“Did you get it or what?” Amelia was tossing her clothes fresh from the laundry onto the bed, letting them fold themselves into neat squares. Her mother had told her once that she was spoiled, and that she didn’t know the effort that was involved with actually doing laundry. She had agreed, since she really didn’t know what it was like to fold clothes herself. Although, she didn’t feel repentant for being privileged either. Nor did she notice her mother buying anything but the self-folding clothes.
“Yes.” Raven burst into the room shortly after calling out from the hallway, proudly showing Amelia her helmet. It was pink. Very pink. So pink that it hurt her eyes. It also had semi-transparent stickers of kung fu girls performing various moves all over it. There might have also been some words but they were scrawled on in a darker pink and would have required Amelia to get her eyes closer to that horrific shade of pink. “Cute! Ready to go! Just in time!”
“Aidan is already logged in.” Amelia was really at a loss, and chose the safer path of not commenting on Raven’s helmet.
“AA Finals! I’m excited! We never actually went to one, which is kind of weird don’t you think?” Raven tilted her head, her dark hair falling from one side to the other.
“I can’t figure it out. I am so jealous. Why must you be so beautiful and not a man?” Amelia patted Raven, who immediately preened at the praise.
“You always know the right things to say to derail me,” Raven purred. “Perhaps we could take this to the couch and…”
Amelia smirked. She tilted her head slightly and took a step toward the couch. It was reward enough to see Raven’s eyes widen in semi-panic.
“Fine, fine. I suppose Aidan would kill us anyway?” Raven sniffed and turned, leaving the room. For all her flirtation and lecherous overtures Raven was a closet-prude. Amelia was pretty sure Raven wouldn’t know what to do if Amelia ever made an actual move. Their relationship was one of teasing and light-heartedness. It wasn’t that long ago that Amelia still remembered holding the broken girl in her arms, her heart spilling out her eyes and making her couch wet.
“Aidan would just smile. Then you would know you were in real trouble.” Forsythe started dropping items on the table. They were all self-contained food additives and spices. He noticed Amelia staring at the ingredients being deposited and the barest hint of his lips lifted. “Victory dinner.”
“You know, he could lose?” Amelia pointed out half-heartedly. Part of her even wondered if she hoped for that outcome. There would be no living with him if he won the annual AA Finals. Even as the words left her mouth however she felt her lips and face souring. While Amelia knew that Aidan wasn’t the greatest in the world, intellectually, she felt in her bones that if there was a way for him to come out on top he would. Probably in a really unpleasant fashion. They didn’t need any more reporters nosing around. Forsythe, Hunter, and Elisha may have been made by the news because of his cooking show but Amelia and Aidan were safely below the radar. Raven was on the radar for other -- kung fu related -- reasons.
“Haha. You’re so funny Amelia,” Raven patted her on the shoulder and started moving into the back where they had converted an open closet to a spare room, complete with cot and little viewing station. “Suffer well!” She called over her shoulder. She was already chortling. Probably imagining her suffering at the hands of reporters hounding the building.
“Yes. We should offer him congratulations on his victory, and then we should leave him here alone for a month.” He straightened slightly as if he felt a great weight being lifted from his shoulders from the fantasy. “We could go someplace exotic with Elisha and Hunter. Alone. Without him or his ego. I don’t know that we could afford the flight ticket for his ego anyway. There must be size limitations during boarding?”
“Sometimes I’m not sure how you all get on talking about each other like that.” Amelia laughed anyway.
He lifted a finger and looked at her soberly before pointing. “You don’t choose who you love.”
“I did.” Amelia felt her lips spreading in that cheshire way. “You did.”
“You have suffered for it ever since.” Forsythe candidly danced around mentioning his wife. He had never felt that he made the poor choice after all, and couldn’t be baited into saying a single bad thing about Hunter. If anything, he extolled her virtues so often that Amelia was a little jealous. Aidan could talk better about her, right?
