Far to the north, beneath a primordial sky, an eternal blizzard ravages over the frigid wasteland. Grimoirh’s crystal dragon fights its way through razor winds, venturing towards an ancient crater, a place called the Scar, where the world was torn open a millennium ago to forge the magic crystal.
Its power waning, the beast plants itself in the snow. Vincent dismounts and lifts Domina in his arms as she starts to come around. The bitter air chills him to the bone as he stares at nothing but endless white in all directions. The dragon roars, bidding its master farewell before it dissipates into the otherworldly void from whence it came. With that, Vincent takes a deep breath, steeling himself to endure the brutal journey ahead, and sets out with long strides through the deep snow. Every step is a battle as the blizzard rages, and the weight of his sword and Domina in his arms burden him while the echoes of creatures both grand and terrible roll in the distance. No living thing can survive in this land, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still things.
Unable to bear the cold much longer he takes refuge in a small cavern – a nook carved into a great glacier that barely shelters them from the deathly conditions. He lays Domina down, dusts the ice off his armour and thrusts the God Cleaver into the ground between them to warm himself by its enchanted flame. He watches her a moment and fleetingly finds himself envious of her supernatural ability to withstand the bitter cold. The fire flickers in his eyes, and the numbness in his face subsides, like pins pricking his skin. He loses himself in thought. Six months ago was the first time he’d physically set foot in the game’s world, but maybe events were set in motion long before he could ever have fathomed…
*
Eric and Vincent have known each other forever. In the mid-2000s, at university, they shared a small bedsit. He fondly recalls his old computer, on which he would spend every waking hour programming their first original video game using Visual Studio 6.0. Their living room walls were plastered with posters of late 80s and 90s releases like EverQuest, Chronotrigger, Duke Nukem 3D, Metal Gear Solid, Ocarina of Time, and of course the original Ultimate Adventure VII, serving as both a beacon of inspiration to persevere when times got tough and a wistful token of their adolescence.
One particular night lingers in Vincent’s mind – a night, like most back then, spent toiling on their first indie game: a crude third-person space adventure.
“What about—” Eric spoke from his desk on the far side of the room.
“No,” Vincent replied without so much as glancing away from his screen.
“I didn’t even say—”
“Whatever it is, forget it.”
Eric swivelled on his chair towards Vincent’s desk and adjusted his round specs, which he wore as a tribute to his idol, the late, great John Lennon. “I just think a few branching conversations—”
Vincent interrupted him again. “It’s too late to go changing the whole game.”
Eric threw up his hands. “But it would be huge! Imagine, every single decision could totally rewrite the experience.”
Vincent finally shifted his attention from the screen. “Eric, my computer is held together with duct tape. We can’t make an interactive Star Wars.”
“Come on, how hard could it be?” he grinned.
“You’re right, it’s barely an inconvenience.” Vincent rolled his eyes and returned to his work while Eric pushed himself across the room to his desk.
“I’m just saying we should be a little ambitious… I mean, we could at least do something about the name.”
“What’s wrong with the name?”
“What kind of title is Runners? It’s a space game, we should come up with something more interstellar.”
Vincent scrunched his face. “But they’re on the run.”
“Yeah, in space!”
Their standoff lasted a full silent minute before Vincent caved and said, “Why don’t we actually finish it before we start arguing over a title?”
“If we want games to be viewed as art, then we should start treating it like it is. Don’t forget what’s at stake!” Eric pointed to an ad torn from a magazine crudely enshrined on the wall. In big letters it read:
4D GAMES ARE LOOKING FOR NEW TALENT.
Show us your game, and you could be working alongside the creative team behind Dead Horizon, Mech-tropolis and the Ultimate Adventure series.
“Don’t you want to work on the next Ultimate Adventure game?” Eric grinned.
“You’re always harking on about the bigger picture, while I’m left working out the nitty gritty details,” replied Vincent.
“That’s why we work so well together! I’m the guy with the plan in the ivory tower, and you’re on the streets making it happen,” Eric laughed.
