Gilduirn’s fated farewell wasn’t as quiet as he would have liked, Amelia was certain. She watched it for the second time in a row on her terminal, trepidation crawling on her features. She didn’t understand half the things he was saying. The only thing she did understand was how painful it had been for him and how he wanted to fight for AA. She had approached Aidan once, to yell at him, but he had simply shaken his head.
“He’ll be there. He’s worth a thousand of those jerks who didn’t think the world was worth fighting for, and we’ll be glad he shows up when he does. There were 3 of us at the end fighting Mu, the last great death game boss, and I’d take those 2 that were with me over a guild full of Ominous any day. Gilduirn is welcome too.” Aidan shook his head again and that had seemed the end of it despite the fact she still wanted to talk about it.
Time passed slowly in-game and in the real world. More and more people began showing up and pledging themselves to the final battle. The Residents had been placed by Victoria, Marden, Oresdin, and Hermania largely without any input from Amelia. Amelia had no idea how to allocate strength for the area that Void would appear, so she just left it to them.
Time passed as it always does. Mercilessly and without a care to whether or not you were ready. Then there was only the day before. Gilduirn and Ominous had still not shown up, and when she called him on the terminal there was no reply. Idolia also seemed tightlipped about it, casting angry glances at Aidan when he asked. She continued to paint her mural silently as if willing herself to finish in time for the world to end. It was a magnificent image, spanning the entire length of the wall and there was only one empty spot left. Amelia viewed it once, surprised that it had such a strong system announcement even though it wasn’t complete.
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Examine Reveals: A Journey of the Heroic Tribes - Grandmaster Level Painting
This painting depicts across the entire wall of the Shadow Fall guildhall the journey of an unlikely mass of heroes as they pull themselves from one danger to another. Never fearing that which lies ahead. It remains unfinished, perhaps denoting that the journey to face life never ends. Perhaps to denote that the final battle is yet to come and is unrecorded. It shines with a terrible purpose. A portent of heroism that can’t be measured or described. Awe is the only appropriate reaction.
Condition: Those who gaze upon A Journey of the Heroic Tribes gain inspiration, increasing productivity and chance of master and grandmaster works for the next day by 15%.
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Those unaffected by the sense of doom were unsurprisingly Forsythe and Raven. Forsythe continued cooking and ignoring the calls from network streams to host cooking shows. Instead, he and Hunter sat in the kitchen and talked about flower arrangements as well as the theme of their wedding. He held her hand at night with his good hand, speaking earnestly about what the future would hold. Forsythe had convinced Hunter and Elisha that they had to come to the United States so that they could be closer to Amelia and Aidan when they resumed schooling. Raven, of course, would go wherever they were, or so they thought.
Raven surprised them all when after a few days of attending the dojo and continuing her tutelage under Suji she decided she would be staying in Australia. What had seemed like a passing fad was in fact really important to her, or so she said. Her classes with him started extending to night classes, and when she finally did come home she didn’t have a lot of time to log onto the game. She was too busy trying out new ideas she had learned. New breathing exercises, new physical techniques, and even dojo book-keeping. Raven even confided that should the game continue she had convinced Suji to make an AA avatar so they could go off and practice martial arts together in the game.
War mentioned, offhandedly, that he was considering a trip to Australia in the near future so he could join this mysterious dojo. Raven had grinned but didn’t comment when Amelia asked her about their relationship, further proving that her infatuation with him wasn’t just a passing thing.
Aidan was the problem. Amelia simply didn’t know what to do with the man. He played on his graphic design terminal and seemed largely aloof. He was the one that always seemed to know what to do, what the danger was, and what had to be done in order for the future to proceed where everyone could live their lives out happily. Since this whole adventure began he had seemed less the larger than life victor of the death game and more of a bystander to everything that happened after that. On a suggestion from Hunter, Amelia had even taken him to see the LS Online Monument.
The Last Sojourn Monument was a massive online undertaking. You could log in as a guest avatar and walk around in your dive gear at any time since it was a free server. On this server, you would walk toward a stone monument on a long plateau overlooking a forest. The monument had every name of every player who had ever died in Last Sojourn, real and game name. It wasn’t technically a breach of the Survivor’s Act, as it only housed the names of those who had died in the game or passed afterward from old age and provided no details. Amelia had been reluctant but had one night grown the courage to ask him to go with her to see it. She didn't know what he'd think about an online monument to people who were killed online.
