Void Page 9

  There were four creatures behind them, now clearly visible in the dimming light of the setting sun. “Don’t do this.” Ajax reached out to Talon. “You can’t go up against them alone. We should all stand together.”

  The dragon rider shook his head. “Not this time. We know so little about what we’re up against, and from what I’ve seen thus far... losing either you or Lillus, would be a catastrophic blow to this world. I believe you’re the Chosen One who will save us.” He saluted Ajax. “And I’m willing to risk my life for you. So keep going, find the Oracle and then come back and save us.”

  Lillus watched him silently, her face blank. “Say something,” Ajax snapped at her.

  Dawnspark still pleaded with Firesoul not to turn back, but the male dragon would have none of it. “I have to do this.” He drew back his lips and let out a long jet of orange flame. “Besides, it’s been too long since I’ve been in a good tussle.”

  “Fine, but don’t get cocky,” Dawnspark snapped, though her neck drooped, as if she had been defeated. After a moment, she lifted her head. “And... Please come back to me. I nearly lost you once already.”

  “I will.” Firesoul nuzzled her neck.

  As the dragons flew right next to one another, Ajax took Talon’s hand. “I guess we have no choice. Good luck. I hope to see you again.”

  The dragon rider grinned. “Luck? Who needs luck? A DPS warrior like me puts my stat points in Might and Dexterity!”

  Grinning, Ajax let him go. “May the One God watch over you.”

  “You too.” Talon turned to Lillus. “Go get em girl.”

  The Demon Mage waved him away. “You’re the one heading off to battle, not me.”

  Talon reached for the lance hanging beside his basket saddle. He’d picked it up in Sanctuary. Hefting it in his arms, the dragon rider grinned. “Groovy.”

  CHAPTER 16

  FLIGHT FROM THE DARK

  AJAX COULD NO LONGER see Firesoul. He and Lillus scanned for any sign of dragon fire, but they saw nothing. The flying creatures of the void had grown smaller, until they could barely be seen in the red-tinged sky.

  The sun was sinking below the western horizon, and soon it would be dark. “He battles them still,” Dawnspark said. Periodically, the dragon had kept them up to date with the battle raging behind them.

  She called their attackers void wyrms.

  “Have either of them been hurt?” Lillus asked.

  “No. My husband says the wyrms are slow to turn, but fast when they’re moving in a straight line. So far, it’s been easy for him to outmaneuver them.”

  Ajax’s hopes soared. “Have they killed any yet?”

  “Not yet. My husband's fire makes them cry out in agony, but seems to do nothing more than slow them down.” The basket saddle shook as the dragon laughed. “My beloved, has really irritated the wyrms. None of them have broken away from the others to come after us.”

  Yana latched onto Ajax’s arm, and he was thankful he wore armor, as her claws would’ve caused him pain, and made him lose hp. “Tell her to stop shaking us around so much,” the succubus pleaded. “I'm starting to get airsick.”

  Ajax might’ve laughed at Yana. She herself could fly, and yet she feared flying on the dragon. The only reason she hadn’t asked to be unsummoned, was because she refused to leave Lillus’s side.

  If the demon did puke, Ajax would likely be covered in her last meal (some bread, ham and cheese). Too bad Spiritual Warriors lacked the spell to remove the airsickness debuff. At level ten, he would be able to remove poison and disease (and cure skin cancer) but even that wouldn't be able to cure Yana.

  Dawnspark suddenly stiffened. “What is it?” Lillus asked.

  “He took damage. One of the creatures struck his tail.”

  Ajax gripped the side of the basket. “Is he alright? What about Talon?”

  After a long beat, Dawnspark glanced around at them. “His rider is fine, but my husband.” Her eyelids flickered. “I’m worried about him. He says he’s fine, that it’s just a scratch, but there is something in his voice...”

  Ajax had no idea how the dragons talked to one another, nor what they sounded like, but Dawnspark was clearly worried. She turned forward again. “I want to go back and help him.”

  Lillus brushed up against Ajax as she peered down at the back of the dragon’s head. “No. We need to get to the Oracle.”

  “I can’t leave my husband. He needs me.” Dawnspark began to slow.

