~Thorben~
Thorben felt alive, as if his soul were pure energy. He drew his Katana. A radiant bolt of lighting flowed from Thorben’s arm and wrapped around the blade of the Katana, shimmering and sparking wildly. It seemed both alien and completely natural in equal parts. He knelt down, and slammed the blade straight down into the ground, a semi circle shockwave of white crackling energy burst forth. Everyone in front of him dropped and began convulsing, some losing control of their bowels. How he noticed a detail like that at this moment, he wasn’t sure. Unaffected, he walked amongst them, dispatching all but Cliff without mercy, ensuring that they would all lose control of their bowels in death.
Cliff lay there drained of energy, smelling like shit and piss, his body not responding. Yet, his eyes darted frantically. Thorben looked him in the eyes, and with a precise strike, severed the fingers of his right hand. The wounds cauterizing because of the lighting flowing along the katana’s blade. Cliff’s screams permeated the night sky.
“Justice has come to you this night,” Thorben said without emotion as he lifted Cliff’s left arm. “Unlike you, I will show mercy. I will leave you with your thumb and pointer finger in this hand. You will never hold a blade again. Riding will be incredibly difficult. You can piss, wipe your ass, and eat with the same hand. In this, I am also your source of salvation from a life of banditry. Enjoy.” With that, he severed the other three fingers from the left hand. Screams again filled the night sky.
“Tell Duke McDingle I’m coming for him. One day, he will face my judgement for his evil deeds. His days are numbered. He can try counting them on your fingers. Salvation will soon be upon his doorstep.” The effects of the lightning were wearing off quickly. “Go now, before I decide to claim more in restitution for your deeds.”
It took a moment for Thorben’s words to cut through the bandit’s pain induced stupor. “Go now!” Thorben said with another half step in his direction. Cliff stumbled away, falling and pushing himself up several times before breaking into a run. Leaving his horse and supplies, he fled into the night.
Thorben turned to where his horses were and began walking. As he walked towards his companions and the horses, the world kept getting smaller. Each step seemed to take him farther and farther from his destination. Before his vision faded into nothingness, from the pinprick it had become, he saw,
* Experience Gained
* Critical Soul Damage: Over-level Casting
~Tanrin~
Tanrin barely avoided whatever the hell it was his brother had just done. He grabbed Mia, pulling her to her feet. She was in a stupor. “Mia, break camp,” Tanrin ordered, not knowing if she even knew what that meant. She was gawking at his brother, walking around the campsite like some eerie, magical specter of death. He could tell by the look in her eyes it was the first time she had seen such blatant brutality. In all reality, it was the first time that he had seen it. Sure, he’d seen death since leaving home, but this was a whole other level of fucked up. Though he knew it had been necessary, well maybe not the chopping of fingers to send a message, it was still traumatic to someone not raised as a warrior.
He ushered her to her horse and turned to see his brother collapse on the ground as the mystical light faded from his eyes. Cliff never turned back, as he stumble-ran off into the distance. Tanrin raced to his brother’s side. Thorben was breathing shallowly, his skin had turned a sickly grey hue. His eyes rolled back into his head and filled with flashing lightning of various colors. Not understanding how, Tanrin knew his brother was in grave condition and they needed to get him help. Magical healers were exceedingly rare, and he instinctually knew that only a high priestess stood a chance. He’d heard dwarven legends of the role magical healers played in various battles throughout history, but that was it. He did not know where to look, but he would do whatever it took.
At this thought, his heart began pounding in his ears, and sweat dripped down into his eyes. As he reached to pick up his brother, he noticed his hand shaking as his breathing rate shot through the roof. Panic threatened to overcome him. His mother’s lessons reasserted themselves: Panic leads to failure, tranquility to triumph. While finding tranquility may be insurmountable, focus was possible.
Stop! He closed his eyes and started consciously regulating his breathing. Deep breath in, hold, exhale. Thorben needs you. Thorben needs you. Thorben needs you. This became his mantra, his sole focus. His brother needed him and nothing would stand in his way. He lifted Thorben up, carried him to the horses, and strapped him on. He shackled the horses together with rope, as his companions were in no shape to navigate. One task after another would allow him to get his brother’s help.
Mia was sitting on the ground, staring out at nothingness. He walked over and traded the old mare for one of the bandits’ horses. Dead men didn’t need them, and an upgrade would get Thorben to help faster. He jogged the horse back and tied it to where the others were and then helped Mia up on to the saddle. She was moving, but still had a faraway look. He couldn’t concern himself with that right now. They had to move. He quickly rummaged through the thug’s belongings. Most of what they had was something they had already acquired in Avondale, but he found a plump bag of gems. He then went around and shook the hand of each bandit corpse, thankful that upon death, their mystical wallet was essentially an open vault. He drained them dry and took all the water flagons he could find. Gripping his reins tight, he slapped the rump of his horse as he led them off into the night, hoping against all odds that he could save his brother.
Thorben needs you. Thorben needs you. Thorben needs you.
~Thorben~
The world was void of life, absent of light. Thorben found himself in a seemingly endless expanse of nothingness. A chill was creeping into the core of his being. Mortals were not meant to dwell here. He intrinsically knew this. It was as if he was being tossed into a sea of oblivion, yet he couldn’t detect movement. There was no liquid, nor solid. There were only varying densities of what he could only describe as pressure personified. He found himself pushed under the inexplicable darkness as a wave of this pressure enveloped him, and he lost his grip on awareness.