They logged on together, but Amelia was quickly alone. Aidan was at the foot of the monument and had been lost to her for hours as his eyes poured over the names. She gave up talking to him after several minutes of him ignoring her conversational attempts. Once, when she had finally asked him whether he was ready to go, he had turned toward her with the most incredibly pained eyes she had ever seen. He barely seemed to see her at all for a few minutes. Just when she was thinking she had made a grave mistake he took her hand and gently took her to the front of the monument.
“This is Aegia’s name. Aegia was a priest who died in a forest between Caelum and Haven. She had two children…”
“Septi was a rude man who seemed like he didn’t care about anyone. He was vulgar, obscene, and his mouth didn’t seem to serve any purpose other than to illustrate these features. He died shielding…”
The list continued, and Amelia was struck for the first time by the enormity of the loss of life. Aidan must have recited hundreds of names. Long into the night he held her hand and told her all he remembered. Some names he skipped, but only because he had never met those people personally. She didn’t interrupt him or tell him that it would be best to get some sleep. Amelia was grateful that she couldn’t cry in this world. She was also grateful that he couldn’t cry. She didn’t know what she would do if the invincible Devil in White started weeping.
Then, as it always did, the future date mercilessly crept closer.
Amelia stood in front of the war table once again with Keristrazly, Victoria, Aidan, Mardin, Oresdin, and Hermania. They stared grimly at the map, willing it to reveal some vital bit of knowledge that they should exploit. Already the Transient army had swelled ranks over the past week. They were over 17,000 strong and more were streaming into the area every second. Far stronger than they had been at Blutonsi. Even as they stood here players were entering the game and starting to mill toward the final staging area for the boss battle against Void, the world ender. The number of Chroniclers the undertaking had produced was awe-inspiring.
“Do not look so distraught,” Victoria said, eyeing Amelia. “Victory is the only outcome.”
“Yes.” Amelia wished she felt as confident as she sounded.
“We must have a speech to the army. Who will give the address, Amelia?” Oresdin turned toward her, adding weight she hadn’t needed to her shoulders.
“I will,” Aidan said, surprising everyone.
“You will?” Amelia quirked a brow.
“If it pleases you.” He smiled. The first smile, the first real smile, he had shown in days.
“It would,” Amelia whispered.
“Well, what have we got up?” Elias Thompkins of MKC Online asked. They were taking the live stream from Amelia’s feed as well as Hunter and a dozen others at the staging area in Elysium. He was quietly surprised as to how many people had actually shown up. Were still showing up even.
“We’re a few minutes out from the event start. There haven’t been any announcements in game though.” Jason said quietly. “We have canceled all feeds and redirected to our main program until the end of this quest.” Left unstated was that it might be the last feed until the end of the world. The company was strong, wealthy, and could stand the game to fail. Elias was confident, after all, that he could find some other game to stream even if this one ended. Centra Holdings had remained eerily silent on the subject. Even leaks from employees revealed no one knew what was going to happen.
“Do you have Eddie on with us?” Elias asked, turning to his second in command Abhy.
“Yes.” Abhy nodded. “He’s in the sound booth prepping. He’s confident he can give us whatever musical score we want. Said he’s excited about the prospect of ad-libbing.”
“Wasn’t his great grandfather...?” Elias started to ask, then thought better of it. Signing the musician Eddie was a stroke of luck. He was from a family who had literally done nothing but record and sing for the better part of the last century. “Nevermind. He was famous, and now it’s Eddie’s turn.”
Audrey popped in. “Need anything?”
“Prayer,” Abhy muttered.
Stolen novel; please report.
“I need some tea,” Elias said surprising everyone. “I don’t think my heart can take another Mourning battle.”
They were interrupted when Amelia appeared in front of a roughly constructed stage. She was looking up at Aidan who had appeared with several bards who were preparing several projection spells for him. Word spread toward the crowd that there would be a brief speech. Apparently Aidan really was going to address the crowd after all.
Amelia paused and stared up expectantly. Just another blue cloak with her cowl up in a crowd of writhing Transients and Residents. Aidan, resplendent in his white robe, slowly made his way to the stage with his hood up and stepped in the center. He seemed to be staring out at the crowd without fear.
Aidan put his hood down.
“Here we go. Full audio instead of the waiting music.” Elias commanded.
“Aspiria!” He called. His voice thundered out, amplified through bard magic. Silence suddenly met his announcement, but he just smiled. “Next time, when the moment is right, you will all know how to respond.” At his announcement silence continued to reign and he chuckled.
“That’s… embarrassing.” Abhy muttered.
“In the future, I mean. There will come a point in the battle, I promise you someone will cry out ‘Aspiria’ and it will be important that you respond! Remember that. Put it in your mind.” Aidan continued seriously, sweeping his gaze out across the crowd and tapping his temple with an index finger.
