C.J. Carella's Website

In The Eternal Journey, I combine my love of gaming and writing fiction in what I hope you will find an entertaining, action-packed story. These sample chapters have not undergone final edits and may have some tyops or be altered in the final release. The book is available for preorder here.

@2020 Fey Dreams Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved

TWLIGHT TEMPLAR

Eternal Journey Online, Book One

By C.J. Carella

Did you ever think that life is maybe a game? There is no difference between life and a game, you know.

- Robert Anton Wilson

When you play a game of thrones, you win or you die.

- George R.R. Martin

LEEEEROY JENKINS!

- Leroy Jenkins

Prologue: The Rapture of the Geeks

Eternal Journey Demo Hits Two Million Downloads

Kimmy Roach, Gamer World News (May 11^th) - Eternal Journey Online has already made a huge impresion in the gaming community. A free demo of the game has been downloaded over two million times in the two days since its release. Initial reactions to the newest entry in the MMORPG market have been overwhelmingly positive, with Hugh Wakaneko of PlayStop Reviews saying “While on the surface EJO is a throwback to such traditional MMORPGs as World of Warcraft or Everquest, the quality of the demo’s graphics and its immersive – almost hypnotic – gameplay and atmosphere make it stand out. I for one cannot wait for the game release.”

Eternal Journey Online is the first release of Laughing Man Productions LLC, a new (and rather secretive) company based off Stockton, PA. LMP’s creative team has not given or accepted requests for interviews, communicating solely through press releases and social media announcements. How this small indie company has been able to produce a demo that matches or surpasses the quality of a Triple-A game remains a mystery.

As the demo’s opening cinematic reveals, EJO players assume the role of Eternals, quasi-immortal beings able to resurrect after death (which provides a nice in-game explanation for respawning), and who can learn any skill and either multiclass or specialize heavily in one class as they rise in levels. The game can be soloed, but its numerous dungeons and raids are geared towards teams or large parties. Player characters will start on the Common Realm, a large setting spanning four continents and a variety of regions. As characters advance in power, they will unlock access to higher realms or dimensions, each more difficult than the last, until reaching the Realm of Gates, where they will confront godlike beings for “control of the universe,” whatever that means.

Eternal Journey Online is scheduled for release in September and will launch on all major gaming consoles as well as PCs. The game will be free to play, with a cash store offering cosmetic items and vanity pets.

EJO Launch One of Biggest in History,

But Questions Remain

Kimmy Roach, Gamer World News (September 15^th) - While the veil of secrecy around Laughing Man Productions continues to frustrate journalists, the game’s release has broken records across the world. An estimated seven million players signed up for the free-to-play MMORPG and, despite fears to the contrary, the launch has gone off on schedule and without a hitch. There have been no long queues to enter the game and servers have remained stable despite hosting hundreds of thousands of concurrent users. Veteran game designer Sid Sherman considered the lack of issues to be “nothing short of amazeballs.”

Initial ratings on Vapor-net and MegaCritic have a reviewer and user average of 93%; most players are enjoying themselves enormously. Meanwhile, a growing number of questions remains to be answered, mostly regarding the owners and operators of Laughing Man Productions. A small company with no other previous releases, LMP has built its overnight success via word of mouth and social media promotion. None of the game’s designers have done any previous gaming work. Industry insiders are befuddled at the indie designers’ achievements, even as some pundits predict the game’s expensive graphics will prove too costly for a free-to-play model.

Despite their detractors’ concerns, LMP’s game continues to be a success.

Hundreds Go Missing Over Weekend

Dan Knout, Yohoo News – (September 25^th) A rash of unexplained disappearances has broken out across the US over the weekend, leaving authorities mystified. Several hundred people have been reported missing over the September 20th-22nd weekend. Most of the missing were last seen at their homes. Allegations that many if not most of them were playing console or computer games when they vanished are rising in number, but have yet to be confirmed.

“One minute he was in the rec room. The next, he was gone,” says Martino Hirsch, 27, roommate of one of the missing. “I went to meet the pizza delivery guy at the door, and when I came back to the room, he wasn’t there anymore. Only way out is through the front door and none of our windows are big enough for him to climb out. I don’t get it.”

 The number of missing persons continues to grow. Hundreds of reports have been filed all around the country. The FBI is said to be investigating, although no official announcement has been made.

50,000 Disappearances Linked to Online Game

Dan Knout, Yohoo News – (December 4^th) An FBI raid on the offices of Laughing Man Productions has resulted in seven arrests but garnered more questions than answers. As of the date of this article, 53,182 people worldwide remain missing in what one pundit has described as “the Rapture of the Geeks.” The mysterious vanishings have been linked to the now-defunct game Eternal Journey Online, although an explanation for the seemingly impossible occurrences remains to be found.

“As far as we can tell, those people sat down to play a computer game and vanished into thin air,” a private investigator hired by the families of several missing people told this reporter. “For all we know, they were abducted by aliens.”

A federal investigation in the US found only one common link among the missing: they were all playing Eternal Journey Online on the day of their disappearance. Interpol’s own investigation found the same correlation in other parts of the world. About half of the reported disappearances occurred during the game’s debut weekend in September, with the rest happening in the days following its release.

Laughing Man Productions officially canceled the game on October 3^rd, citing financial issues as the reason. Thousands of people continued to play the game, however, relying on private servers that sprung up by the hundreds following the shutdown. Officials suspect that Laughing Man personnel aided and abetted the creation of those servers by releasing the game’s software to a number of file-sharing sites. Hundreds of additional disappearances have been linked to those “pirated” versions of the game.

Inside sources in the FBI report that the only people arrested so far were clerical and custodial employees of the gaming company. LMP’s owners and managers were using false names and stolen social security numbers belonging to deceased people. Their true identities remain unknown.

Where Are They?

First Anniversary of EJO’s “Rapture” Offers No New Answers

Kimmy Roach, Gamer World News (September 29^th) – No bodies. No forensic evidence. No confirmed sightings. Over sixty thousand people remain missing one year after the fateful launch of Eternal Journey Online, an event that shook up the gaming community and continues to haunt friends and relatives to this day. Despite an extensive FBI investigation, congressional hearings and billions of dollars spent on the fruitless search, no answers have been found. And despite the best efforts of the authorities, pirate copies and servers for the game can still be found online and have led to a continuous trickle of disappearances.

“The people still playing the damn game are suicidal or otherwise mentally ill,” cybersecurity expert Zach R. Mayer said. “They believe those missing geeks are in a better place and want to go there as well.”

Whatever that “better place” may be, no government or private agency has been able to find it, any more than they have been able to locate any of the missing people or the allegedly responsible parties, the owners and game designers of Laughing Man Productions, who remain at large. The apparent impossibility of sixty thousand people vanishing without a trace, despite living for the most part in densely populated parts of the world, continues to baffle law-enforcement agencies and the science community.

Conspiracy theories have grown exponentially over time. Alien abductions, black holes, subliminal messages that convinced the victims to kill themselves without leaving a body behind, spontaneous combustion and demonic possession have all been alleged. The theories continue to be fiercely debated on social media to this day. None have been confirmed.

One rumor that sparked a great deal of interest involves government experiments in which volunteers proceeded to play the game while being closely monitored by teams of scientists. In most cases, nothing happened, just as only a small fraction of the millions of players involved – under one percent – went missing after playing the game. The rumors claim that in some cases – in some variations of the tale, only one; in others, six or even a dozen – test subjects were engulfed by something described as “black light” or “black smoke” and disappeared. Alleged videos of the event(s) in question have been circulated widely – and been debunked, over and over again, as nothing more than amateurish CGI productions.