“Splendidly.” Amelia agreed, offering her arm to him. He accepted it gratefully and she escorted him to the couch. “Is it okay if you just sit down with your dive gear on? I didn’t realize you were going to be here today or we would have provided something, uhh…” She looked around helplessly. “On the floor. I guess. Nevermind.”
“No, it’s okay. Elisha is entertaining.” Forsythe plumped up some pillows on the couch and sat easily, uncasing his dive gear and settling it over his head. He flipped a switch on the side for wireless. The battery would carry for almost thirty hours so there was no need to plug it in. “I’m used to sitting anyway.”
“Entertaining?” Amelia frowned. “Like a boy?”
“Boys.” Forsythe corrected.
“Plural?” Amelia blurted out. It wasn’t that much of a surprise that there were boys after Elisha. She had really bloomed in the last year. It was more of a surprise that Forsythe had mentioned it so casually.
“Yes. They are ten.” Forsythe rolled his eyes. “The sort of amorous attention they provide her is something I am comfortable with. She is tutoring them in math. Math is now the favorite subject of a great many little boys at the institute she’s interning at.”
“Ten. Hahahah.” Amelia couldn’t help but snicker as she turned around and walked toward their room. She was still laughing and could picture him scowling at her back as she entered the room and quietly closed the door. Aidan lay breathing shallowly, the network lights on his dive gear blinking intermittently in the dim. She laid down next to him, pausing briefly to brush her lips against his cheek. She blushed for a moment, feeling silly at having given into the impulse. He looked like a sleeping knight with that helmet on, his sharp cheekbones peering out from under. Before she got too embarrassed about it she pulled on her own dive gear and closed her eyes, preparing herself for the disorientation that accompanied the dive into Aspiria.
Once again she was Empress Amelia of Elysium, a player who held more power than any other Transient. It still baffled her, all of it, everything that had happened. The power was starting to gnaw on her conscience. She tried not to abuse it, but that didn’t help with the guilt that always pulsed through her. Surely -- I mean really -- there had to be a hundred, a thousand, a million people who would be better suited?
She was led by a guide through the Coloseum up through spiralling staircases, passing excited Transients and Residents. They gave her little regard as her hood was up. The Transients couldn’t see her face or name pane and the Residents would basically ignore her as long as she had it up. It wasn’t long before they approached the middle of the Colosseum and passed between two special guards. These guards had been turning everyone away from the special viewing box reserved for high ranking Residents and their guests.
Two people who had been trying to peer behind the guards startled as she moved beyond, casting each other baffled glances as the guards both straightened and tapped their ceremonial spears on the floor as she moved through the door. It closed behind her and the two shrugged, wondering who the hell that had been.
Raven wasn’t there. She was probably in the general seating looking through all the food vendors. Come to think of it, Forsythe wasn’t there either and he was probably doing the same thing. Queen Victoria greeted her first, looking regal in a small and simply understated silver gown. Princess Skyline and King Elairdrin nodded from nearby where they stood at the edge of the skybox. The Princess and King could have been models, clad in flowing and rich lavender tunic highlighted with silver that matched Skyline’s hair, and a dress etched with gold that matched the King’s colors. Queen Catherine was laughing at some joke King Orekin had obviously told her, the both of them looked like they were wearing their normal fare by comparison. Her light and musical laughter seemed ludicrous in contrast to his great guffaws. Their stance was one of friendship and ease, and Amelia marveled once again how all these Residents almost seemed like real people.
“Did I miss anything?” Amelia smiled and turned to Victoria.
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“Only some questionable Dwarven humor.” Keristrazly managed, his face struggling to maintain conformity.
“It was lovely. I haven’t heard a joke about so much rivalry, nor one of such ribald jest in some time.” Queen Victoria squeezed his hand, immediately disarming him. He relaxed and went back to looking uninterested. Keristrazly had a really obvious weakness and it was under three feet tall.