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Time flowed on as Thorben flitted in and out of the state of paradoxical awareness within unconsciousness he was currently in. Upon awakening each time, he would struggle longer and longer to recall who he was. He would lash out at the darkness to rip himself free. Utter silence drowned out his screams of agony and fear, not even granting them the validation of an echo. An aura of sensory deprivation pressed down on him, pushing him towards non existence. His soul was trapped in a cycle of being pummeled by waves of dark pressure. Each strike stripped more of his essence away. As the essence leeched away, he slowly but surely lost the battle to cling to his diminishing sense of self.
Who am I? Where am I?
Pain gripped his head. Pain unlike any he had ever experienced.
What have I experienced? What is an experience?
He recalled a mountain, laughter, love, and… family? Had it all been real? What were their names?
Deep…. Ingot…. Deepiron! Deepiron, that was familiar. What would Tanrin say if he had forgotten that? Tanrin!
The pain eased away, but his memories were slipping away with it. He clung to his brother’s name like a beggar to a coin. This name hardened what remained of his core into a pebble sized sphere that held whatever tiny amount of his soul that remained. This damned place had taken everything else. He would not allow it to take that.
Then came the voices.
~Tanrin~
Days and nights blended together. Tanrin would not rest, could not rest. His mantra kept him going.
Thorben needs you. Thorben needs you. Thorben needs you.
Mia had come out of her non responsive state over the last 3 days. She could guide her own horse and help with Thorben’s care. Yet she was still not quite right. The experience with the bandits had changed her, and she was still processing. Tanrin told himself that he would do what he could after getting his brother’s help. He figured a good night of drinking would have her back to her old self in no time.
“We need to sleep,” Mia said. She swayed in the saddle, barely staying on her horse.
“Thorben needs healing more than we need sleep,” he responded with a pointed stare.
At that moment, just as if fate had planned it, Thorben convulsed again. His brother had been unconscious since the bandits, and convulsions racked his body. His eyes had sunk further into his head, and it scared Tanrin. He had little time left.
His eyes met Mia’s, and she kept her mouth shut. He wanted to help the girl, but he would abandon her if he had to. Would he? Honor wouldn’t permit it. Just keep going, Mia. Please don’t make me choose. Despite the weariness seeping into their bones, they pressed on. There was no other choice.
~Thorben~
“Characters should advance through a classic development system. Think D&D! People understand XP.”
“That is so overdone! Why not try a shop-based system? After all, money rules everything. Capitalism will determine our success, so why not give it a nod?”
“Cynical much? I think we should use a training system. This would make it more realistic. We don’t get Recon marines by ‘leveling up.’ Training and hard work create those elites. Let me tell you! Those boys can fuck shit up! Why not the same principle in Baherune? Maybe even an armor/weapon emphasis for powers and abilities?”
“A training system sounds interesting. I think this would tie in well with runes.”
What in the world are XP and runes?
A flash of lightning lit up the sky. Deepiron, as he referred to himself, closed his eyes as his head throbbed in pain. He opened his eyes to the comfort of the void. Had he seen something in that moment of brightness?
Where are these voices coming from?
“So the Order of Buanaì will be the games, villains? The stereotypical cult of death seeking the end of the world?”
“Yeah, probably overdone, but it’s an expected part of the genre.”
“Okay. So all the people who enter the game will be heroes who work to thwart the efforts of the order?”
“I think so. We felt that a classic good vs evil theme would be the most widely accepted and thus most profitable. After the initial experiments with permanently entering the game, we have decided that from now on the game will only be played by people temporarily porting in.”
“How about a more fluid approach to character choices and quests?”
“That’s what we did with the permanent ports. We are still waiting for the data to analyze, but if the team agrees, we can go that route.”
Experiments? Porting in?
Another flash of lightning crossed the sky. This time the pebble known as Deepiron forced his eyes to stay open. A green lady? He could have sworn he saw a green lady in the distance. Several more flashed followed, each one increasing in intensity, and with each, his awareness flew closer and closer to the strange figure. Despite the pain it brought, Deepiron forced his eyes open. This being was enormous. A deity of some sort that was holding a book in one hand and a torch in the other. She was wearing a crown and robe. Her posture radiated confidence, and she was awe-inspiring. Was she a goddess? Could she help him? What did that book say?
In another moment, pain forced to abandon this line of thinking. The surrounding void seemed to redouble its effort to destroy him.
Deepiron. Tanrin. Deepiron. Tanrin.
He forced himself to grab onto these words as a lifeline. He wasn’t sure what it was a lifeline too, but something in his soul told him he needed this. As he repeated these words, his world exploded into all-consuming agony.
~Tanrin~
Tanrin plowed forward, forcing himself to hold on to his saddle pommel with everything he had. He didn’t have the energy to sit up, so he slouched over the saddle, eyes half open. Mia had asked him to tie her to her horse so she could sleep and ride. As a dwarf, he could push his body to limits that humans couldn’t. He was pushing his dwarven constitution to its max. He had proven that over the past quarter moon, but he would make it. His last thought before exhaustion claimed him was: Thorben needs you. At that, he became one with the stone, something that he had never done when moving in any capacity. No dwarf had.
~Aldwin~
Aldwin was stumbling to the loft of the horse barn when he heard a noise. Initially, he wrote it off as a drunken stupor.
Damn debuffs, causing me to imagine noises.
Something inside him, a part of his past warrior life, told him he wasn’t imagining things. He investigated and continued past the door. His foot caught on an uneven stone and he tripped around the corner of the barn. He sprawled down on the cobblestones nose first.
He yelled as a bursting pain started sobering him up. As he coughed on blood from his broken nose, he looked up at a big brown horse’s ass, and could see a rider passed out in the saddle. Before he could scramble out of the way, the horse relieved itself, turning Aldwin’s yell for Alfred into a sputtering mess of vomit and curses.