The first anniversary of this dreadful event has come and gone without an answer to the increasingly desperate questions of those left behind. Only one fact is known: thousands of people from all walks of life, ages fifteen to sixty-three, sat down to enjoy a video game and were consigned to an unknown fate.

Where are they? Why would anyone do this? What happened to all those people?

We may never know.

One

He began his Eternal Journey naked, screaming and covered in blood. In many ways, it was a lot like being born.

Falling. Just a few seconds of plummeting through the dark, but it was long enough to make him scream in terror. He landed on something like a wet mattress full of wooden sticks. Something that stunk like day-old roadkill. The fall hurt, but the pain was nothing next to the realization he had landed on a pile of corpses. His flailing hands touched a cold, clammy face and he recoiled with another scream. He stumbled down the mound of bodies, his naked back sliding and bouncing off unmoving arms, legs, and torsos. Finally, he ended up on a cold, dusty surface. Sand, and stone or concrete underneath, flat and unyielding. He stopped screaming and was violently sick for several moments. It took all he had left to roll away from the mess and curl up on the sand-covered floor.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, paralyzed like a child having a nightmare. Finally, he stopped reacting and began thinking.

What happened? Where am I?

The last thing he remembered was eating a couple of Hot Pockets and guzzling down an energy drink while he finished creating a character for Eternal Journey Online. He clicked on the LET’S BEGIN button on the screen. Then this happened, whatever this was. Falling through darkness. Dead bodies! Nothing made sense.

 He looked around. It was dark as sin, no source of illumination anywhere in sight, but he could see, kind of; everything was shades of neon blue, but he could make out every detail, including the pile of bodies he’d landed on. The sight, combined with the pervasive stench, triggered another bout of nausea. He got himself under control after a few dry heaves, thankfully, and he forced himself to take another look.

The bodies appeared to be adults, both male and female. All naked. Several of the corpses had unusual features: pointy ears, heavy brows, abnormally long fangs. Inhuman. Or maybe just non-human. Besides the pile of corpses, all he could see were four walls, about sixty feet apart, a domed ceiling overhead, and an open archway on one of the walls. The ceiling had holes in it, more than big enough to pass a body. He must have fallen through one of them.

A floating question mark began to flash yellow on the right corner of his field of vision. Just like in dozens of games he’d played, except he wasn’t staring at a screen; the symbol was there, in front of his eyes, remaining in the same relative position even when he turned his head side to side.

This was no game, though. The smell of blood and human waste, the feel of his heart pounding against his chest or the cold air that had him on the verge of shivering, they felt all too real. He had never experienced anything like that in a game. He was thirsty and in pain. This was utterly, agonizingly, terrifyingly real.

The question mark kept flashing, seemingly as real as everything else around him.

“What the hell?” he said out loud. His voice sounded funny to his ears, but most of his attention was on the floating shape in the air. The moment he focused on the question mark, it was replaced by a hovering square of black text on an off-white surface:

GREETINGS, HAWKE LIGHTSEEKER

Welcome to the Eternal Journey! Please remember to check your inventory and equip your weapons and armor before proceeding. While death is not a final state of affairs for Eternals like yourself, it has several debilitating effects. And if you perish too many times, you will be cease to be, permanently.

Your first quest can be found on your quest log. You can access it simply by mentally ‘clicking’ on it. Be aware that this is not a game, except in the sense that war and the struggle to survive are games. The trials you face are quite real, as will be their consequences. Do not go into danger lightly or you will live to regret it.

Finally, you must know one thing: you cannot return to your old life, not now and perhaps not ever. Only those with true power can undo the transformation you have undergone. If you are strong and cunning enough to prevail, you will do well. Otherwise, you will eventually lose yourself. Such is life on the Eternal Journey.

Best of luck,

Arbiter Primus

He read the message a couple more times. As he did, he noticed three images had appeared next to the floating text box. A stylized helmet, a backpack, and a white question mark. Like the original question mark, they stayed in his field of vision no matter which way he turned his head or focused his eyes. Long years of gaming left him no doubt that those were icons: the helmet could lead to his character stats, the backpack to his inventory, and the question mark – could that be any more obvious? – to his quest log. Just like a damn game. And the message had used the name he’d chosen for his character.

“Ridiculous,” he said, but the word held little power against the smells, the aches and pains of his hard landing, and the feel of his bare feet on the sandy ground.

No virtual reality system could even begin to simulate any of this. The best rig he’d heard of could only affect sight and sound, and to a limited degree at that. In any case, he hadn’t been using a VR system. He’d been playing on a standard game console linked to the fifty-inch plasma screen he’d splurged on a couple months before.

His name was Ben Velasco, age twenty-six. He worked as a plumber, had recently completed his apprenticeship, and was making good money at it. In his spare time, he played computer games or tried to pick up girls at bars; he was mildly successful at both pastimes. He’d downloaded a free copy of Eternal Journey Online at the insistence of his gaming guild, which was quitting World of Warcraft to try out the hot new game. He’d loved the EJO demo and had been more than happy to join in. At least until everything had gone dark and he’d landed here. Hawke Lightseeker was the name of his WoW Paladin (or rather, given WoW’s character name limits, it’d been Hawkelights). He most definitely didn’t want to be him for real, however.

It all feels real, though. Might as well treat it that way.

Being naked in a cold dungeon was proving to be a lot more unpleasant in real life than in a game. Using the same mental ‘mouse click,’ he opened his inventory. The backpack icon and the floating screen expanded into a thirty-two-slot grid on the left side of his field of vision, four columns with eight square slots each. He’d seen grids like that a gazillion times before, but never as a ghostly screen in front of him, one that turned translucent when he tried to peer past it. There were eight items in the inventory, each taking up a slot. He recognized all of them; he’d selected them during character creation. As he focused on each item, a text box appeared displaying information about it.

  Ordinary Clothing

A set of woolen trousers, undergarments and padded shirt. Can be worn under armor.

Worn Breast Plate

Damage Resistance: Physical 8/30% Elemental (Fire) 2/0% Elemental (All Other) 0, 0%. Dexterity Penalty: -3. Stealth Penalty: -40% Speed Penalty: -10%. Durability 30/30. Requires Heavy Armor Skill.

Studded Leather Leggings

Damage Resistance: Physical 4/10% Elemental (All) 1/0%. Dexterity Penalty: -1. Stealth Penalty: 0. Speed Penalty: -5%. Durability: 22/22. Requires Medium Armor Skill.

Sturdy Leather Boots

Damage Resistance: Physical 3/10% Elemental (All) 2/0% Arcane 0/0%. Durability: 10/10.

Rusty Longsword

One-handed. Damage: 7-10 Physical

Durability: 25/25. Requires Sword Skill.

Plain Wooden Shield

Block Bonus: +25%.

Damage Resistance (Successful Block Only): Physical: 25/30%, Elemental (All) 10/20%, Arcane 0/0%.

Durability: 25/25. Requires Shield Skill.

Iron Rations (12): Will stave off hunger for eight hours.

Water Bottle (12): Will stave off thirst for eight hours.

It had been his first time playing the game, so he wasn’t sure what the stats meant or how good they were (he guessed not very). But the iron rations and water were easy enough to figure out. He definitely could use some drinking water. As soon as he thought about it, a bottle appeared in his hand and the inventory number after the entry ‘Water Bottle’ changed from 12 to 11. Magic, or tech so advanced it might as well be magic? He didn’t know. Having instant access to his inventory would be very useful either way.

The container wasn’t glass but some sort of glazed earthenware with a cork on one end. He popped the cork and greedily gulped down the contents. The water tasted flat – boiled, maybe? – but in his current state it might as well have been his favorite energy drink. As soon as he was done, a notification prompt appeared on the left corner of his field of vision. He opened it by ‘clicking’ on it with his mind:

You are no longer afflicted with Thirst. Your Endurance regeneration has returned to normal.

