CHAPTER 588: A CHILDHOOD GAME

“These humans are weak,” said Halvar the ‘Soulguard’, kicking one of a few dead players who’d been guarding their one needed checkpoint. “Are you sure you need our help, wizard?”

Blake took a breath, nodding to a smiling Pliny, and the new lord Stoneblood, who’d secured the gate while the others fought a few more players.

The goblin assassin was already scavenging through corpses. Chillix sat on one of the guards’ chairs with an old man grunt. Or maybe an old, fat man grunt. He hadn’t really done anything yet, either.

“They’ll get stronger,” Blake assured. “Now let’s move. The wall I opened was just around this hallway. There shouldn’t be any more…”

A man literally stepped through a nearby wall. He froze and looked around at the dead men and collection of intruders.

Blake recognized him—he’d fought with Mason in the Neutral Zone in a strange, maze-like arena. He was some kind of fast and sneaky rogue type. But what was important was that on his chest was the personal insignia of the House of Jeong.

It had enough little pips to show he was likely a direct servant of the emperor. Was it just awful timing? Likely not. Jeong must have started getting warning messages and sent the man to take a look.

Blake had to make an instant decision. And he did. He instantly activated Telekinesis, watching in frustration as the magic swirled and popped around the young man’s innate defenses. Before anyone else had moved, the scout turned and vanished back through the wall without a word.

“Bad,” Blake said, trying not to panic. “Very bad. Move!”

He ran down the hall, constructs and greenskin allies close behind. There was no way he was going to catch that rogue in a place like this, and he didn’t intend to try.

It was evening in the holy city. The light would be dim, the streets busy as everyone went home before the curfew. Mason was coming, but they had to survive the night. To get in position and put the final touches on Blake’s plan.

His ally, Carla, was waiting to hide him and the others. He hoped she didn’t panic and change her mind at the sight of orcs and goblins. He really didn’t want to have to kill her, too.

With a flick of his mind, he Unmade the thin covering on the hole in the wall he’d made earlier to get inside. He ordered his constructs to run back into the fort and attack anything they found, hoping to buy time.

He used the basic function of Primordial Making to create cloaks or hats he’d pre-designed based on things he’d seen in the common bazaar.

“Wear these.” He handed them out, ignoring the orc scoffs and Pliny’s glee as he stuffed something over his head like this was a shopping trip. Then he floated himself out of the beacon fortress, creating a ladder behind.

Pliny scurried down, the orcs climbing after. Chillix scoffed like this was an impossible task before Blake floated him. The assassin flipped down the twenty feet without so much as a sound.

“I thought there were only three!” Carla hissed from the nearby alley. “And those two are huge. Oh Christ we’ll be caught. Oh Christ.”

“We’ll be fine,” Blake soothed, trying not to imagine Jeong coming flying around the nearest corner. He grabbed Carla’s arm and started moving, gesturing for the others.

There were plenty of weird people in the holy city. There were undead monstrosities wandering around. People didn’t stare. They kept to themselves. They didn’t ask questions.

OK some still did.

Blake felt the eyes as packs of easterners moved about the streets. But they were all civilians. They were in a hurry and Blake’s Adaptive Veil was putting them at ease. He devoted a second and third piece of his brain to the task, flicking through the curious minds at breakneck speed.

The pattern became clear: to them he looked like some House of Jeong official. Someone important, someone in charge and not to be questioned as they moved a strange clump of cloaked figures in the dark. Some of which wouldn’t identify as players or civilians.

He kept his ears tuned for the sound of a man’s feet moving like a freight train. A human wrecking ball that could at any moment sweep in from nowhere and smash Blake and his plans to little pieces.

“Someone is coming, Master,” Navi chirped in his ear. “Tier 1 player. Moving fast from the south.”

Blake’s heart pounded, and he tried to toss the panic in a Partition to calm it down. But the Partition wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

The palace was to the south. Was it Jeong? It had to be Jeong. Blake needed to escape. He’d have to sacrifice all his allies and do the dungeon alone.

Was there another choice? He didn’t see it. He could escape with Adaptive Veil, but they couldn’t. He’d hoped not to do it. But he’d planned for it. He couldn’t kill civilians, but he could still kill Jeong’s zombies if he had time. They were ‘active’ because of the power. He just had to get inside and find them.

He’d opened his mouth, ready to tell the others they had to stop and fight—ready to sell their lives for a moment of time to run into a crowd and blend in to escape.

Then he saw the rogue who’d spotted them in the palace. Just standing there in the street. How the hell had he found them so quickly?

