition of the magic that has protected Archemi for millennia.

Needless to say, this is a massive undertaking. By accepting this Main Story Quest, you will open lines of quests which will all build toward this one ultimate goal. It is all I and my brothers and sisters can do to support you. Aid us, and we will lend you our powers. Even Veles should be amenable to that, if you prove your trustworthiness.

Rewards: EXP on quest acceptance.

Difficulty: Varies

Special: Hector, the knowledge impressed on me by your brother's spirit contains a warning. When the Architects created this world, the Drachan were always intended to be a fearsome opponent... but something is not right with the order of things. A voice whispers to me that they are no longer of this ‘paracosm’. I do not know what this means or how it has come to be. Being Starborn, you are not a child of this world. Perhaps this expression has a greater significance to you.

[Do you want to accept this quest?]

The prickling feeling came back. I glanced at the Message window, where the unread message waited.

Paracosm. I had heard that word before. Temperance – the gynoid, presumed deceased, assistant to the CEO of the Ryuko Corporation and my hostess in Archemi – had explained that word to me once. A paracosm was a fictional universe with its own laws, stories, mythology and languages, like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or the Lovecraft stories. How could the Drachan no longer be part of Archemi’s paracosm if they were… well… here?

I swallowed, trying to moisten my mouth before refocusing my attention back on the screen. The holographic selection panel hung patiently in the air, glowing softly. “Let me think about it.”

I closed the Quest pane and hovered over the new message. My lizard brain was screeching a warning. Danger, danger! Alert! Alert! There were no active Admins or Mods in Archemi right now. Every last human on Earth was either dead from the HEX virus, dead from the nuclear holocaust that followed, or entombed in bunkers and mile-high sealed towers with their own recycled piss to drink and no internet.

“I dunno about this.”  Karalti growled. Cutthroat looked up from her archaeological dig, blinking in consternation. She had clumps of moss stuck in the bars of her muzzle.

“Me either, but I’m pretty sure I can’t be hacked through the message system, so…” Against my better judgement, I opened the email – then yelped, stumbled over the heel of my boot, and tripped. “Jesus-fucking-Christ!”

“AHHH!”  Karalti trumpeted in mirrored fear, beating her wings and driving a cloud of rain and mud into the air.

The message pane leapt into a nine-foot tall glowing rectangle of gibberish that was expanding as it continuously scrolled down. I stared up at it, slack-jawed. Nothing I was looking at made sense. The lines were nothing but gobbledygook to my still-dyslexic brain. My HUD narrator usually read things out for me, but there was no help with this literal wall of text. No matter how much I looked, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“Is that… is that code?” I picked myself up and hastily closed the window.

“I don’t know. But it gives me the creeps.” Karalti shuddered. “It’s… it’s not supposed to be here in this world.”

‘A voice whispers to me that the Drachan are no longer of this ‘paracosm’. I do not know what this means or how it has come to be.’ As I recalled Matir’s words, gooseflesh crept up my arms and the back of my neck. After a minute of hesitation, I forwarded it to the only person I thought might have some idea of what I was looking at.

“Hey Rin, don’t open this file I sent you before reading the rest of this message,” I dictated mentally, rubbing my forehead and the bridge of my nose. “Before you open the attachment, brace for a big, big file. Someone sent this to me with no message title or sender name other than ‘Admin’. Is Ororgael trying to send out a virus or something? Is the game breaking down? I have no fucking idea what I’m looking at here. I’ll warn you again, though: this is a HUGE file. Expect a jumpscare. Hope you’re doing okay in Litvy with Lord Soma. Give Ebisa a high five from me.”

I sent the message, rubbed my hands against my thighs and picked myself up. The message was still open. I started at the huge panel of code with deep suspicion, forcing myself to face it until I relaxed. The sky hadn’t fallen. The stars blazed in a shimmering curtain behind Archemi’s enormous moon, Erruku. Frogs croaked and leaves rustled in the crisp alpine air, still tinged with the odors of slaughter and sewage from the devastated city of Karhad in the valley below. The game wasn’t crashing. Karalti was okay. I was okay. Whatever this message meant, it wasn’t serious. Archemi was in beta. It was probably just a glitch – one of many I’d experienced in the three months I’d been here.

To my surprise, a green arrow appeared in my field of vision, pulsing upwards with the word ‘Will’. I’d just added a point of Willpower to my stats. Nice.

“Okay. We’re cool.” I let out a tense, shaky breath. “Everything’s cool. Now, where were we?”

My dragon rumbled, arching her tail stiffly behind her. “YOU were going to go get some warm clothes. And then we were going to go find Suri.”

“Yeah, right. That’s right.” I strolled over to her and clapped her affectionately on the knee, only to jump a second time when the postern door to the gatehouse banged open behind us. All three of us – me, Karalti and Cutthroat - turned to see a slim, scowling man wheel around the edge of the doorway and come sprinting toward us.

"Hector, thank the Maker's taint you're still home." Istvan said breathlessly. His dusky skin was pale by torchlight, his eyes wide and startling in his face. “We need you to prepare the court."

“Why? What?” With one hand resting on Karalti’s hand, I took a step toward him.

“My scout just returned to Kalla Sahasi, my lord. He says your vassals are marching on the castle.”