Well, that’s good to know, he thought.

He began to throw the empty bottle away but caught himself. Being wasteful was one thing back in the twenty-first century, but if he really was trapped in some fantasy world, a bottle wasn’t something you just threw away. Besides, he only had four days’ worth of food and water; he might need to refill the bottles at some point. Willing the empty bottle into the inventory was as easy as thinking about it. Now he had one Empty Bottle filling a slot in his inventory. Magic. A nonsensical word, but it fit the situation. Wherever he was, magic worked here.

It was time to do something about being naked. Problem was, he was covered in slime and blood. He wasn’t about to use his limited water supply to wash up, but he’d read somewhere that desert people used sand to scrub themselves, and there was plenty of that around. It was chafing and painful and he got nowhere near to being truly clean, but he got rid of some of the grossest stuff.

Getting dressed was magically easy as well: when he selected the Ordinary Clothing, a prompt appeared:

Equip? Y/N.

He selected ‘yes’ and next thing he knew he was wearing the garments. The same happened to the suit of armor. Everything fit him okay, although not very comfortably. The woolen shirt was coarse and itchy, but on the other hand it warmed him up. The leggings fit him snugly; they had tough, strips made of thicker leather covering vulnerable spots; they might turn a sword blade or cushion a blunt impact.

The metal breastplate was heavy, and made bending at the waist difficult, but he found he could move without overbalancing himself. He had seen a YouTube video that showed a trained knight could do somersaults in a full suit of articulated plate, so that didn’t surprise him. His character – Hawke – had the Heavy Armor Skill; he’d picked it up during character creation. From the looks of it, his body had the muscle memory necessary for the skills he had selected. That was great, because he’d never been to even a Ren Faire before; all his experience with medieval weapons had been through a game controller or a keyboard and mouse.

The sword and shield appeared in his hands when he summoned them, along with a belted scabbard for the weapon. He took a couple of practice swings with it, moving with a grace and sureness he’d never felt before. His body was nothing like his ‘real’ one, either: it was lean and wiry, without the beer belly no amount of sit-ups ever managed to eliminate. Plenty of muscle, but not the bulky kind of a weightlifter. More like someone who trained for speed as well as strength. Not bad. Kinda like what he had imagined Hawke would look like, as a matter of fact.

Just as he was about to put the sword back in its scabbard, he heard weird, chittering noises coming from beyond the archway leading out of the corpse-strewn chamber. They were nothing like the sounds human beings would make.

And whatever they were, they were coming closer.

Two

Oh, crap.

He hadn’t even checked his character stats or quest log, but he didn’t want his field of vision obscured by information screens, not when he was about to have company. Instead, he tightened his grip on the sword, made sure he was holding his shield securely, and he moved as quietly as he could, putting a mound of corpses between him and the entrance. Best to see who or what was headed his way before they saw him. The noises were pretty close. A flickering light shone into the room, throwing splashes of color over the neon blue of his dark vision. He forced himself to stand still and take shallow breaths.

Soon enough, a handful of figures came through the archway and his heart skipped a beat. They were hideous, ten-limbed monsters made of a bizarre combo of spiders and humanoids. Their bottom bodies were bulbous and supported by eight spiny legs. A humanlike torso covered with spiky dark fur protruded from the spider body; it had two skinny arms ending in skeletal-looking hands. The grotesque heads on top were spiderlike, with two large segmented eyes and a pair of mandibles underneath. The spider-people held three-pronged spears in their hands; rolls of rope were slung on their shoulders. They spoke to each other in a chittering language he couldn’t understand as they walked in, moving with quick, inhuman strides.

He ‘clicked’ on the creatures, and floating words and numbers appeared over their heads.

Murk Arachnoid

Level 1 Worker

Health 18 Mana 11 Endurance 20

Below the text were three status bars next to the words Health, Mana and Endurance, colored red, blue and green, respectively. The boxes over the spider-men had a deep red outline, which suggested they were hostile. His body seemed to know that as well, because the moment he saw them he was consumed with revulsion and loathing. He didn’t want to talk to them. He only wanted to attack or run away.

Despite that, a part of him wanted to wait, to see if there was a non-violent solution to be found. If he attacked them, there would be consequences, win or lose. For all he knew, there might be hundreds more of those things waiting within earshot. Or he might be breaking the local laws and end up hunted down for slaughtering some innocent sanitation workers or whatever.

Hawke – that was his name, he decided; Ben Velasco had ceased to exist when magic turned him into his character – set those concerns aside. He knew in his heart that this was a case of kill or be killed, and that there would be no quarter offered and none accepted. Either that, or gaming had warped his morals, just the way anti-gamers claimed. No matter. He had to act.

Five on one. Jesus.

The spider-things – the Murk Arachnoids – headed straight for the nearest pile of corpses. Hawke stayed out of sight; he couldn’t see the critters anymore but heard the sound of metal hitting flesh, followed by dragging sounds. He realized that the Arachnoids were taking bodies from the pile. Hawke was pretty sure they weren’t taking the corpses off to give them a proper burial. These guys weren’t sanitation workers; they were kitchen assistants, come to the larder to fetch dinner. The thought made him angrier than he’d ever been before.

Go.

Hawke sprang from behind the mound, going to the left. Two Arachnoids were there; they had stuck their tridents in the torso of a body and were pulling it from the pile of bodies. A woman’s corpse. That just angered him more, and the anger helped him fight off his fear.

The closest Arachnoid spotted him and chittered a warning. It tried to remove the stuck trident, but the points were embedded too deeply in the corpse. It let go of the useless weapon and reached for a dagger hanging from its belt. Hawke got there first. His body’s muscle memory told him what to do. Stab with the point while keeping the shield between him and the second opponent. The longsword hit the creature’s lower body and punched through its hard, leathery skin with a wet thunk. He felt the impact through his wrist and forearm, and the brief resistance was followed by the feel of stabbing something softer and yielding. A red number ‘7’ floated past his eyes, too quickly to distract him, thankfully.

He twisted the sword as he pulled it free, widening the wound. The arachnoid gave out a piercing buzzing whine, sounding more like electronic feedback than anything alive. Dark, thick ichor spurted out of the wound as a second number – a 6 this time – flashed by. Hawke thrust at it again, aiming for its humanoid torso. The arachnoid managed to grab the sword with its all-too humanlike hands, but only managed to cut itself as the sharp two-edged blade slid through its fingers and pierced the juncture between its head and body. The buzzing sound stopped; Hawke barely had time to pull the sword out before the creature collapsed lifelessly to the ground. Even as a number 8 floated up, the creature’s status bars went down to zero.

I just killed someone.

The thought was drowned out by his body’s instincts and he turned just in time to receive the charge of the second arachnoid, who had freed its trident and was determined to avenge its companion. Hawke caught the weapon’s three points with his shield. One of the metal heads dimpled the inner lining of the shield; the other two didn’t penetrate the wood. Hawke twisted and pivoted, levering the trident aside and delivering an overhead slash at an exposed arm. The sword’s edge cut through chitin and flesh; unlike a human arm, there was no bone underneath, just more gelatinous ichor. More buzzing screams – and a number 8 – followed. With only one good arm, the arachnoid wasn’t able to bring the trident into play before Hawke stabbed it through the chest.

Ichor spurted as a much bigger red number – 14 – exploded upwards. Critical strike! The arachnoid slumped to the ground, dropping its trident. Hawke had to shake the weapon’s three points loose from his shield. He didn’t feel terrified or disgusted; his only emotion was a sense of desperate urgency.

Two down, three to go.