“Divination magic, Master,” Navi chirped. “I think he marked us somehow. Scanning.”

The rogue stared, alone on the cobblestone path as he watched. Blake knew an army of players would be coming, or possibly the elite, or Jeong himself. Apparently they had to deal with this rogue scout. He wouldn’t leave them alone. They had no choice.

“Stay on him,” he commanded Navi, stopping and gesturing at the others, grabbing a close-to-panicked Carla by the arm. He kept his voice low. “We have to kill that scout. But he’s slippery and fast.” He looked at the goblins in particular. “I need your help.”

**

Jeong was showing his sister his inner palace when a string of new warnings started. House warnings weren’t exactly rare, of course, when you had as many followers and players as he did.

He had warriors in the small but resource-rich settlements on the eastern and southern coasts. He had more guarding the growing farmland. And on the edges of the greenskin-filled mountains. All were regularly attacked by the surrounding monster tribes.

But they didn’t usually happen in such quick succession. And since the mysterious death of his spymaster, he’d been on edge, his palace turned into a fortress. He also saw the unique color of player on player violence blinking in the corner of his eye.

“I apologize,” he said, gesturing for his sister to wait on a chair on a nearby balcony overlooking his favorite garden. “Please excuse me a moment.”

“Of course.” She smiled, and as always her beauty and the nostalgia and wonder of her being alive made him return it.

He walked away and opened his profile, jaw clenching when he flicked through his list of warnings. He had servants who could see different pieces of his warnings. His wife, his key advisers. There was a hierarchy of players in charge of the day-to-day defense of the city, and they would already be reacting.

But an attack on a teleportation beacon was potentially very dangerous. Could it be that irritating African soldier and his people? It seemed unlikely. They were too weak and few to pose any serious threat, and they’d be unlikely to escape alive.

Though they’d made allies, perhaps. There were other stragglers, rebels, and criminals hiding in the uncivilized places on the continent. But even so it seemed foolish and unlikely. Unless those allies were Westerners…

Could Mason be coming for him earlier than expected? The thought sent a shiver of anxiety and anticipation down his spine. But he sincerely doubted it. A man like that wouldn’t try to murder him in his sleep. He’d want it public, dramatic—a clear show of superiority.

In fact, Jeong was counting on it.

So who or what would have the courage and strength to use one of his guarded beacons? The list of possibilities was short. The first and most likely was betrayal—one of Jeong’s major allies, or a group of powerful players deciding to rebel or escape.

He hoped it was Erik the Swede, and some of his wizards. He truly did.

“Is something wrong, Oppa?” Seul-ki was watching him with those quick, clever eyes. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Nothing serious. Please don’t be troubled.”

They’d only just started to discuss Seul-ki’s powers and experience in the game. How she’d survived the new world so far. Most of their conversations were about the past, about the time they’d spent together as children, and what things were like for them when they’d escaped their homeland.

But she had told him she had an ability to boost him greatly in combat—if only for a little while.

“I can help you defeat him, brother,” she’d said. “If you’re fast and brutal. We can surprise him. We can end it together.”

He’d looked in her eyes then and known she wasn’t a spy. That she meant it. She truly didn’t hate him for the past, as he didn’t hate her. She’d been afraid of him, and of course he understood why. But then she’d come because she saw a way to victory for them both.

He’d taken her hands and kissed her knuckles, thanking her and telling her that their time would come soon. When she’d proven her loyalty, he’d take her to his patron—find a way to make her immortal. He’d introduce her to Damian. They’d be like children again.

He was about to tell her they should continue their tour, and that his minions would handle the disruption. But he decided a test was wise. The battle with Mason Nimitz was imminent, after all.

“Actually…” he blinked and met his sister’s always remarkable eyes. “Would you like to investigate a disturbance with me? It might give us a chance to see. What it would be like, I mean. To use our powers together.” He smiled as the thought occurred to him—of all those years ago. “It could be just like hunting rats.”

His sister’s smile became more than just polite—like she was Joo the little girl and his sister again. She nodded shyly, as if unsure what he meant and what she should do next.

“Please hold on tightly,” Jeong said, lifting her gently and easily in his arms. It felt good to have come so far—to finally have the power to protect his family instead of being forced to betray them for his own survival.

His sister put an arm around his shoulder, dainty feet dangling in the air. He put a hand behind her head to hold it from snapping back. Then he ran through the palace with increasingly inhuman speed, grinning when his sister screeched. He had always liked to tease her.

----------------------------------------