Ghost opened his white eyes. He was sitting on a wood stool in the sun, atop the deck of the demon empire’s last warship: The Emperor of the Sea. It possessed advanced technology and an enormous length of more than 150 feet. Ostensibly it was meant to be the demon emperor’s personal flagship and was gilded with wood carvings in his likeness, finished in black and red splendor. Ghost knew the demon emperor wouldn’t live to see its maiden sailing. They had come to an agreement that on the day of the unsealing, when the temporary configuration spire was activated, the Emperor of the Sea would embark on one voyage. Its crew of 500 were the secret elite of the dark army: An Imperial Order known as the Knights of the Devil King. Their talents were complimented by 100 32-pound cannons and an array of smaller firearms known as rifles and pistols. Weapons of their kind had never seen the light before that day, and the light that shined was the last the world would ever see.
“My lord, you called for me?” A bearded, black gentleman in a red and black petticoat bowed deeply before Ghost.
“It has happened,” Ghost said, “are the men ready?”
The man touched the brim of his tricorne. “The demon emperor is dead, then,” he said and his free hand clenched at the tightness in his chest. “They stand ready, my lord. All your effort was to prepare us for this moment. We will not fail you.”
Ghost pointed at the spire, visible off the ship’s port side. It was many miles away, but its presence caused the ocean to rage and rock the ship. The once-glorious city of Darigon, capital of the demon empire, was being torn apart; city districts, noble walls, docks, and so on were ripped from the sea and carried up along the widening surge.
“World Reset,” Ghost said. “The temporary configuration spire is using the ruins of Darigon to rebuild its physical connection to the quantum system. When there’s a tower of rubble above the heart of the empire, magic will return in full, and all the land will be erased.”
“I am thankful that you’ve given us this chance, my lord,” the man said and bowed again.
Ghost turned to him, searched his face with a frown. “Captain…?”
“The opportunity and responsibility to avenge the death of the demon emperor is in our hands,” he said. “I, Tarenor Swiftdawn, may be a mere NPC, but my open-ended script blessed my character with one definition: Loyalty. I will fight for you and the glory of the demon empire to the end of Ark World and beyond.”
Ghost made a slight smile and nodded. “Let’s go beyond, then,” he said and stood from his stool. He wore the same lazy attire of the night he first met the demon emperor, when he was still a boy. A gray bathrobe, sweatpants, white t-shirt, and fuzzy black slippers. He scratched the stubble of his chin and shuffled to the middle of the ship, beneath one of its four masts.
The klaxon call of an alarm echoed through gathering clouds. They were swirling rapidly toward the spire that had consumed the city. Around its foot were the few ships that had escaped the docks, but they were already being swept up in the inverse gravity and smashed against the levitating ruins. The roiling clouds turned black and crowded the sun. Lightning cracked the sky and wind thrashed the sails of the Emperor of the Sea.
“Brace for gate travel!” Captain Swiftdawn took command. “Hold fast to whatever you can and steady your hearts!”
Ghost pressed his fingers against his right eye and removed it from its socket. He lowered his hand and dropped it into the pocket of his bath robe, like a ball in a bucket. He reached into the other pocket with his hand and removed a sapphire-blue colored eyeball. It slipped neatly into his empty socket and glimmered with brilliant magic.
“True Eye of the Sorcerer, heed my will!” Ghost shouted and a beam of light fired from the eye, across the bow, and into the rolling sea. “Gate… open!”
It was as Ghost had described to Captain Swiftdawn the night before. He opened a black hole in the horizon. Ordinarily there was no way to survive a world reset without administrator access, but by opening a passage to a different world, they could briefly leave the reset space. Ghost had demonstrated this technique by folding a thin piece of paper and poking his finger through to the other side. By the candle light the trick appeared obvious and simple.
“Why haven’t you done this before?” Ghost remembered Swiftdawn’s question.
“Because that hole leads through the Otherworld,” Ghost had said. “Survival is not guaranteed.”
“Navigate toward the gate!” Swiftdawn ordered the helmswoman.