“Yet, we are all interested. The first fight brackets will be thirty two people facing off one on one. Your young man will be in the first bracket. We are all curious to see this profound power of which we have heard.” King Elairdrin smiled, looking to be in good humor. Probably thanks to the company he was keeping. Skyline nodded her head, hair bouncing delicately as she agreed with him. She rested her hand on the railing of the skybox near Elairdrin. Amelia would have been amused except she had noticed that everyone was subtly ignoring their small gestures of intimacy. She supposed she could ignore it too if it made everyone feel more comfortable.
Amelia moved to the railing, watching down below as the small forms appeared on the fields. Viewing boxes began appearing as if by magic, showing her the zoomed in areas everytime she focused on one. It wasn’t long until she found Aidan. His white hood was up and all she could see was his smirk. He was facing a woman in armor who was uneasily waiting for the timer for their battle to count down. He was summoning Fred without incanting, over and over, as if taunting his foe. To her credit the woman did look wary. She had probably never seen a wizard casting a spell without some sort of incantation or hand gesture or special device.
“Damn him.” Amelia sighed without malice.
“What?” Queen Victoria had moved forward and set a box down. Amelia carefully pointed her face away as the Queen crawled onto the box so she could see over the railing. Dignified and elegant even while scrabbling atop a crate. At least it was a nice crate.
“He makes it look so easy. He always does.” Amelia sighed.
“It is rare to hear envy from one who is as celebrated as thee.” Queen Victoria teased. “Is he not also your husband?”
“Will be.” She whispered. “But I can still be jealous right? I am feted, as you might say, friend Victoria. But I’m not sure that he should be down there and I up here.”
Keristrazly laughed. “Foolish. Fool. Dumb.”
Amelia raised an eyebrow and gazed at him. She wasn’t the only one. Victoria had a pretty peeved look starting on her face as well.
Keristrazly didn’t look the slightest bit taken aback. “That I might be foolish, dumb, and humble after striking down two consecutive threats to the world.”
Victoria lost interest, and she turned away with that half-smile on her face.
“You too?” Amelia sighed, noting that the queen had not come to her defense.
“Friend Amelia. You are too much. Let us see your young man show us his magic today. It is less than a minute until we begin. I daresay your envy is misplaced and perhaps should be filled instead with caution. He is quite popular with the women heroes of which I have met in the last year.” Victoria turned her head in a mirror image of what Amelia had just done when she was crawling on the box. “Suffer well, as friend Raven says.”
“What?” Amelia blinked, her voice coming out sharp.
Light laughter sounded from the booth and Amelia sighed. She pulled down her hood and ignored the teasing. It was light and friendly and she had missed it. Even if they were just Residents they were her friends. “He just makes it look so easy…”
Amelia reached out gently and held an open palm out toward Victoria. Victoria blinked, unsure at the strange gesture even as Amelia’s face closed and blanked. Her expression was not one of concentration or effort. Instead it was a empty expression devoid of emotion.
“So easy.” Amelia muttered again and sighed. She heard his words reverberate through her mind. “Raven. How many hundreds or thousands of times have you swung your sword?” Amelia pictured Victoria swelling in power and stature. Her body exploding with energy. She formed the word [Aura] in her mind… and was almost as shocked as everyone else when a profound bloom of golden energy shook the skybox in an explosion.
Aidan had been toying with Fred, waiting for the match to start. Fortune had smiled on him because the woman of his ire was standing in front of him. Her name was Fanciful(no joke). He had first become aware of her on the forums when she was accruing a little bit of fame as a warrior who fought regular matches in the season. She quickly advanced to the highest class, golden, and had begun to loudly disparage Amelia in all her comments. Every victory was a dedication to the useless Empress, as she called her. Fanciful looked cautious but not worried.
She was staring at Fred trying to figure out how he was doing it. It would be over in an instant. Even though she was basically a mage-killing class with high resistance to magic, he would still have no trouble. He had already mapped the path to victory in his head. He would cast his illusionary army and began whittling her health down in minutes from within the shadow of all the doppelgangers he had created for one magnificent illusionary spell. Profound power wasn’t meant to be wasted on trash. He would take out a low level spear and prick her to death. He was starting to chortle, enjoying the look of concern that was crossing her face when he heard it. No, heard it was wrong. He felt it in his bones. A sensation that his body had never experienced in Aspiria, or even in that death game, Sojourn.