One of the survivors had been close enough to see the deaths of its friends. If it had waited for its two buddies, things might have gone differently, but it came charging at Hawke on its own, trident held high, buzzing madly as it skittered on its eight legs. Hawke ran to meet him, shield up, sword ready to cut or thrust. The trident head flashed forward, aimed low towards Hawke’s exposed lower legs, but some instinct told him that was a feint, so when the spider creature shifted its grip on the weapon and swung it up towards his face, he was ready for it. His shield slapped the trident aside and he swung his sword, inflicting a shallow – only 2 points of damage – cut on its shoulder. The wound made the creature recoil in pain; it tried to retreat but Hawke followed it, stabbing again and again. By the fourth hit, it sank down to the ground as its Heath bar zeroed out.

 The last two came at him together and the fight turned into a desperate scramble; Hawke ducked and dodged away from the pair of stabbing tridents as the Arachnoids forced him back. He got hit on his right side; the breastplate held off the points but something gave way under the impact – a rib, maybe – and the pain made him gasp. He retreated as he saw a red 4 flash off the corner of his eye. So that was what taking four points of damage felt like. He didn’t like it one bit.

The arachnoids moved forward, eager to get him. Hawke reversed course and came at the one on his right. He ducked under a thrust and cut one of its legs off, making it stumble, and kept moving, interposing the trashing body between him and the second creature. His next slash produced a spectacular splash of ichor; the wounded arachnoid went down. The part of his mind that was treating all of this as a game noted his swing had been another critical hit and inflicted 16 points of damage.

One left.

Hawke felt a spike of agony on his side every time he drew breath. He also noticed blood was running down his left leg from a wound he didn’t remember getting. He forced himself to ignore the pain as he turned towards his last foe. The spider-thing scrambled towards him; its weapon was held up for an overhead thrust. Hawke lunged and his sword point pierced the creature under its armpit. He ripped the weapon free; ichor spattered his face, blinding him, but his last blow followed the buzzing sounds the creature made and landed. The arachnoid went limp and silence returned to the chamber.

Hawke wiped his eyes, breathing heavily. He looked at the were-spiders’ mutilated bodies in disbelief.

I did this.

For slaying your foes, you have earned 75 Experience. XP to Next Level: 75/100.

Part of him was repulsed, but another part was exhilarated. He had been terrified and angry until the fighting began; after that he had been detached, considering only tactics. Not quite a killing machine, but someone totally focused on the fight at hand. He wasn’t sure what that said about him, but he was alive and those creatures were dead.

He wanted to live, if only to find whoever had done this to him and make them pay.

Three

Hawke rubbed off the rest of the sludge-like blood from his face, fighting the impulse to retch in disgust as he cleaned his sword before putting it back in its scabbard, a trained reflex as natural to his new body as breathing. His heart was racing and the pain of his wounds seemed to grow with every passing second. Something was flashing red on the left corner of his field of vision: when he focused on it, he saw his own status box, just like in so many games he’d played before:

Hawke Lightseeker. Half-Elf (Eternal)

Level 1 Paladin

Health 7/24 Mana 24 Endurance 10/27

WARNING: You are bleeding and will continue to lose 1 Health per 10 seconds until you heal yourself.

Great. He was down to less than a fourth of his hit points – or Health, as this game that wasn’t a game called them – and he was also exhausted, not to mention bleeding to death. Since he felt like he was about to die, the numbers reflected reality much too closely for his taste.

He was in a world that worked like game. Somehow. The whys and hows had to wait. The important thing was to figure out how to heal himself. He needed information, and the flashing prompts around him could provide it. First, he ‘opened’ his character information.

Name: Hawke Lightseeker. Race: Half-Elf (Eternal). Class: Paladin. Level: 1

Experience/Next Level: 75/100

Attributes:

Strength 12, Dexterity 12, Constitution 16, Intelligence 11, Spirit 16, Perception 12, Willpower 11, Charisma 15

Characteristics:

Health 24 (Regain 2.6/minute)

Mana 21 (Regain 2.6/minute)

Endurance 21 (Regain 2.6 minute)

Identity: 19

Skills

Dodge 4, Lore 1, Shield 5, Spear 3, Survival 2, Sword 5

Languages

Common Fey, Vulgate, Lesser Angelic

Perks

Dark Vision, True Sight, Undying, Unlimited Potential

Spells/Abilities

Aura of Light, Shield of Light, Touch of Light

His Health ticked down to six. Hawke remembered two of his spells could heal. A couple of mental mouse-clicks let him see what his spells could do:

Aura of Light

Time to Cast: 5 seconds. Mana Cost: 4. Duration: 6 minutes. Range: 30-foot radius around caster. Effect: Heals everyone in the area of effect by 1 point of damage per caster Level every second. Secondary Effect: Provides illumination equivalent to a torch for the duration of the spell. Side Effects: Stealth chances reduced by 80%.

Shield of Light

Time to Cast: 5 seconds. Mana Cost: 6. Duration: 6 minutes. Range: Self. Effect: Creates a defensive aura that can reduce the damage of any attack by (Level x 2) points of damage (All types).

Touch of Light

Time to Cast: 2 seconds. Mana Cost: 2. Duration: 6 seconds. Range: Touch or Self. Effect: Heal 4 Health per Level plus 2 Health per Level every second for six seconds.

Heals please, he told himself. Thinking about the spell name – Touch of Light – triggered something inside his head, and he found himself calling on someone called Lumina, Goddess of Light. The words of the spell came to him. As he spoke them, a warm current of power ran from his heart to both his hands, which started glowing with an intense yellow light. The light then flowed back into his body and the pain of his wounds faded away.

Nice. According to his status bar, his Health went from 6 to 10 out of 24 and the Bleeding debuff disappeared. A second later, his Health rose to 12. Instead of casting Touch of Light again, Hawke activated Aura of Light next. Once again, the words of the spell came rushing out of his mouth as if he’d practiced them for years. Lots more words, for a longer casting time; doing it in the middle of a fight might not be a good idea. The golden light came back and stayed, surrounding him in a glowing aura. He looked at the cut on his leg; the wound had been replaced with a faint scar. By the time the Touch of Light spell elapsed, his Health pool was up to 21 out of 24; the Aura of Light got him up to full three seconds later. He was still tired, but felt much better now.

He checked his status bar: it now read Health 24, Mana 18/24 Endurance 5/27. As he watched, his Endurance went up to 7/21. It seemed that as long as he wasn’t fighting or exerting himself, his Endurance also regenerated.

Hawke remembered creating his character – creating himself, sort of – before the nightmare had begun. It had been simple enough. Pick a class – he’d chosen his old mainstay, Paladin – which gave him access to Light Magic and three beginner spells. Distribute twenty-five points among eight attributes, all defaulting at level 10 (Average). Then he had twenty points to spread among skills; he had simply followed the game’s recommendations. Finally, he was given three Perks and the choice for a fourth one. He had picked Dark Vision. More than good enough to get started. Well, to get started in a game, not in a life-or-death struggle where monsters could really gut you like a trout. He’d been too much of a noob to use his spells in the first fight. And when he was creating the character, he hadn’t even bothered to read what his Perks did for him. He did so now:

Perks

Dark Vision: As part of your Half-Elf heritage, you can see in total darkness, although only in a monochrome blue.

True Sight: A gift shared by Adventurers and Eternals. You can see the Class, Level and Characteristics of any being or item up to fifteen levels above your own. The range of his perk is determined by your Perception Attribute.

Undying: Unlike mere mortals, Eternals can return to life after being killed, although the process is traumatic and multiple deaths will carry a heavy price, reflected by your Identity Characteristic. When killed, your body and any carried or Soul-Bound items will disappear, only to return three to six hours later at your selected Reincarnation point.

Each time you die, you will lose 1-3 Identity Points, as well as all your accumulated Experience. You may also start to forget things about your past. If your Identity is reduced to zero, you will cease of exist as an Eternal, and experience what all living things do when they die. Your Identity will be reinforced by one point for every level you gain. To advance in power is the key to immortality.

