1 Soul Bound
1.1 Finding her Feet
1.1.7 An Extreme Response
1.1.7.13 DDF
Wellington was there, and she sang a chorus from an Alan Parson’s song to him.
Wellington: “Thank you for doing this. I’ll have your tiara flip you to the game once your Vessel has the song. The first time mark will be 20 seconds later velife time, and the marks 5 seconds apart. Start singing the moment the 3rd mark starts to chime. With luck, you won’t need to spend more than 60 seconds in there, total. Is that ok?”
He told The Burrow to display the air and order runes.
Wellington: “These are the runes to focus upon for pushing the mana through. In case your air attunement isn’t high enough without your items, your Vessel will be in a group with Isabella, Bungo, Ruffiana and myself.”
He disappeared.
{Minion, tell Alderney she can start projecting my stream on the screen.}
Waiting for pain was worse than pain. She willed it to happen faster. After what seemed an eternity of staring at the two runes, but must have been less than 2 minutes, she was yanked.
*flip*
A relaxed looking Kullervo was lying back against a hayrick, out in open farmlands.
Kullervo drawled: “Ah, my caged bird returns.”
She turned slowly, noting the mana source and mountain peaks.
Kullervo: “Oh don’t pretend you’re ignoring me, loser. You may not be able to touch anything, but I can touch you. Oh yes.”
The spikes from the collar were no longer tintacks. They were jagged iron spines embedded firmly into her chest and skull, working their way towards her brain and heart. She had a moment to anticipate what would happen and he swept The Bone Sword in a wide arc, whipping the chain around which yanked hard on her collar.
*DONG*
She screamed, unable to talk let alone sing, unable to say the code word given to her by Alderney.
He swept it again, then again, shredding her ethereal body like a cat with a mouse, delight and something else, lust, upon his face.
*DONG*
He paused a moment, to sneer at her: “I love it when they realise they’re trapped, that they can’t focus enough on their portal to leave the game. I can keep this up for hours.”
But she didn’t wait. Even as he spoke, she stammered out {Minion, NULL NULL.}
He swept again, but this time, she was braced, and stared him in his pretty cruel eyes.
*DONG*
: first two chorus lines from Eye in the Sky
Visualise the runes. She’d stared so hard at them they were still almost burnt into her retinas.
: next three chorus lines from Eye in the Sky
Channel her emotions, how badly she needed inside his head, to know his plans, so she could save everyone she held dear.
: next two chorus lines from Eye in the Sky
Reach out, reach out all the way back to Torello, to the Sanctum, to her other half, imagine a stream of mana flowing from there to meet her, freely given, mana that recognised her.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
: last two chorus lines from Eye in the Sky
Connect the stream to the runes, and visualise and want. Harder. HARDER.
She was in his mind, and so were her Vessel, Wellington, Ruffiana, Bungo and Isabella. The battleground might have been his, but they outnumbered him and they didn’t ask for his consent or offer vulnerability in return; they took, tearing memories from him.
=Reading a message from someone called Eistla, saying they’d caught Bulgaria’s mole=
=The coordinates of the rendezvous with the extraction team=
=Envying WraithLock who got the real job, while he was stuck being decoy=
=A burning worry over a leather pouch of documents=
=Flying on a private jet with a business suited German man, a Maltese Cross on the wing=
And kills, lots and lots of people being killed, in loving detail, every wound and spasm treasured, as though he wanted to lick them.
But she didn’t just pick up thoughts from Kullervo, stray thoughts from those on her own side that she was merged with also entered her mind.
=Her vessel looking longingly at a youth, who left the Villa and never returned=
=A young Ruffiana sleeping with an important man in order to steal a dark gemstone from him, and getting caught=
=A teenage Bungo getting hit on the head by his father with a thick leather bound Bible while being yelled at, and walking out of a door=
=Isabella sleeping with her head on an embroidered pillow, feeling both guilty and excited=
=Wellington staring emotionlessly as one of his comrades is caught and shot, but turning and walking onwards because that’s the plan, thinking there must be a better way=
Part of her wanted to keep looking. The other part realised she was getting weaker and weaker. Kullervo had done a lot of damage to her. If she didn’t leave now, she wouldn’t last another 10 minutes.
*flip*
She stammered: “I. I got the info.” and fainted.
----------------------------------------
A few minutes later, she came to, groggy, and sat up. Her regulars were on their knees, heads bowed, hats in hand, praying. She had something in her hands. She looked down. It was a large posey of white flowers, matching the ones arranged around the pillow.
Nadine, crossly: “I’m not dead you know.”
Harun: “I’m happy.”
Tarik: “Feh, you’re always happy, Harun.”
Daris: “I don’t know about you, but I’m sleepy.”
David suddenly smiled: “Well, if Harun is Happy, Tarik is Grumpy and Daris is Sleepy, then I’m Doc.”
Jasic, catching on, added: “I’m Sneezy.”
Muhamed, just as quickly: “Dibs on Bashful.”
Vedad: “Huh, what?”
Heather helped him: “Vedad, the seven dwarves from Snow White.”
Vedad: “Oh, hey, yeah sure.” a pause “so which one am I?” another longer pause “What, no, that’s unfair.”
Nadine couldn’t help laughing.
Harun struck a pose: “We shall be her Serene Highness’ Dwarven Defence Force.”
Muhamed: “And protect her secrets with their lives.”
David cried out, as though making a toast: “To the DDF!” and the others echoed it.
Vedad: “Hang on. With their lives?”
Muhamed: “Well, given the choice, I’d rather protect a secret by killing the secret thief, than by ending up dead myself.”
Tarik: “That’s fair.”
Heather: “I’ll make you all rings. They’ll be ready tomorrow.”
Nadine: “My friends. I thank you for your support. It truly means a lot to me. I wouldn’t have had the courage to carry on fighting that despicable PKer if you hadn’t all been there at my side. But now I need to grab some sleep. I suspect I have a long night ahead of me.”
Heather: “And remember: not a word, not even a hint, to your wife, your best friend, and definitely not on any type of electronic media or storage. Lips zipped, no joking.”
Muhamed: “We may fool around, Ms Alderney, but we are not fools. If they find out, it won’t be from us, I swear it wallahi.”
Alderney: “Then let that be the last time you mention my online name, even among yourselves. Let me be Ms MacQuarrie. Or, come to think of it, there’s another name you can use. The battle cry of the MacQuarries is An t'arm breac dearg and you better believe that, despite being a woman, if enemies come I shall gladly use my drones to blow them all to smithereens. So, those of you who are truly willing to kill to protect Nadine may address me as a fellow warrior by my given name, Heather. It is shorter, and that’s important in battle.”
Muhamed looked her in the eye and, judging her worthy, clasped her by the forearm and said “Goodnight Heather” before slinking out the door.
The others left too, leaving Heather along with Nadine who was still sitting astonished on the bier.