He looked up, Fred winking out of existence as he lost his concentration. A golden ribbon of energy had exploded out of the skybox. It impacted the magical shields surrounding the colosseum's arena area. In preparation he had watched as much as he could of the previous AA Finals. The magical barrier that protected the audience from all harm was said to be the strongest. It would have taken some sort of astronomical effort to try and breach it, and that was with concerted effort. Yet, as that ribbon expanded it pressed against the barrier which had started off as red when met with the magical energy. Red to blue. Blue to gold. Spider-webs appeared and the magic barrier fell on the edges of the arena like glass, startling screams from those participants that had been close enough.
“What?” Aidan blinked. A feeling of dread coming from his soul. Something was wrong. He had seen something like this once but it was nowhere near what he had experienced. His mana bar had immediately gone to zero. Something had drained all the mana in the area. Moments later his suspicion was confirmed.
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Local Announcement
Empress Amelia of Elysium has unlocked Profound Beginner 1 in Magic.
A strange interference appears.
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The air flickered, causing Aidan to blink. The air hummed with terrible frequency near the center of the Arena. Slowly, under the eyes of thousands locally logged in and millions watching the event live, a golden circle began to open in the center. One unlucky participant happened to be standing at the horizon of the occurrence. There was no time to be surprised even as he vaporized as the golden field spread out in front of him.
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Global Announcement: Super Level Zero Quest Activated
Name: Save The Empress
Empress Amelia has been kidnapped!
Duration: Unknown
Reward Unknown:
Failure Condition Unknown:
Objective: Seek out Information
----------------------------------------------------
“Empress Amelia?” Aidan sputtered.
Kidnapped? He started to move. He didn’t even spare Fanciful a second glance as he started toward the stairs that would lead to the regular concourse. He never made it more than a few steps when suddenly the portal of gold contracted and five figures appeared.
They all wore tunics of silver and gold and held no weapons. They looked around for only moments before disappearing into flashes of gold. Those flashes exploded into the skybox, having simply taken what appeared to be a few steps to walk the distance through the air between the arena floor and over the standardized seating, and then the screaming started. Screams of fury and battle. A red half-form exploded form the skybox, Keristrazly had not even turned into a dragon before he had been thrown. The impact was ground-shaking as he cratered. Keristrazly grunted with the impact and then slid back forming a deep trench before he finally hit the wall on the other side of the arena, and didn’t move. Aidan looked around, panic starting to color his motion as he hurried toward the stairs. Raven and Forsythe were the only other two moving in the crowd and he picked them out immediately. Raven with her sword in hand was running right over the top of the seats. Forsythe was running up the stairs and taking the longer route to avoid the crowd. Everyone else was frozen either checking status screens or trying to figure out what was going on.
Before Aidan could even make it to the stairs flashes started back toward the portal. Among them, Aidan briefly glanced a man dragging a woman in a blue robe by her hood. The woman had a chance to cast one terrified glance, shock and surprise causing her eyes to remain wide. Time slowed and Aidan felt like for a moment he could have even reached out and grabbed her. Then she was gone through the portal.
Aidan walked toward the portal in a daze. Already there were a few people who were trying it. One of them hissed and jumped back in surprise. He had laid a hand on it as an experiment and it had blackened. His health bar showed considerable damage.
“Amelia?” Aidan whispered into the group chat.
“Amelia?” Aidan said again over the Shadow Fall Guild chatter.
Volume exploded as everyone in the guild began to demand what was going on. Those that had attended the AA Finals or were watching all talked at once. Aidan froze and did not move.
“Amelia.” He whispered into the group chat once more.
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Subject Amelia is unavailable for Voice Communication.
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Mordred looked at the woman beside him and stood up in the seating. "Now is our chance."