Unlimited Potential: As an Eternal, you can learn any skill through practice and training, ignoring class or racial requirements. Additionally, you can choose to advance in multiple Classes. You chose your first class at Level One, and will be able to select an additional class at level ten, twenty, thirty-five, and fifty, for a maximum of five classes.

Hawke remembered being a bit annoyed by the possibility of permadeath when he was creating a character. Now it was a lot more serious. Not dying had to be his first priority. His second priority was to get the hell out; he had no intention of loitering in the corpse-strewn chamber. The Arachnoids he had killed would be missed sooner or later. He needed to find a way out, but first he had to deal with a blinking prompt quietly demanding his attention: the quest log. He opened it.

QUEST: Escape the Catacombs

Your arrival to the Common Realm has been rather eventful. A malignant Necromancer sensed your Incarnation and used his fell magicks to steal your potential. Many other Eternals have fallen here; you can see their lifeless bodies all around you.

Your patron deity, Lumina Gloriana, Goddess of Light, has rescued you from their fate, but you are still in the midden where the corpses of your fellow Eternals are used as food for the vile Murk Arachnoids who serve the Necromancer. Those victims are doomed to respawn, die, and be devoured, over and over again, until their Final Death. Thanks to your goddess, you have been awakened, but if you die, you will be reborn in the same foul spot where you first appeared.

Quest Objective: You must reach the surface and locate a suitable area to designate as your Reincarnation (Respawn) Point.

Rewards: 100 XP, New Reincarnation Point.

There was no Accept/Reject prompt at the end. Hawke figured that that was the sort of quest that couldn’t be refused. Now that he knew what the stakes were, he sure as hell wanted to succeed.

He glanced at the piles of corpses. From what the Quest dialog said, all of those bodies belonged to Eternals like him. People from Earth like him. They had sat down to play a computer game and ended up there, killed on arrival, eaten by Arachnoids and then respawning, only to be killed and eaten again. Some of them could be his friends; his entire guild had started to play the game when he did.

There was nothing Hawke could do for those poor souls, at least not yet. But he would try to find a way to release them from this hellhole.

“I’ll come back for you,” he told the dead, and a new notification appeared:

QUEST ACCEPTED: To Save Your Brethren

You have sworn to come back for the Eternals trapped in the Necromancer’s lair. You must find a way to break the curse and release the Eternals’ captive souls.

Rewards: 5,000 XP, +100 Reputation from any released Eternals towards you, +100 Global Renown.

Failure Penalties: If the quest has not been fulfilled in a year or is Abandoned before then, you will have broken your oath: -100 to Global Renown, -1,000 XP.

“Guess I better watch what I say, even to myself,” Hawke muttered. Not only had the universe forced the Quest on him, he’d pay a hefty price if he failed. One thing was certain. Whether this was an insane game or some warped version of reality, life remained unfair. He had two Quests to fulfill, and one of them was a matter of life and death.

Four

Before he left the chamber, Hawke noticed a pair of glowing icons over two of the Murk spider-people he had killed. They looked like little bags or purses lying on their side, gold coins spilling out from them. The universal symbol for loot, in other words.

This may not be a game, but whoever is in charge has set it up that way, he thought as he approached the floating icons.

Opening one, he was unsurprised to see a mini-inventory: 3 copper coins and one Inferior Dagger that did a whole 1-3 points of damage. Everything went into his inventory. A cash entry appeared at the bottom of the inventory grid, showing him his current worth was those three copper coins. We all have to start somewhere, he told himself.

The other loot bag had two copper points, giving him a total of five. He searched the bodies as well and discovered the Arachnoids carried no cash; all they had were bags filled with dried meat – considering what they’d been doing, he had no intention of eating anything of theirs – three coils of rope, their five tridents (Shoddy Tridents, doing less damage than his sword) and five Inferior Daggers. He also found a Simple Lamp, which one of the arachnoids had left on the ground before joining in the fight.

He took everything in case he found somewhere to sell the items or break them down for crafting components. He had to think like a gamer if he had any chance of making it out of this fresh hell. Accumulating gear and power was the key to survival.

Casting Shield of Light on himself would have been nice, but being lit up like a torch didn’t sound like a good idea. He might not have a Stealth skill but he could at least try to be sneaky. As he set off in the direction the Arachnoids had come from, he tried to be as quiet as possible. His older brother was a Marine and had told him about how you were supposed to sneak up on a sentry:

Maintain your center of balance. Move slowly. Make sure your gear is tight, no dangling crap clinking against each other. Never rush blindly across unknown terrain. Move slowly. Scope your path before you start moving so you can avoid noisy stuff – or worse, mines or IEDs. Pay attention to your surroundings and make any ambient noises work for you. If the wind is moving branches around, for example, use that noise to cover the sounds you make. Move slowly. And carefully. Test every new step you make before you put your weight on it. And did I mention you’ve got to move slowly?

Hawke tried to follow the instructions, painfully aware of every clink and creak his breastplate and its leather fastenings made as he moved. He found that if he took his time and watched every step, the noise wasn’t as bad as when he walked normally. He was nowhere near Ninja level, though.

Congratulations! You have learned the Stealth skill at Level 1. Wearing heavy armor reduces your effective Stealth by 50%.

Taking his armor off would help, but his Worn Breast Plate had saved his life at least a couple of times during his last fight. He’d rather be armored than quiet.

The tunnel leading out of the chamber was about fifteen feet wide and lined with stone blocks, with a square roof supported by wooden pillars set in pairs every thirty or forty feet. There were tracks in the dust, which he quickly identified as belonging to the spider-things; the spiky marks couldn’t be anything else.

Congratulations! You have learned the Tracking skill at Level 1.

That Unlimited Potential perk was paying off big time. He could probably pick up any Skill he tried, although experimenting could wait for when he wasn’t trying to sneak past a lair of cannibalistic were-spiders. Hawke kept moving, trying to be as quiet as possible and grimacing every time his armor clinked. Yeah, a breast plate wasn’t the right outfit for sneaking around.

His hand rested on the hilt of his sword. If it came to it, he could fight. Memories of the frenzied battle made him a little queasy, though. Hurting other people hadn’t been something he enjoyed. He’d only been in a couple of drunken scuffles at bars. He’d gotten a broken nose in the first one and given the other guy a black eye; the other time, he and some other asshat had wrestled around for a bit before the bouncers separated and threw them out. He didn’t go out looking for trouble and hadn’t enjoyed finding it.

In games, sure, he’d happily slaughtered thousands of assorted critters, but those had been pixelated cartoons, lifeless bits of data. He’d never felt what it was like to cut something alive until now. Being hurt – really hurt, having skin and flesh torn open – had been just as bad. What choice did he have, though?

Despite his misgivings, Hawke continued walking – slowly and as stealthily as he could – towards what could turn into another fight. He was afraid, but not frozen by panic. Ben Velasco hadn’t thought of himself as being particularly brave. But he wasn’t Ben anymore, was he? When he played Hawke – he’d used the same character name and class in half a dozen different MMOs – he’d played him as the typical heroic paladin, not afraid to tank for an entire raid and get up in a final boss’ face to keep it busy while the damage-dealers did their thing. Maybe a part of him was still treating this situation as a game. And maybe that was the smartest thing to do. If he panicked or hesitated, he was going to end up piled on top of the dead bodies of his fellow Eternals.

The slow walk had another beneficial effect: his Endurance pool continued to increase. After a few minutes, it was back to full. He didn’t feel exhausted anymore, although he still felt like taking a nap. No sleep until you see the sky, he told himself, and kept going.