  “No, too much is at stake.” Lillus threw back her hair. “You’ll put Ajax’s life in jeopardy if we go back there.”

  Ajax frowned. All their lives were at stake, not only his. The sun would be out a little longer. If they hurried, maybe he could use the power stored within the Eye of Destiny and use the setting sun to recharge it. He said as much to Lillus.

  The Demon Mage glared at him. “We’ve already been through this. The risk is too great. We must get you to the Oracle, for everything rests on your shoulders.”

  “But my husband!” Dawnspark curved around and started back the way they’d come. “They’re hurting him.”

  “No,” Lillus wailed, Yana joining in on her cry, the synergy between the two making the succubus as desperate as her mistress.

  Dawnspark arched her long neck around to glare back at the Demon Mage. “I go where I want, half-elf. If you don’t like it, you can jump off my back and make your own way to the Oracle.”

  As the two women glared at one another, Ajax broke out in a cold sweat. He had to do something before one tried to kill the other. Below them spread a vast forest, giving them plenty of places to conceal themselves from above. “Put us down, and we’ll hide on the ground. We can wait for you to come back and collect us.”

  Assuming she ever did...

  His idea would be risky. The void seemed to know where he was. It had found him during the fight with Sejanus and now it had found him again. But what other choice did he have? As long as they were riding on her, Dawnspark controlled where they went.

  “No.” Lillus grabbed his arm. “We need to press on.”

  “After she comes back to get us, she can—”

  “Don’t be a fool!”

  A loud shriek tore through the air above them. Everyone looked up at once. In the deepening red of the sky, a blurry gray monster bore down on them.

  Unknown airborne entity

  File corrupted

  Sub routine compromised

  Please contact an administrator and quote the numerals 3567/1/5 20:13

  We hope you’re enjoying your stay in Visaria Online!

  A void wyrm.

  Dawnspark swerved to the side, and the giant gray creature whipped past her, heading at blinding speed toward the ground. The wyrm, nearly twice the size of Dawnspark, pulled up from its decent. As the monster came around to charge them again, Dawnspark let loose a long jet of searing fire. The flames took the void wyrm in the face and it let out a ghastly scream that sounded oddly human.

  But the flame breath did little to slow the beast, forcing the dragon to initiate evasive maneuvers. Ajax, Lillus and Yana were hurled against the side of the basket saddle, knocking the wind out of them. The succubus shrieked, and curled into a fetal position, cocooning herself in her scaled wings.

  -8hp

  -9hp

  Companion suffered -6hp

  Companion suffered -8hp

  Companion’s pet suffered -10hp

  Something ripped into Dawnspark’s left wing as the void wyrm flew by. Blood trickled to the ground far below, and the dragon’s hp bar appeared in Ajax’s mind’s eye. Wow, she has a lot of health. So much health, his healing spells would be next to useless.

  Dawnspark

  HP: 22384/24000

  All but Touch of Light.

  That spell would heal all damage, no matter how many hp had been lost. But it had a long cooldown, so he’d need to wait until Dawnspark had lost far more health than she already had.

  Then Ajax noticed the
gray goo left behind on the dragon’s wounded wing. It had formed into dozens of small droplets that moved around, as if they had a mind of their own. What were they? Dawnspark’s hp remained steady, and she—

  The goo began to sink into the cracks between her scales. Moment’s later, the scales turned the colorless gray of the void. “Your wing,” he began, but Dawnspark had to dodge another attack.

  Ajax smashed into the side of the basket, jarring his arm, and nearly knocking him senseless.

  -22hp

  Companion suffered -18hp

  Companion’s pet suffered -11hp

  Holding the side of the basket saddle with one hand, Ajax grabbed Lillus with the other and pulled her to him. She clutched onto Yana, as all three of them were thrown about.

  -14hp

  These things need seat-belts!

  -10hp

  Companion suffered -10hp

  Companion suffered -15hp

  Companion’s pet suffered -9hp

  Companion’s pet suffered -6hp

  HP: 282/345

  When Dawnspark had righted herself, she glanced at the wound. “I feel strange. Like, something is crawling around inside my flesh.”