“Aye, captain!” she replied.
The riggers did their best to manage the sails and the rudders were turned hard to starboard. The storm threatened to suck them toward the growing spire. It would devour the world and would have devoured their ship too, had they not the experience necessary to navigate the dangerous sea.
“Blessed spirits, heed our call!” a wizard shouted as she led four others in a spellcast. “Come to our aid at this desperate hour! Tailwinds, Level… 5!”
By their power, the raucous gale turned to gather at the sails and push them onward. The bow of the ship dipped and crashed into the waves, but bobbed up and held steady again. All the while Ghost kept his eye trained on the gate, his thin-blue beam the only thing that could penetrate its black. The coordinated effort of spells and skills carried the Emperor of the Sea safely through the portal. Golden light flashed over the portal mouth behind ship and its energies caused it to collapse. The ship drifted further into the dark, windless Otherworld.
Swiftdawn hurried down the deck, hand on the pommel of his rapier. “Light the torches,” he ordered. “Marines stand ready to repel boarders. Artillery crews load cannons with salamander oil. On the double now!”
“We’ve carried out your defensive drills for years,” Ghost remembered his conversation with Captain Swiftdawn as the commander executed his plan. “Can you tell me now why we load the cannons with salamander oil?”
“They hate light,” Ghost had said. “The sun and heat are anathema to their existence. If we’re to travel through the Otherworld, we must wield fire that’s bright like the stars. You’ve learned to fire cannons and guns that could have conquered this world twice as fast as the demon emperor himself, but in the Otherworld, they’re just… adequate.”
“What hates the light?”
“The Ones Who Came Before, Denizens of the Dark Star.”
Marines took position on the port and starboard sides of the ship. They stood in tight rows, muskets lowered at their sides, raised muzzle up and prepared for instruction.
“Begin loading!” Swiftdawn ordered.
Men and women set to their tasks, cleared the breaches of their guns and cannons, filled them with black powder, lead, and wads of cotton. In the gloom of the dim horizon, Ghost heard the shrill clicks of the denizens. Lore won’t interfere, he thought and panned his eye beam through the dark. He searched for the reply he needed. But that doesn’t mean she’ll hold the denizens back.
“Pull!” The marines pulled back the hammers of their muskets. “Aim!” They pressed the butts of their muskets into their shoulders and lowered their aim at the water past the wood banisters. “Hold!”
The water clicked again, louder and more numerous. It sounded as if they were surrounded on all sides. “Hold!” Swiftdawn shouted again.
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Plumes of water roared up the sides of the ship, joined by the squeals of the denizens. The marine knights, trained in cold efficiency by the emperor’s personal guard, fired without pause. The clatter and snap of musket shots rang out from each side of the ship. The denizens cried, but did not retreat.
“Light the cannons!” Swiftdawn ordered. “Fire!”
From port and starboard, waves of fire hot as the breath of ancient dragons lit the dark. For a moment it appeared the Emperor of the Sea drifted forward on wings of pure flame. The denizens screamed, their pained cries loud enough to bleed the ears of men. That was an attack they felt.
“Reload the cannons!” Swiftdawn shouted and drew his rapier. The steel rasped loudly on its scabbard. “Fix bayonets! Repel boarders!”
Ghost saw a flash in the distance. “I see it!” he yelled. “Turn twenty degrees starboard, follow the light of my eye!”
“Aye, my lord!” the helmswoman replied and turned the rudder of the ship.
“Blessed spirits, heed our call!” the wizards began again. “Fairwinds, Level 5!” A gust blew in the windless Otherworld and with it the ship turned toward the distant, flashing light.
“I won’t be able to move during the transit,” Ghost had said to Captain Swiftdawn. “All my energy will be focused on navigating the ship safely through dark water. If I blink, the ship and all aboard will be unable to leave the Otherworld.”
“How long do you need us to fight the denizens?” the Captain asked.
“Ten minutes, maybe.”
“Ten minutes you will have.”