He passed two narrow tunnels branching off from the main one. They both led down, so he ignored them; he had no intention of going deeper underground. The main tunnel was slowly going up and curving to the left, so he stuck to it.

Soon after leaving the last side tunnel behind, he heard something: the weird buzzing-clacking sounds the Arachnoids made. Crap. He also noticed there was a light source around the next bend in the tunnel. Hawke moved even more slowly, sticking close to the inner side of the tunnel as it continued to curve to the left. He thought about drawing his sword but decided making noise was more dangerous than being unarmed; in any case, he still had the shield at the ready.

He peeked around the corner and saw the tunnel ran straight for about sixty, seventy feet before opening up into a large chamber. The light of dozens of torches and several banked fires in the room let him see things in living color: houses made of stone, carved right into the chamber’s walls, were clearly visible, along with dozens of Arachnoids, some about the size of the workers he had killed, others tiny skittering things that must be children, and huge beasts easily twice as large. The giant Arachnoids were armed with angular single-edged swords that looked like oversized meat cleavers. They had glistening body armor and helmets, all made of some sort of chitinous material. Their starts were also impressive:

Murk Arachnoid

Level 3 Warrior

Health 48 Mana 23 Endurance 39

Hawke backed out of sight, moving as stealthily as he could. Besides the half dozen Warriors, he’d noticed several roasting spits set over fires. Empty spits. The spider people were planning a feast, and all that was missing was the corpse-meat the Workers he had killed were expected to bring home. If the fires were lit, they were expecting their food deliveries to arrive any second now. There was no way to sneak past that big chamber and he hadn’t seen any other way out.

He was screwed.

A moment later, he heard a woman’s voice in his head.

<Hello! Hello, Half-Elf!>  

What the hell?

<Greetings and best wishes, mighty Paladin,> the voice said.

Who is this?

<Someone who can help you. Come to me if you want to live.>

Five

Hearing voices in his head was barely among the top ten weirdest things that had happened to him since his arrival to the real Eternal Journey. Whoever that was, she could apparently hear his thoughts, so Hawke thought back:

Where are you?

<I am currently thirty yards right below you, but that’s in a straight line and I do not believe you can tunnel through rock.> The voice turned hopeful. <Or can you? Things will be much easier if you can.>

Nope, sorry.

<You disappoint me, Paladin. Very well, you will have to do things the hard way. The first side tunnel you passed on the way here will lead you to me. Once you are here, you can free me and between the two of us, we might make it out of this accursed place.>

Free you. You are a prisoner, then.

<Of sorts.>

Hawke hated evasive and mysterious NPCs. Whoever this voice belonged to was behaving just like a computer-generated non-player character, meant to give him a hard time before providing some vital clue or item. If this had been a game, he might have told the voice to eff off.

Instead, he mentally replied I’m on my way and slowly and stealthily headed back the way he’d come.

Of the two tunnels he’d passed by, the one the voice wanted him to use was the smallest and grubbiest. Unlike the main branch, it was a natural opening, with uneven rocky walls. Its low ceiling required him to crouch down to avoid banging his un-helmeted head against it. After he had traveled a few dozen feet, he noticed it was narrowing down. Going on didn’t feel like a good idea.

<Why are you stopping?>

Well, I sort would like to know a little more about you before I get myself much deeper into this. I can always try my luck in the other side tunnel.

<You are wise, Paladin. Perhaps an exchange of names is in order. I will start. I am called Saturnyx. I served the Demigod Erison the Discordant until his fall at the feet of the Archdemon Aristogan, a thousand and ninety-six years ago.>

Did you say thousand?

<Yes. For long and long, I waited for a worthy soul to find and claim me. I waited for naught. The Arachnoids built an empire among these mountains a few decades after my downfall. And I waited in silence, for they were fell and terrible beings, unworthy of my service.

<When they were overthrown by the Troglodytes of Styx, I dared feel hope, but the Troggs were just as evil. I stayed silent. The Troggs’ time passed and the Arachnoids returned, although their primitive tribes were shadows of their former glories. They lived their fetid lives in relative peace until a Necromancer whose name I have not learned arrived at this mountain six and forty years ago. He built a Stronghold and made a pact with the spiderlings. I resigned myself to keep waiting. And then you arrived.>

Well, he wanted information and he got it. Hawke considered Saturnyx’s words. He had lots of questions, but he supposed they could wait until he introduced himself. Good manners were important.

My name is Hawke Lightseeker, he said. He shared all the stuff he’d selected during character creation. I am a Paladin of Lumina Gloriana, goddess of Light. Who are you, Saturnyx? How can you still be alive after hundreds of years?

<I am a Soul Sword, Hawke Lightseeker. If you take me away from this accursed place, I will pledge myself to your service.>

He’d been talking to a sword. An intelligent, talking sword good enough to be wielded by a demigod. He hadn’t heard of anything like it in the game demo or the opening cinematics, but Saturnyx sounded like a high-level, high-quality item, the sort of thing some first level scrub should never be allowed to find. Maybe this was his lucky day.

All right, Saturnyx. I’ll do my best to get you out of here.

A text box appeared in front of him, startling him enough to make him fall on his ass. The pain on his backside reminded him not to count the day as lucky until it was over.

You have accepted a new Quest!

QUEST: Claim the Demons-Bane

You have agreed to find the lost sword Saturnyx and accept her pledge to serve you.

Rewards: Access to the Powers and Abilities of Saturnyx Demons-Bane.

Failure Penalties: If the quest has not been fulfilled in six months or is Abandoned before then, you will have broken a Promise: -50 to Global Renown, -10 XP.

“Dammit,” he muttered as he sat up.

<Are you all right, Paladin? Did I hear you utter a curse?>

I’m great. Headed your way.

<That delights me almost as much as listening to the death cries of our enemies.>

Sure, whatever you say.

He pressed on. The tunnel remained just big enough for him to make it through, although a couple of times he had to move sideways to get past a narrow spot. He could see why the arachnoids didn’t use this area; there was no way even the smallest adults would fit.

<You are getting close, my future Master. Unfortunately, something unexpected has happened.>

Hawke grunted. The way had begun to widen out a little bit and he’d started to feel good about things. What is it?

<Two hundred years ago, a nest of cave beetles was built on top of my resting place. It appears they have detected your approach and are beginning to stir.>

Why the hell didn’t you tell me about themt before now?

<Well, the nest died out eighty-seven years ago. An Arachnoid Shaman, tired of the beetles’ attacks, cast a death curse upon them, wiping them out.>

 So, they are dead, but they are stirring? It took him a moment to get it. Oh, crap.

<Yes. Unfortunately, their desiccated corpses have just become Undead. No doubt at the behest of the Necromancer. I fear he has detected your presence and is trying to destroy you.>

This was not going to be his lucky day.

Six

<You should be all right,> Saturnyx said in a reassuring voice as Hawke heard the bugs. A series of clicks came from further down the tunnel; in a matter of seconds, the sounds multiplied and became a rumbling sound like some sort of machinery coming to life.

“Fuu….” Hawke said.

He couldn’t go back. If the undead bugs caught him in a narrow section, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. Better to meet them where he had some room to maneuver.

How big are they?

Before the talking sword could answer, the first of the critters skittered into view.

Undead Cave Scarab

Level 1 Beast (Tiny)

Health 6 Mana 3 Endurance 16

The bug was about as long as a shoe, a squat armored shape with six legs and a nasty-looking set of mandibles. It paused for a moment and then came straight at him as another half dozen showed up. Ugh. Hawke had met his share of nasty bugs; doing plumbing in dank basements put him in contact with a variety of vermin. The things rushing at him were on a whole new level, though.

He stepped on the first one and felt it crunch under his boot, but when he lifted his foot the sumbitch kept going and bit his ankle. He took one point of damage.

“Gah!”