For the most part, the crowd was half paying attention to him because there may be some sort of direction to this crazed idiot’s speech at some point. He continued anyway, smiling, still tapping his temple slightly.
“Aspiria!” He said again, and no one shouted out. He nodded as if he had fully expected this. “Just remember. When this happens, someone else will shout out Rule One! At this point, you will also shout out, Rule One!”
Forsythe and Raven, who had actually been doing a masterful job of looking bored and not paying any sort of attention to Aidan paused and looked up at the stage at this point. Owlish intensity burning in their eyes as if they would shout it out right now.
Amelia, whose point of view they were streaming from, muttered something unintelligible.
“In a few minutes you will take part in the largest grand crusade quest in the history of any VRMMO. We’re being streamed by a number of companies! We are being watched by the world and all those people who couldn’t make it for various reasons! How embarrassing if we lose right?” Someone coughed and he hurriedly continued. “Void will come and he will be more than any of us are ready for. Truly, that’s pretty amazing. There are so many of us. We will be clambering over each other like Visage from the last arc to get to the enemy! So how can we be at a disadvantage?” He looked around, smirking as if this were all just one joke.
“Here we go,” Amelia muttered.
“He comes,” Aidan’s face lost its smile and he looked soberly out at the crowd. “In a game where the AI is robust enough to keep up with all the millions of users, we’re pretty fortunate in thinking that a few tens of thousands of us are the difference between victory and defeat, aren’t we? Like, somehow, our number is going to give us an advantage over cold math. Over a boss that isn’t concerned with our number. He is still coming, or so we’ve been told. Maybe he doesn’t know we’re going to win?”
Amelia glanced to her left and right and Elias and the members of the studio control unit of MKC Online noticed for the first time that the crowd was looking entirely uncomfortable all of a sudden. It was easy to think you were safe in a throng of that many people. Aidan seemed to be suggesting that wasn’t the case.
“Maybe he thinks he’s going to win,” Aidan said coldly. “Can you believe that crap?”
Amelia’s shoulders shook and so did her camera angle. Amelia was laughing, though she appeared to be the only one.
“Did any of you sign up with the intention of losing your world to some ‘thing’ that came in and told you your stay in this world was over? Would any of you last week think you’d be here now with so much weight on your shoulders? Void is a culmination, an idea, a terrible purpose that is fully aware of what waits for him and… he comes.” Aidan looked out as the silence started to drag on. He let it continue.
Silence reigned, and this time it wasn’t silence built on the awkward of listening to some bozo who was trying to address thousands of people. It was a silence built on quiet rage and worry. He was suggesting that they might lose. He was suggesting it was the game looking down on them.
“Now, I know that things will be very bad at some point. You can count on it.” Aidan continued softly, though no one had trouble hearing him with the bard projection spells in place. “So if things get too scary for you, go ahead and step back, or away, or log off.” Aidan paused, his voice swelling with sudden malice. “You can all watch. I see those looks on your faces. Smiling. Joking. Frankly, I don’t need you. I’m enough by myself. You can all watch, or I suppose you can go home. Not too late to watch the end of this world with popcorn and a beer? Like a lot of people that just decided to sit this out?” He peered out intently.
No one spoke, and no one moved. No one breathed. For the moment, Aidan had the entire attention of the audience before him. Amelia’s shoulders continued to shake as she silently laughed. The bards on either side of Aidan seemed to be using some ability like they knew what was coming next, covering their ears.
“So. If you’re staying I want you to think of two things. The first is what you will say when someone calls out Aspiria, and the second, what noise you’ll make when you’re in front of your enemy and you want him to know he’s done for.” Aidan cleared his throat to the side and then put two fingers under his chin and pinched.
The sound that came out from his mouth and throat was immediately too loud, too low, too much. It shouldn’t have surprised anyone when the audio almost shrieked it was so loud.
The sound of a wild animal growling low from a throat that wasn’t really meant for it and amplified over a hot mic. The sound was vehemence, malice, anger, and violence, and it shook the ground so vigorously that the Residents who had been watching impassively suddenly looked troubled. After a brief startle, most of the crowd had returned their attention back to one another, once again talking excitedly and making a horrible clamor just by there being so many of them in one space.
“Not bad.” Someone to Amelia’s left mentioned right next to her amidst the sudden tumultuous screaming. Amelia turned and they all saw it was Khiafin.
“Is that Khiafin!?” Abhy squeaked. “His name is red again!”
“...and Tenebrim. His second.” Jason said quietly.
“Well, no one seems to care what color their names are.” Elias pointed out. “The Residents of this time don’t seem to react to reputation and fame from the future of the game, and it appears that it’s the same for notoriety.”