… That feels like a lifetime ago. They had finished their game in the following months, and in winning the contest had thoroughly impressed the developers at 4D Games. Their efforts had granted them roles on the development team of Ultimate Adventure X. A fleeting smile graces Vincent’s worn face as he remembers how out of place they had looked on their first day. Both of them had shown up in suits and ties, which was met by harmless ridicule and garnered them the nickname ‘the Men in Black’.
They spent their first few months debugging with testers. It wasn’t until the next iteration of Ultimate Adventure that either of them had actually got to do any work as a designer. Back then the basic framework of the game was set up by the chief developer, and everyone would bring in their own proposals as per his brief. Most would fill theirs with walls of text, but Vincent and Eric wrote theirs by hand and etched doodles and cartoons to convey their ideas. It wasn’t long until the chief staff were asking for their ideas at meetings and they had established themselves as a creative force to be reckoned with.
But as the market changed, competitors became more prevalent and players more demanding. Subsequent Ultimate Adventure games garnered less praise. The series fell from grace. After the mess that was Ultimate Adventure XV, the franchise was almost iced, until Vincent approached Eric with the idea to remake the most popular game the company had ever created and the very game that had inspired them both to become developers in the first place. Vincent had always preferred working on the frontlines of development over handling an entire project, but the sacrifice was necessary to ensure that the remake would come out the way he had envisioned, although never in a million years did he envision it would end with him as a popsicle in a frozen wasteland.
*
Lauren stares vacantly at the crackling pyre. She curls up and rests her chin on her knees while her anxious mind drowns the music from her earphones, treading and retreading a maze of thoughts. Vincent, the game, Eric – what does it all mean? The way he was carrying Remy’s severed hand around like some accessory seriously disturbed her. What could possess him to do something like that to her? His eyes were vacant, it was like looking into a void, like a part of him was missing. And why would he think Eric was dead?
“Can’t sleep either?”
A shape pauses in Lauren’s field of vision. Jessica approaches the pyre and her eyes light up at Lauren’s earphones.
“Oh my God, is that music?” She plants herself next to Lauren, like a dog begging for scraps. “What’re we listening to?”
Lauren hesitantly passes Jess one of her earbuds as she scoots closer to revel in the music. The tune washes over her like water, cleansing the stress and worry of the last few days from her pores. She was beginning to wonder if she’d ever hear music again.
Jessica smiles like a weight has been lifted. “Ah, The War On Drugs,” she says.
Lauren nods. “You like them too?”
“That band is a direct line to all that’s true in this life. Lost in the Dream is such a perfect album, like, every song is amazing. ‘Red Eyes’! No, ‘Suffering’! Oh my God, ‘Disappearing’!”
“That’s my favourite song ever,” Lauren says.
Jessica takes the phone from her hand and queues ‘Disappearing’. She closes her eyes and lets the song flow through her veins and carry her away. To her, life is music and music is life. All she hears, all she breathes, it pulses through every cell of her body. Her soft silvery voice harmonises with the melody, and she’s so swept away that she doesn’t notice Lauren admiring her from the corner of her eye. They sit by the crackling fire utterly spellbound until the song’s end.
Jessica stares longingly at the phone. She misses hers like an old friend. “What I wouldn’t give to go online for, like, five minutes… We could make some incredible TikToks.”
“I didn’t really look at it that way,” Lauren chuckles.
“You use socials much?”
“Don’t really have anyone to socialise with,” Lauren laughs, trying to sound less pathetic than she feels.
Growing up British-born Asian was at times an isolating experience. The first time she was aware that she was different was in primary school, where other kids would pull their eyes into slits and make vaguely Chinese-sounding noises at her. Technically she’s English, born and raised, but whether intentional or not, people’s stares made it clear she wasn’t one of them – but she wasn’t Chinese either. Her Cantonese was nowhere near fluent, her facial features weren’t considered traditionally Chinese – something many of her aunts, uncles and cousins on her mother’s side of the family had made abundantly clear – and she sure as hell didn’t look like her relatives on her father’s side either, who were all fair with red and blonde hair. She spent most of her childhood feeling split in two, wishing she looked one way or the other. She even had two names, one English and the other, Yun – Chinese. Eventually she made a sort of peace with it and kept to herself, reasoning that if her people weren’t out there, she’d be her own people. The few friends she made during her first year of university didn’t bother to keep in touch after she dropped out, and neither did she. Perhaps she’s as much an outcast of her own making. Of course she doesn’t see it that way, but maybe that’s just part of what makes her Lauren.