He slashed at his own leg. Luck was with him and the sword’s edge crunched into the bug and didn’t chop his ankle off. The Undead mini-monster dropped away in two pieces, but six of its buddies arrived a moment later and he could hear more of them coming his way.

<Paladin, you have to use your auras!> Saturnyx shouted in his head.

“Kinda busy here!” Hawke replied. He speared one of the bugs with his sword point, killing it, but another jumped on his outstretched arm and began chewing on it. Two more points of damage, and it hurt like blazes. He used his shield to scrape it off of him, taking another point of damage for his troubles. By then he was surrounded by the damn things. There were dozens of them, biting at his ankles or leaping onto his legs. He was dead.

<Use your auras, you fool!>

Maybe the talking sword had a point. He started mouthing the words of the spell while he tried to shake off the bugs. The first thing he realized was that casting a spell while taking damage was a lot tougher than normal. He kept stumbling on the words as the scarabs pecked away at him. They couldn’t pierce his breast plate, and the leggings kept most of their bites from reaching his skin and flesh, but his arms were protected only by his woolen shirt and blood started to flow from half a dozen wounds. One leaped at his face; he batted it away with his shield, losing another precious second of casting. A glance at his status bar told him he’d lost over half of his Health. It felt like he was being fed into a woodchipper feet first.

<Are you done casting yet? I know how long it takes to cast Aura of Light.>

Not helping! Hawke thought as he yelled the last word of the spell. His Health pool was down to its last nine points.

The golden aura surrounded him, healing two points of damage per second. The effect the light had on the bugs was something else altogether. All the critters in contact with him began to burn. Disgusting stinking smoke erupted from the squat shapes. The scarabs leaped away from him as if he was on fire. A couple ended belly-up and burned for a few more seconds, their legs kicking feebly before falling still. The survivors ran away.

Hawke felt weak from blood loss, but the aura was helping deal with that. He should have figured it out without the sword telling him. In many games, life-giving spells had the opposite effect on Undead. From the looks of it, the scarabs were especially vulnerable to it.

<It is commonly known that Undead suffer thrice the pain healing magicks restore on the living,> Saturnyx told him in a pedantic tone.

I did not know that, he admitted.

<Then I suggest you return to the temple that trained you in the ways of the holy warrior and demand a refund of any alms you gave them, for you were cheated.>

His Health bar was slowly ticking up; he decided to toss in a couple of Touches of Light for good measure. The feeling of having wounds close and blood being replaced was amazing; the pain didn’t just go away, you felt every muscle in the affected area relax and warm up. Meanwhile, well away from the golden light surrounding him, the rest of the scarabs had gathered together. There were dozens of them. He’d been lucky they’d come at him in dribs or drabs, or they would have torn him to pieces before he could cast the spell keeping them at bay. And they were beginning to creep closer towards him. Maybe they figured that a mass rush would let them kill him before his spell could destroy them.

He started casting his other aura spell. Shield of Light made him glow even brighter; he finished the casting just in time to meet another charge. The bugs were ready for Round Two. Unfortunately for them, so was he.

The difference the two auras made was incredible. The bugs that survived long enough to bite him did no damage except for the occasional critical hit. Meanwhile, even a shallow cut from his sword or a good foot stomp did enough extra Light damage to kill the disgusting critters. He took a few more points of damage but the healing aura closed those wounds almost as quickly as they were inflicted.

The fight – more like an extermination job – went on for a while. Squishing bug after bug felt like an endless chore. He cut and stabbed them with his sword, used his shield rim to crush them, and stomped them over and over. The stench was incredible, like stink bugs, only turned all the way to eleven. His Endurance pool became a worry; as it ticked down to single digits, he found himself swaying on his feet. Saturnyx helpfully reminded him at the five-minute mark to refresh his auras and he was thankful enough he didn’t grumble at the scorn in her voice. Recasting both spells nearly exhausted his Mana, but he had regained a couple of points every minute, so he had enough magical juice left.

The last bug almost got him. Hawke slipped on a piece of carapace and fell forward, ending up on his hands and knees. The surviving undead scarab was the biggest of the gang, with 13 Health. It went right for his unprotected face, mandibles aimed at his eyes. He dropped his sword and grabbed the damn thing, the aura burning it every second. That wasn’t enough; the mandibles closed on his left wrist, drawing blood. Hawke smashed the bug against the ground. He did over and over, even after it stopped moving, screaming in uncontrollable fury all along.

He kept screaming for several seconds. Rage like nothing he had ever felt before consumed him. He raged at the undead bugs, at the damn sword that had almost gotten him killed, at whatever god or monster had thrown him into this damn game world made real. He wanted to go home.

<Are you done?> Saturnyx asked him after he screamed himself into a stupor.

You’d better be worth all of this, Hawke said. You’d better be a gold-level Artifact, Excalibur-grade killing machine.

<I was good enough to be the primary weapon of the eldest child of the Goddess of Chaos, Paladin. The only question is, are you worthy of wielding me?>

“Guess we’ll find out,” he said out loud. His throat felt raw but the healing aura was taking care of it.

He pressed on.

Seven

Congratulations! You have reached Level Two!

You have gained 6 Attribute points to distribute.

New Light Spells Available.

Your Sword Skill has been raised to 6.

Your Shield Skill has been raised to 6.

Current XP/Next Level: 135/250

Hawke opened the prompts as he made his way through the tunnel. As it turned out, killing dozens of Undead bugs had netted him more than enough XP to get him to level two, with thirty-five extra points towards his next level. Deciding that a break was called for, he gulped down another water bottle and tried out one of his iron rations; it tasted a bit like a granola bar, if granola bars were bonded together with Krazy Glue. He did some bookkeeping while he ate and drank.

Hawke decided to spread out his new Attribute points, putting one each into Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Spirit, Intelligence and Charisma. Charisma didn’t figure into his secondary characteristics, but Hawke expected it would affect how people reacted towards him. If he ever made it out of the tunnels, he would reach civilization, where he would be a stranger. Making it easier for others to like him might pay off in the future. After answering ‘yes’ for the inevitable ‘Are you sure?’ prompt, he felt a rush of power coursing through him. His body changed noticeably. His armor and clothing felt a little lighter and tighter, as if he had gained a couple pounds of muscle all of a sudden. He didn’t feel smarter, not exactly, but his memories of the past few hours became clearer and more focused. Interesting.

Time to pick up a new spell. He had three choices available. Blade of Light projected an aura on his weapon that did an extra 3 points of damage per level, doubled against Undead, Demons, and Beyonders, whatever those were. Hammer of Light let him throw a magical energy hammer that inflicted 1-10 points of damage per level (also doubled against supernatural nasties) to a target up to fifty yards away. Bulwark of Light was a temporary aura that could absorb up to 10 points of damage per level. He decided to go for Hammer of Light, just to have a ranged attack available.

Hammer of Light

Time to Cast: 3 seconds. Cooldown: 5 seconds. Cost: 5 Mana. Duration: Instant. Range: 50 yards. Effect: Creates a hammer-shaped missile of pure Light energy that inflicts 1-10 points of damage per level, doubled against Beyonders, Demons, and the Undead.

He looked over the revised character sheet while he finished eating his Iron Ration:

Name: Hawke Lightseeker. Race: Half-Elf (Eternal). Class: Paladin. Level: 2

Experience/Next Level: 135/250

Attributes:

Strength 13, Dexterity 13, Constitution 17, Intelligence 12, Spirit 17, Perception 12, Willpower 11, Charisma 16

Characteristics:

Health 33 (Regain 3.7/minute)

Mana 30 (Regain 3.7/minute)

Endurance 28 (Regain 3.7 minute)

Identity: 20

Skills

Dodge 4, Lore 1, Shield 6, Spear 3, Stealth 1, Survival 2, Sword 6, Tracking 1

Languages

Common Fey, Vulgate, Lesser Angelic

Perks

Dark Vision, True Sight, Undying, Unlimited Potential

Spells/Abilities

Aura of Light, Hammer of Light, Shield of Light, Touch of Light

Not bad at all. With his increased Health pool, he could take a lot more damage before keeling over, although he wasn’t sure how that worked in real life. Maybe magic made his body tougher somehow. Raising his Strength let him do a little more damage per attack; his Rusty Sword now inflicted 8-11 points of physical damage per swing. Next time he might put more than one point on an Attribute to see what happened.