Ghost’s heart trembled with an irregular beat. The denizens had clambered aboard, lashed at the marines with claw and fang and pushed them toward the masts. He remembered the wry smile he made at Swiftdawn when they finalized their plans. “You say that now,” Ghost had said, “but planets have fallen in less time.”
“They didn’t have men,” Swiftdawn had said. It was those words that affirmed Ghost’s conviction and him quake in anticipation. “And our men are paladins.”
“Bane of Evil, Level 5!” Swiftdawn ordered and all marines replied back with those very words. Their bayonets and blades shined with light like the sun. “Stars of the emperor, deliver us!”
“From this darkness,” they replied and charged forth, “we will deliver the next world!”
The denizens appeared as serpentine naga, with long tails of steel-hard scales and bodies of irregular muscle and girth. They had six arms lined with fins and ended by razor-like claws, and headless throats that were blind, tooth-filled maws. Each one was four times the size of a human, but they hated light, and mankind had long mastered fire and faith.
White-bright bayonets pierced the denizens and they cried, filled by pain and fear. The sailors took up swords, the wizards prepared spells of Dragon’s Breath and Fireball, and Swiftdawn himself took to the top deck with his glimmering rapier. Each deck was a battlefield when the slavering denizens tore open the hull, but wherever they breached they were met with musket fire, enchanted steel, and the faith of conviction only paladins could channel.
In an Ark World without gods, where magic was weak, the Character Class of the Priest faded from the ranks of the NPCs. Paladins, although they could serve gods, drew their power from the strength of their belief rather than divine blessings alone. For that reason, they stubbornly remained, and in each iteration of the world were destroyed by the demon emperor for their refusal to submit to his rule. However, in an iteration complicated by Ghost’s intervention, they had formed the emperor’s secret order.
Ark World had not seen a paladin for a hundred years, before all at once they shined out in the dark of the Otherworld. They struck mortal wounds against those timeless evils, the denizens, and sent them back to the wave-less sea.
“We’re almost there, hold your ground!” Ghost yelled. “Gate… open!”
A colorful hole opened through the dark horizon past the ship’s bow. It appeared to be a sea of a different kind; of trees and mountains. Ghost saw a blue patch that could have been water, but it appeared far from the gate. He didn’t care if there was an ocean to land on, so long as that world still had a warm sun.
“Stay the course!” Ghost commanded.
“Judgment Blade, Rank 5!” Swiftdawn’s thin rapier drew a golden arc through the air. Its tip slashed a denizen’s throat and the open wound ignited with fire. “Penitent Strike, Rank 5!” He thrust his sword, blade vibrant with light, and impaled the denizen’s stomach. With both hands he pushed, suffered the lash of claws on his back, but forced the denizen off the deck.
The captain of the Emperor of the Sea panted hard, wiped the inky-black blood from his cheek. His gold-colored eyes searched the deck for the safety of Ghost and surviving marines. He heard moans of pain, saw listless men laid up on the floor, and walked ahead through blood of both kinds before it was soaked by the mops of running deckhands.
“Healing potions here, quickly!” Ghost heard a deckhand shout.
“This woman needs a tourniquet!”
“He got pulled into the water, I—I couldn’t—!”
“Aura of Devotion,” Swiftdawn whispered and cast a paladin spell that bolstered the will of the crew. It straightened their hearts and focused them on their tasks. “All able-bodied marines return to your stations,” he ordered as he returned to Ghost. “Everyone else, help the wounded below deck. Focus on keeping the ship afloat.”
“Aye, aye!” answered paladins across the ship.
Swiftdawn sneered beside Ghost. “I’m not seeing much water through that gate, my lord.”
“I’ll think of something,” Ghost said. “In the meantime, have the wizards start channeling Levitate on the boat.”
“My lord, we weigh more than fifteen-hundred tons.”
“Any time afloat is more than no time at all,” Ghost said. “Have them channel it.”
Swiftdawn turned sharply on his heel. “Wizards, begin channeling Levitate on the hull!”