“So what else you got on this thing?” Jessica thumbs through Lauren’s playlists.
“You’re really into music, then?” she asks.
“I write my own songs. I figure the more I listen to, the better I’ll be. Mostly synth pop stuff. I dunno, haven’t really had that much life experience so I don’t have a lot to write about… yet!”
“Reckon you’ll write a song about all of this?”
Jessica laughs. “I think there’s enough material for a whole album, not to mention a lifetime of therapy.”
*
Ed pulls back the faded curtain and enters the rickety tavern, where Valentine and six identical brothers are playing cards around a table in the corner. He sits alone at the bar and sighs.
After a moment Valentine leans on the counter next to him. “Good timing, I had a bad hand.” He points at the brothers. “Can you believe it? They all look the same!”
“Well, yeah, they’re NPCs. To save money sometimes devs reuse character models…” The smell of hard liquor hits Ed like a truck. “Are you…? Are you drunk?”
Valentine shakes his head. “No. Absolutely not. No way.” Despite his best efforts to compose himself, his hiccups, bleary eyes and inability to stand still are a dead giveaway.
“You’ve been here all day?”
Valentine nods. “I was on a hot streak.”
“You missed all the important stuff.”
“Important stuff?”
“Like what we’re going to do next.”
“Well, what’re we going to do?” Valentine asks.
“Uh, actually we’re not sure yet, but we talked about why we’re all here.”
“Well, let’s hear it.”
“Uh, I guess we’re not sure about that either.”
“Sounds like I didn’t miss much,” Valentine laughs. “Come on, I need some air.”
“You sure you can walk straight?” Ed smirks.
“That’s why you’re coming with me.” Valentine plants a hand on his shoulder and staggers out of the bar.
Near the beach they come across the girls listening to Lauren’s phone by the firelight.
“Nice night.” Valentine yawns and stretches his old stiff body.
Lauren greets him with a polite smile. “Where’d you get to?” she asks.
“Took a mental health day.” He laughs a little too hard, then checks his watch, which is totally busted.
“Do you think we’ll actually be able to get home?” Jessica asks.
“Honestly, I’m still trying to comprehend how the hell we got here, and where the hell here is.” Valentine sits himself down and rests his back against a large rock buried in the sand.
“Mum will be worried,” a little voice squeaks, and George pops up from behind the rock.
“Hey, what’re you doing up so late?” Lauren asks.
“Couldn’t sleep.” He totters over and sits next to her.
“How’s your eye?” Jessica asks Ed.
“Sore, but I’ll live.”
“I’ve been wanting to ask, after that big squid monster everything gets hazy until I was on that floating ship. So what happened to you and Remy?”
“By some miracle, Remy killed the giganeye after it petrified you, and before we knew it we were pulled out of there by Bengeo and his crew. We got shot down by Grimoirh and his goblins and barely escaped, but I can’t really remember how…” Ed trails off.
“Can’t remember?” Remy laughs as she approaches them, wrapped snug in a blanket. “You fainted. You were out the entire time we got shot down, crash landed and had to outrun the falling wreckage. Bengeo carried you like a helpless damsel.”
The others share a laugh at Ed’s expense.
“Not my finest moment.” He rubs the back of his head and half-heartedly laughs at himself too.
“You seriously fainted?” Jessica giggles.
“After he screamed himself sick,” Remy adds.
“C’mon, cut me a little slack,” Ed pleads.
“Then what?” Jessica asks.
Ed and Remy exchange a fond glance as he continues to recite their adventure. “Well, we made it through the man-eating forest—”
“Hold up!” Jessica gasps. “Man-eating forest?”
“Yeah, it’s a thing here,” Remy replies, completely blasé.