Hawke returned the empty water bottle to his inventory and headed towards the magical sword.

* * *

There truly was no truth in advertising.

The tunnel led to a huge natural cavern, over two hundred feet wide. A water stream poured into a small pond, and stalagmites and stalactites dotted the ceiling and floor. Some of them had been broken off, their jagged edges showing where some powerful impact had broken the stone. He saw signs of a battle that had taken place centuries ago. Bits of metal littered the cavern, along with gigantic bones belonging to some sort of humanoid creature with long curved horns protruding from their skulls. Demons, he guessed. The three intact skulls he could see looked demonic enough, kind of like a mix between a horse, a ram, and a human, except for a set of canines that would do a sabretooth tiger proud. He wouldn’t have cared to meet a live version of those things.

He found the sword lying next to a solidified pool of golden metal. What was left of the sword, that was.

That’s not a sword. That’s just a handle. Where is the blade?

<‘That’ is a hilt, guard and pommel, you ignoramus,> the voice in his head replied. <Together, they form the heart of a sword. The blade was broken and melted down in Hellfire during my last battle. I am the living heart of Saturnyx. Behold my grandeur and know fear!>

Shut up.

He leaned over the inanimate object that had led him there. The leftover piece did look pretty badass, he had to admit. The cross-guard was made of black metal with golden veins running through it, shaped in a shallow ‘u’ to protect the wielder’s hand. The handle appeared to be made of ivory; it had been sculpted into the likeness of a dragon while still remaining practical to hold. It was long enough to wield one- or two-handed, what most games he’d played called a ‘bastard’ or hand-and-a-half sword. The pommel at the end was a multifaceted red jewel. In the golden light of his auras, he saw a shadowy eye in the middle of the jewel.

The eye blinked at him and he staggered back and fell on his ass for the second time that day.

<Are you impressed yet, Hawke? I’ll have you know that my guard was fashioned from Elysian Steel with Orichalcum infusions. That the hilt was carved from the bones of the ancient dragon known as Sorrow, also called the Breaker of Legions, slain by Thor Odinsson and his Chosen Eternals during Second Ragnarök. And the Sacred Ruby used in the pommel once served as one of the eyes of the Great Golem of Balor. Only an artifact such as the Ruby was deemed fit to house the spirit of Saturnyx Demons-Bane.>

That’s great. Where’s the rest of you?

<I was affixed to a two-meter blade of the finest Eternium-Adamant alloy, forged by the Children of Hephaestus, who folded its metal two thousand times to reach the perfect balance between flexibility and hardness. After that, it was enchanted the Wise Council of Malkuth, forever remembered for its sorcerous acumen.>

And...?

<Unfortunately, when struck by the fiery breath of the Archdemon Aristogan, the mighty blade melted, much like the Elysian plate armor protecting my former master. Those pools of congealed higher metals by your feet are all that remains of mighty Eris-Son, may the gods have mercy on his soul.>

While the sword went on and on about how awesome it was, Hawke used True Sight on it:

Saturnyx Demons-Bane (Legendary Artifact): Soul Sword. Level ?? Damage ?? Special Abilities: ?? A Soul Sword’s specific abilities depend on the level of its wielder and the quality of its blade. Must be Soul Bound to use.

Okay, I’m impressed. Only problem is, where do I find a blade for you?

Hawke heard an exasperated sigh in his head.

<I can be affixed to any sword, Paladin. Even that sharpened crowbar hanging from your belt will do, although it pains me to suggest it. I will be but a shadow of myself, I must warn you. Only a tiny speck of my true power will manifest through that poor sample of ironmongery, but the result will be infinitely better than the weapon you now own.>

Okay.

Hawke picked up Saturnyx. The bone hilt felt warm to the touch. Holding it in his left hand, he drew his Rusty Long Sword with his right. Its cross-guard was bronze, with worn spots where nicks and cuts had been sanded off over the years. The hilt was wrapped in leather, and its pommel was a simple steel ball. It was a functional weapon, and in medieval times would be worth more than what a peasant could ever afford to pay. Compared to the work of art in his other hand, however, it looked like, well, crap.

What do I do now?

<Truly, whatever you paid your teachers, it was too much. Allow me to touch that dagger with delusions of grandeur. I will do the rest.>

The talking sword was turning out to be a delight to have around.

Hawke slowly moved his hands together until Saturnyx and the Rusty Long Sword came into contact. Nothing happened for several seconds. He was about to make a snarky remark when the enchanted hilt began to glow. The light it emitted wasn’t the same golden hue as his Paladin spells; it was silver with black motes that moved in strange, almost hypnotic patterns. There was a blindingly bright flash a second later. When it dissipated, he was holding a new sword. The blade was three or four inches longer, and the guard, hilt and pommel had been replaced by Saturnyx’s.

<Best I could do, given what I had to work with,> the talking sword said. Hawke examined his new weapon:

Saturnyx Demons-Bane (Legendary Artifact). Soul Sword. Level 2. One- or two-handed. Damage: One-Handed: 16-21. Two-Handed: 17-33. Requires Sword Skill.

Special Abilities:

Enhanced Attributes: +2 to Strength, +2 to Constitution, +2 to Dexterity.

Enhanced Skills: +2 to the wielder’s Sword Skill.

Dragon-Bone Hilt: Provides Damage Resistance: Elemental (Fire) 30% Elemental (All Others): 10%.

Elysian Steel Cross-Guard: Reduces the Mana cost of spells by 1.

Demons-Bane: Triple damage to demons; double damage to demonically possessed or influenced beings.

Sense Evil: Can detect the presence of Demons, Undead and Beyonders within a hundred yards. Note: Powerful entities may be able to mask their presence.

Special Powers: Choose one from three available Sword Boons.

A Soul Sword’s abilities are modified by the level of its wielder and the quality of the weapon it is affixed to. Must be Soul Bound to use.

“Holy crap.” The sword made WoW’s heirloom weapons look like hot garbage. He could do double the damage he had before and even more if he used it two-handed. And those bennies were just what he was getting at level two; no telling what else the weapon was capable of. Then there were the Sword Boons, whatever they were.

<As I said, it’s the best I could do with the available materials. If we ever find a proper Arcane Smith, ideally one with access to higher-grade metals than mere iron, I’ll be able to manifest a greater portion of my true power, even at these low levels.> The weapon sniffed. <Raising your own level wouldn’t hurt, either.>

“I get it. You’re overqualified to be a noob’s weapon. Sorry I’ve disappointed you.”

<I am sure it will not be the last time you do, Paladin. Now all we have to do is bind our souls and we will be ready to flee this damned catacomb.>

“What is Beyonder, by the way? Second time I’ve seen them show up in my messages.”

<Something worse than the most dreaded Demon Prince from the pits of Tartarus. Something from beyond our reality that even the gods fear. Pray you never meet one of them.>

“Yikes. Sorry I asked,” Hawke said before waiting for the Soul Bond to start. In most games, that sort of thing happened on pickup. He shifted his grip on the sword and waited. Soon enough, a new prompt appeared.

Do you wish to bond souls with Saturnyx Demons-Bane? Y/N

He was probably going to regret it, but he said the word. “Yes.”