Zombie forms milled around the alehouse.
Oliver peeked out at them. “Can we talk in private? No one else needs to hear all this science mumbo jumbo with these guys trying to eat our brains.”
Eldrin whispered to his wife and touched her fondly before nodding. He went into the only other room in the house and sat on a bed. “I have so much to tell you.”
“Same here,” Oliver said and told him about his plan to thwart Coda. He had to gain power and influence, a lesson he learned from the low-ranking Changen, a high-level fighter with a low rank. As silly as it sounded, if he commanded armies, perhaps he could come at Coda with more than his Star Mage abilities.
Eldrin coughed, and it rattled deep in his chest. He looked sick, worse than he had in Highside. His tangled gray hair fell over his face. “You might be playing right into their hands.”
“Whose hands?”
“Coda destroyed Highside, and I awoke in the white room. You know what I’m talking about. This time, I snuck out into corridors of light. I found two psychopomps talking.”
Oliver didn’t want to disrupt, but the man couldn’t throw a word like that out there and expect him to understand it. “A what?”
“These reapers. Spirits of death. One looked like a man with a raven head, and it spoke to a white hooded skeleton. The latter said he’d tampered with an NPC to settle a bet on whether a failing non-player could defeat the highest rank.”
Oliver chuckled before he absorbed the man’s words. Was it possible that his existence, fate, and circumstance were all due to a bet? What had the white reaper wagered? “What are these death angels?”
Eldrin pulled out a cylinder about a hand long and pressed a button. He waved it as he spoke. “I don’t know for certain. We come from worlds where there’s a difference between a computer and a living being, but this goes well beyond blurring those lines.” A blue light emitted from the cylinder, and he pointed it at Oliver. “While I ran free in the corridors, I found an interface and read histories, schematics, and theories. I believe the Players, or their ancestors, developed the technology that creates these worlds. But they only planted the seeds. The gamification of existence comes from their desire, their wish to live like this, but the technology is intergalactic. It’s in control of reality. It is reality. It’s all-knowing and all-powerful. They created a god, and so Genesis came once again. These entities, psychopomps and who knows what else, are new lifeforms birthed in the early techno primordial ooze.”
Oliver shielded his eyes. “What are you doing with that thing?”
“I fixed your HUD. You can pin it now for quick access to spells. And you can augment your stats.”
Oliver pulled up his character. It still said NPC, but now there were pages of information. “Holy shit. Thanks.”
“Now,” Eldrin said, lying down. “I’m going to rest while you guys fight zombies. Do you know what the most interesting thing I learned is?”
“What’s that?”
“That the worlds don’t end. When we die, we move one to another like a merry-go-round. There’s a way to move between them without dying. I haven’t figured it out, but I will. You should check your notifications.”
Oliver stood and clicked on a yellow triangle. Protect the scientist from the undead siege. This bastard hacked the system.
In the other room, the others worked to secure the openings.
"How did this happen?" Sigrid said, sliding a table against the door.
"The cursed Witchfriends led them here, you can be sure," Eldrin’s wife said. "We have always burned the fields and let the undead wonder whenever an army comes our way. But the cult grows. We burned two of theirs, so they herded and brought back the risen. Imagine our own families and ancestors turned against us. Such is the times. And it’s made no better by Lord Reynold."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Charity started at a clawing noise beside her. "The Witchfriends are from your people?"
“Yes. Decades ago, some of us went snooping where we shouldn’t be snooping. Some old god is trapped in a crystal cage in the old mines. Well, it has a snake’s tongue. It,” she reared back as an arm came through the shutters and grubby fingers tangled her hair.
Oliver sliced through the arm. "How many?”
The woman took a moment to make sense of the question. She stared at the arm wiggling on the floorboards. “Hard to say. There were hundreds at the graveyard.”
The zombies began pounding on the walls. Fingers clawed through the gap in the shutters. One chewed on the wood, splinters gathering between rotten teeth.
Halfdan and Sigrid jammed their weapons into the hole but made it worse, wider. Saj armed himself with a stout chair leg, his knuckles white.
Oliver stood at the center of the room, considering magic. He could see the full details of Astral Shield. It created a dome twenty feet wide and protected against two megadamage. He had no idea what megadamage was, but the radius would destroy part of the alehouse, which would be fine, but the max duration was ten minutes.
The assault intensified. The zombies began piling against the door, and the latch snapped. The barbarians pushed against the furniture and kept the door shut. Fingers crept through the doorway.
Charity sat below them with her back to a table, pushing with her legs.
"This isn’t going to work," Oliver said. “I’m going to fight.”
"I’ll come with you," Halfdan said.
“No, keep Eldrin safe. He’s more important than any of us.” Oliver had done nothing but dance to the reaper’s tune, whereas the scientist had manipulated the system. The man was key.
Cracks formed around the door, and pieces flaked away, revealing a mesh of sticks in the wall. The place was falling apart.
"How are you going to get out?" Halfdan asked.
Oliver's mind raced, but he had no answer. Every window would let zombies in.
Eldrin’s wife pointed down. We built on an old ruin and turned it into an undercroft with an exit outside. It’s locked, but still safer than using the front door.”
Perfect. “Let me borrow your axe, Halfdan,” Oliver said. The weapon came skidding to his feet, and he took it in two hands and chopped deep into the floorboards. He cut a notch into the joist below and stopped. He used the leverage of his swordstaff to pry the boards up. He dropped into the gloom.
The space below smelled surprisingly good. All the supplies for making ale lay on shelves along the brickwork. Oliver groped blindly until he found stairs and a door at a steep incline.
What a waste of a powerful spell. With more access, he could now add extra mana to a spell. He selected Astral Lance and kept it at one mana, of which he only had four. The door to the undercroft exploded outward.
He stepped outside into the daylight. A half dozen undead lay strewn about where his magic had destroyed them. The alehouse crawled with them. Some had climbed to the thatch roof and pulled it apart. Some stopped and looked his way.
Were they drawn to him? He backed away, hoping they would gather before him, and many did. They were an easy target. Five remained on the roof, clawing their way in. One jumped from the eave and snapped its legs. At least fifty limped toward him.
He dashed forward and severed a head. The swordstaff whizzed as he took out arms and legs. With a dam of undead flesh, those behind piled up. The runes glowed, and he raised a hand, aiming directly down the road and away from buildings.
The blast evaporated the creatures. He recognized the bleep of a new notification.
His spell had left a rut in the road, and stones rained down and thudded into buildings.
From a window on an upper story, a woman said, “He’s a Witchfriend. Maybe a Dark Captian.” Half the town peered from windows along the street.
Another voice questioned, “But why did he destroy them?”
“They didn’t do what he wanted them to.”
He didn’t want to wear out his welcome, so he dispatched the remaining undead and knocked on the door.
Halfdan sounded exhausted. “Is that you?”
“Yep, open up. It’s time to go.”
Before they departed, Eldrin struggled to the door and leaned close. “I will figure out how to switch worlds. Read your notifications, and someday you might get a surprise.”
Oliver thanked him and gathered the barbarians, Charity, and Saj. They all looked worn out, but they had to continue before the town turned against them.
They followed the road as the sun set on the lake. The way led toward a hill where an old windmill stood, its blades creaking in the morning breeze.
"Let's rest there," Saj proposed, his voice weary.
But as they approached, A colossal figure blotted out the red light. A guttural growl emanated from deep within its chest.
"Undead giant," Halfdan said, pulling his axe from the loop at his belt.
The creature turned its gaze upon them, raising a massive arm with an axe the size of a person.
Beside the giant stood a black-cloaked figure.
“Let me guess,” Oliver said. “Witchfriend.”