The wizards traded confused glances. Levitate at Level 4 could lift just one ton. Together, they could move four tons. “If you mean for us to lift the ship,” said the knight-wizard superior, “it would be more painless doing nothing and we’d fall just as fast.”
Swiftdawn frowned. “It’s the command of our lord,” he said bitterly. “Even if your veins pop out of your heads, you will channel the spell.”
The knight-wizard superior closed her eyes, she sighed and glared anew through Swiftdawn’s blood-splattered face. “I understand,” she said, “by the mercy of the emperor, we will survive. Wizards: to my side.”
One of the first lessons a spell caster learned was extended spell casting. If a spell was too weak to obey a command it could be bolstered with mana. If you didn’t have enough mana to accomplish the command, you could instead use your life. Swiftdawn was aware he was asking the wizards to accept the feedback of an impossible spell. Physical injury, mental injury, and reduced lifespan were optimistic side effects. At the worst, their identities could be destroyed, and their souls cast into the void.
The wizards formed a diamond around the ship’s main mast. The knight-wizard superior led them from the front and began to chant the rune-words that powered the spell. Even though they were still buoyed by the black water, the feedback sent chills through their body. It rendered them numb and breathless.
“It’s time, give the order to the crew,” Ghost said to the captain.
“Brace for gate travel!” he shouted across the deck. “Hold fast to whatever you can!”
The bow of the ship crossed the gate, like a raft of wood off the edge of a black waterfall. The Emperor of the Sea tipped down and Ghost saw the mountainside grow wide in his vision. As the ship slid, the tops of the masts were shaved away by the gate’s edge. Ghost had to maintain his right eye’s sight until the second he closed the gate, which tied up most of his attention. He couldn’t lift the ship on his own.
If I used both eyes… he thought. His heart thumped loudly in his chest. No! I’ll do the best I can. It’ll be close, but I’ll make it work.
The ship crossed half-way through the gate. Its slide accelerated and the Emperor of the Sea started plummeting, but Ghost sighed in relief, because the aft had crossed over that much faster.
“Gate close!”
By Ghost’s command the gate sealed shut and they were left in free fall with the remainder of the Otherworld’s water. He had only a few hundred feet to halt their fall. Fly, he thought, and raised his right arm toward the approaching earth. Rings of arcane symbols appeared around the arm, but he knew those holographic glyphs to be artifacts of machine code. They were the underlying language of Ark World. Fly!
To cast a magic spell, it could require willpower, mana, life, somatic, verbal, or abstract reagents like salt or bone meal. To activate an administrator command, it required sufficient authority level in the system and verbal or somatic instruction. What Ghost did was a mix of magic and instruction. His position within the system: recognized not as a Player, NPC, or Administrator, was akin to the Director herself.
Lore, watch me! The circles expanded and turned like clockwork around his arm as one after the other was locked into position. I can match you… even with one eye!
Fly! Ghost commanded within. He spoke not to himself, but to the ship beneath his feet. Fly, now! The bow of the ship buoyed on the air and tipped away from the mountain. They curved away from slope and sailed through the sky—safe—so long as Ghost maintained his focus.
“I’ll try to land in that water,” Ghost said to the Captain. “Can I leave habitation to you?”
“No rest for the wicked,” the captain said and made a thin smile. He turned toward the crew. “Knights of the Devil King, we’ve done the impossible and defied the death of the old world!” he shouted with the wind. “By the grace of lord Ghost, we’ve made it this far. Now we’ll show him his faith in us was well placed!”
Ghost heard cheers all around: The wizards were blushed red and soaked with sweat, but alive. The marines on the top deck that could claim all their limbs. The exhausted deckhands, riggers, and the drinking helmswoman, who could release the pilot wheel for the first time. The inlet ahead was protected by a barrier of tall mountains. Hills, small valleys, forests, rivers, and meadows passed beneath the flying ship. In the evening sun, it appeared they were far beyond the Otherworld, but Ghost saw shadows in the corner of his vision. No matter where he was, he was one gate away from that place. One step from Lore.
Katherine, he thought. I’m still your ally.