“Khiafin,” Amelia pulled the man into a quick hug, seeming startled to see him.
“Ah, I’m not really a hugging person but if it is the wish of the Empress of Elysium I have no choice,” Khiafin hugged her back, briefly picking her up off the ground and startling a laugh out of Amelia. He set her back down just as gently and looked around. “Quite the event you have started here. I was telling my friend here, Tenebrim, that it looked like something we couldn’t rightly miss out on.”
Amelia turned and everyone who was watching the stream and from MKC Online got their first good look at Tenebrim, second in command of Khiafin’s Murderer and Killing guild. The man was wearing a dark cloak with the hood pooled at his neck. What struck everyone was how in contrast to Khiafin’s obvious youth, Tenebrim was much older. He was in his early forties with smokey grey eyes and an intelligent half-grin. “Hello. I’ve been enjoying your streams. Would it be alright if we pretended we were good guys today?”
“I think you’ll find we always thought you were good guys,” Amelia seemed to be smiling at him, since he was smiling back at her.
“Already spreading slander, Khiafin?” Tenebrim had the good grace to look faintly insulted, but his smile conveyed he was secretly pleased.
“We are nothing if not civil,” Khiafin sniffed.
“It didn’t occur to me that you would be coming, but I guess that was a given right? I’m the most exciting party on the block right now,” Amelia said loftily.
“Truthfully, we were not sure if we would come.” Khiafin paused, hesitating. There was a worry there, somewhere. “I don’t think that is an open topic while you are streaming though, forgive me.”
“She’ll know about it after we win.” Tenebrim said, as a sudden tired and haggard look crossed his face. “One problem at a time.”
“Well that’s ominous.” Amelia said after a moment of consideration. “Can I invite you to our party chat? It turns out we can go up to 10 members now so even if we add you there’s a spare slot or two I think. Math is Elisha’s thing.”
“Ah, Elisha.” Khiafin brightened. “How is she?”
Khiafin and Tenebrim joined the party channel.
“Is that Khiafin I see?” Hunter demanded over party chat. “Where have you been squirt?”
“My answer would surprise you,” he replied earnestly. “We accidentally turned into heroes of the realm of Elysium. You guys left and all the muck and scum started to drift to the surface.”
“But you’re still murderers?” Aidan asked.
“Well, yes. Turns out the game doesn’t always differentiate the Transients that are scum and those that aren’t.” Khiafin allowed.
“Oh good, Khiafin.” Raven said. “Tell Elisha that I’m right.”
“I most certainly won’t do any such crazy thing.” Khiafin said, sounding suddenly tired.
“Raven is telling me that if she were in a comic book and she saw someone standing on a building silhouetted by the moon she would just shoot them,” Elisha said, doing her best to sound sweet. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No way Elisha! There are only two types of people who stand like that in a comic book. One of them is the villain and you should just shoot them from a distance before they do something bad. Like before they start winding up their super evil power. Pow pow.” Raven crowed.
“What’s the other type?” Forsythe suddenly wanted to know.
“Batman.” Raven said.
“You’d shoot Batman?” Forsythe sounded horrified.
“Well, yeah, but the major difference is Batman wears kevlar.” Raven explained.
“I’m sorry for doubting you Khiafin.” Tenebrim said at last. “These people are truly mad.”
“I don’t know what frightens me more, that she’s referencing a superhero that old or that everyone knew who she was talking about.” Amelia complained.
MKC Online was listening to the party banter. Amelia had allowed it for this, what might be, the final stream she ever produced. Jason and Audrey were chuckling lightly, though Audrey looked like she was a little worried about whether or not they could talk about Batman without creative legal licensing.
“Moments now. Queue Eddie up. Tell him something with a drum beat and then he can improvise from there.” Elias began assuming control. “Get that orchestra and vocal opera piece ready too. We’ll use it for lulls in the battle when he needs a break.”
That was the last thing he said because Amelia turned toward the sky as a sudden boom filled the air. Several dark portals and vortexes began to open and the defender’s got their first look at their enemy. Abhy gasped beside Elias, and fearfully she threaded her fingers in his hand. Wave after wave of monsters were pouring out and slamming into the shore with alarming volume.
Not just the smaller ones they had seen in the feed that Vienne had provided, but larger and more ominous shapes began appearing high above. Instead of falling they seemed to right themselves and floated gently through the air, pooling in ever-increasing circles in the skies. Teng, or Hiryu, Elias thought. He had taken a course in Chinese mythology in college once, and the giant wingless wyrms that floated serenely through the sky seemed to blot out the sun. Void, it seemed, wasn’t taking any chances with this world.