  Ajax and Lillus sat up. After checking the void wyrm wasn’t about to attack them again, they studied the wing. More of the scales had turned gray. Lillus grimaced. “I think it’s some sort of infection.”

  Infection? Ajax studied the wound more closely. As he watched, the grayness spread from scale-to-scale, moving well beyond where it had first made contact with Dawnspark. Already, a quarter of her wing was showing signs of discoloration. Would the goo turn her into a minion of the void?

  He swallowed the fear bubbling up inside his belly. “What do we do?”

  After a moment, Lillus turned to him. “You deal with the void wyrm. I’m going to try and get that stuff off her.”

  “What if it infects you too?”

  “I’ll use my blanket, so I don’t have to touch it.”

  He latched onto her. “What if you fall?” Just as he had finished asking the question, Dawnspark lurched to the side and blasted the wyrm with her breath.

  -5hp

  Companion suffered -6hp

  Companion’s pet suffered -4hp

  Again, the dragon’s attack did little to slow the beast, but it did make it cry out in pain. Ajax shuddered at the scream. Why did it sound so human?

  Lillus started shaking Yana. “I need you, Yana. Stop being such a scaredy cat.”

  The succubus peered at the Demon Mage through a crack between her wings. “Please make her land. I beg you, mistress. I want back on the ground!”

  Shaking her head, Lillus pried her pet’s wings open. “Come on, I need you, Yana. Enough of this.”

  Yana glanced at Ajax and then back to Lillus, her eyes wide with terror. Shaking her head, Lillus grabbed the succubus’s whip and tied it around her waist. “Hold onto me.”

  The demon nodded, though she looked far from enthused. With one clawed hand held tight around the whip’s handle, Yana used the other to dig into the floor of the basket.

  Ajax’s heart pounded in his ears as he watched Lillus climb over the edge of the basket saddle. Turning away, he scanned the sky. He had to deal with the void wyrm, before it made Dawnspark lurch around to avoid another attack. Right then, Yana couldn’t be trusted to hold onto the whip. The succubus looked positively pale, and about ready to drop dead from fright.

  As he caught sight of the void wyrm, he found the Eye of Destiny already in his hands. He didn’t remember removing the item from his inventory. Perhaps he’d called upon the Eye without realizing it. The orb felt warm in his hands as he held it up to the last vestiges of daylight. The sun had already sunk well below the horizon, but there remained enough light for him to easily follow the gray smudge of the void wyrm.

  The beast completed a turn and sped toward them. Dawnspark watched the incoming monster and stiffened, as she prepared herself to take evasive measures.

  “Hold on,” Ajax cried out to Lillus. Lifting the Eye, he willed it to unleash its power.

  Instantly, a blast of white lighting shot forth, arcing in the direction of the wyrm. The monster dodged the attack, and the bolt flew off into the distance.

  “No way...” Ajax muttered under his breath.

  The wyrm’s reflexes had been almost instant. Only precious seconds remained before Dawnspark would be forced to avoid the incoming monster. He thought of Lillus being hurled from the wing and—

  Ajax dismissed the thought before it broke his concentration. He couldn’t afford to miss the wyrm again. Already, the Eye of Destiny’s light had dimmed and he didn’t know how much power remained stored inside.

  Willing forth a smaller second bolt, he aimed just to the left of the wyrm. As the first bolt left the Eye, he fired a larger one to the right of the creature, hoping it would swerve to avoid the first bolt and get hit by the second.

  Ajax let out a cry of triumph. Just as he’d expected, the void wyrm moved to avoid the first bolt, and took the second directly in the face.

  Inflicted 333331 damage.

  Status effect inflicted

  The wrath of the Sun (unknown effect)

  With a deafening cry of pain, the wyrm careened toward the ground, white flames spreading over its body. Moments later, came a great crunch as it crashed into the trees a hundred feet below. Smoke rose into the air, as the vegetation caught fire.

  Unknown enemy roundly, and most definitely, killed! (And then some)

  Even the combat log seemed to cheer at his victory. But it gave him no xp...

  Peering over the side of the saddle, he couldn’t see any sign of the dead wyrm. Perhaps its body had turned to flakes of gray snow like that of the wraiths when they’d died.

  Ajax thanked the One God there’d only been one enemy, for the orb had gone dark in his hand. Only when the sun rose the next day, would he be able to power it again.

  As he went to check on Lillus, Dawnspark let out a long sigh and went limp.

  A second later, they began to plummet toward the ground.

  CHAPTER 17

  CRASH LANDING 2.0

  JUST AS THEY WERE ABOUT to strike the top of the snow-covered trees, Dawnspark flapped her wings and slowed their plummet to a steep descent. They struck the trees, branches whipping by them. Then they hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud.

  Ajax’s guts felt like they had been sloshed around in a concrete mixer. With a shaking hand, he gripped the side of the basket saddle and pulled himself upright.

  “Lillus.” He looked at where he’d last seen her but found she was no longer there. “Lillus!”

  What if she'd fallen to her death? He chided himself. Don't think that way. Her hp bar was near full, which meant she still lived.

  Dawnspark moaned in pain, and turned to look at her wounded wing. Ignoring the dragon’s plight for a moment, Ajax grabbed the whip from the cowering succubus and then leapt over the side of the saddle and dropped to the ground. To his surprise, Yana floated down and clung to his back, her claws digging into his armor. “Please don’t leave me up there,” she said into his ear and wrapped her tail around his waist.

  Hauling the length of the whip in, Ajax found the weapon attached to nothing. No Lillus, no blood, no nothing. He handed it back to Yana.

  With a pounding heart, Ajax trod out into the ankle-deep layer of snow, the gloom of nightfall and the canopy of tree branches reducing his visibility to little more than twenty feet. No sooner had he entered the brush, he heard a soft moan from right under him. Leaping back, he fell into the snow, landing on top of Yana. The succubus squirmed, begging him to get off.

  Getting to his knees, he sought the source of the moan. Then he saw Lillus laying on the ground staring at him. “Lillus?”

  She grinned. “That was kinda fun, until you came along and stood on my stomach.”

  Lillus Pwnfire

  HP: 156/220 (+10 BLS)

  “Sorry.” He quickly cast
some Medium Heals to restore their lost hp. When he was done, he crawled over to her and buried his face in her wet hair. “I thought I'd lost you.”

  “You should know by now that I'm not so easy to kill.”

  Yana put her arms around both of them. “I never want to fly again.”

  After a few minutes of holding one another (with a few kisses thrown in), they returned to Dawnspark. Most of the goo on her wing had been removed, and color had started to return to the infected scales. But where the substance had first landed on her, remained the same gray color of the void.

  The dragon let out a weary sigh. “It’s stopped spreading, but I’m very tired.” She let her injured wing gently fall to the ground. “My husband needs me, but I'm too weak to fly.”

  Ajax put a comforting hand on her neck. “Has he been infected too?”

  The dragon flicked her tongue. “Yes, but Talon has removed most of it. My husband is fleeing toward the Imperium, hoping they will run into our former brethren, so they can help him battle the void wyrms.”

  Assuming his former brethren don’t kill him first, Ajax thought bitterly, but decided it best to keep his skepticism to himself.

  Dawnspark sobbed as Lillus and Yana came over to comfort her. “The wyrms are hot on his tail, and he is growing weaker by the second. Like a pack of ghouls, they wait for him to fall from the sky. I fear, he won't make it home to the Imperium.”

  “What can we do?” Ajax couldn't allow his friends to fall. Talon and Firesoul had stuck by him, and been cast out of the Imperium for doing so.

  “There’s nothing we can do to help them,” Lillus said, her voice filled with empathy and determination. “They are far from us now. We should use the time they bought us to escape.”

  Ajax bit his tongue. He wanted to rage at her about what she'd just said, but how could he? The Demon Mage had only told the truth. There wasn't anything any of them could do to help the other two. Better they made the most of their sacrifice, and press on.

  But how? Dawnspark was too weak to fly, and they were near the south-western edge of the Fallen Empire of Pendrax. The middle of nowhere.

  Night had fallen, and they had no idea what lived out in the woods. As far as Ajax knew, no one lived out here. Once, this area had been used to farm resource nodes for players to level their crafting—now it seemed as dead and foreboding as the rest of the Fallen Empire.