“Anyway,” Ed continues, “we got to this little town where the innkeeper lady sheltered us until a bunch of trolls threatened to rob and kill everyone. Bengeo got shot, so Remy and I used a magic mirror to bring the villagers’ hair to life and—”
“Okay, this is getting too weird, forget I asked.” Jessica wraps her arms around her legs and curls up to keep warm.
As laughter dies down, Remy looks to Lauren.
“So you really knew Grimoirh before all this? What was he like?” she asks.
The others look at Lauren too, all of them eager to know more about the black swordsman that has made their lives a living hell.
“Well, he was creative, driven. I don’t think he had much of a life outside of work, but he seemed to love what he did. Honestly, I thought he might be kind of lonely, but he was the only one who treated me like a person instead of a servant or a child.” She sighs. “But now… I don’t know… maybe you know him better than me.”
Pangs of guilt ripple through Remy. Seeing the downhearted look on Lauren’s face makes her regret her earlier accusations. She bites her lip and rehearses her words before she speaks. “I never thanked you properly for pulling me out of that hole. What I said before, I didn’t… well, forget it.”
“You’ll have to excuse my sister, she’s not used to expressing gratitude or remorse,” Jessica says. “Let me translate: thank you for saving my life and welcome to the group.” Jessica nudges Lauren playfully while Remy looks mortified – but she doesn’t refute the claim, so maybe she is growing. Baby steps and all that.
Lauren smiles. It’s been a while since anyone made an effort to connect with her – or maybe it’s been a while since she made an effort to connect with anyone, the jury’s still out – but either way, it’s nice to know she and George aren’t on their own in this weird world.
“Well, I’m gonna turn in.” Jessica yawns as she stands.
“C’mon, George.” Lauren holds her hand out to her brother, but he’s already asleep in her lap. She wakes him gently and walks him to their tent.
Valentine lets out a throaty snore as he slumps on his side. Remy and Ed smile fleetingly at each other before fixing their eyes on the far reaches of nowhere.
“Not tired?” he asks, glancing back at her.
“Exhausted, but I can’t sleep.” She sighs. “I keep seeing those dead things all over me. I dreamt that they were… well… whatever.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“How about a walk then?”
She mulls it over, and glances at Valentine who’s out cold with his face half buried in the sand.
“He’ll be fine,” Ed assures her.
They amble down to the shore where the ocean breeze stirs, scattering the sand across their shoes. Remy gazes at the horizon where the calm sea blends into the night sky and the song of crashing waves soothes her tormented soul.
“I can’t imagine going home after all of this.” She brings her right arm towards her and looks woefully at her injury. “Especially now.”
“I don’t think I can even process ‘normal’ after what we’ve been through,” Ed replies.
He looks back at her and she’s kneeling in the sand, her head tucked in and her arms wrapped around herself. He can just barely make out her quiet sobs over the tide.
“Remy?” He approaches her slowly.
“Don’t. Don’t look at me.” She sniffs, and with a deep breath pulls herself together and stares ahead at the dark ocean.
“It’s okay.” He sits cross-legged beside her and rests his elbows on his knees. “You alright?” He sneaks a look at her bandaged stump. “Sorry, that’s a stupid question.”
“Can we just talk about something normal for a bit? Just pretend we’re on a regular beach somewhere and none of this is happening.”
“Uh, like what?”
Remy thinks for a second. “I don’t know, what’s your middle name?”
“Oh… it’s… Edward,” he answers hesitantly.
“Edward? Wait, so what’s your first name?”
He sighs. “… Edward.”
“You have the same name twice?”
“Both my grandpas were called Edward and my parents couldn’t agree on which one to name me after so… here we are.”
“Right. They disagree a lot, then?”
“Not since my mum moved to Spain without us.”
“No drama like family drama,” she says, recalling a lifetime of chaos.
“Honestly, life is better without her around all the time, she’s kind of a crazy mess. I mean, I love her but… yeah. What about your family? Are you and Jessica close?”
“Not really,” she replies. “Technically we’re not actually sisters, we’re not blood-related. My dad buggered off when I was four and never looked back, and eventually my mum started seeing Jessica’s dad. Her mother passed away when she was a baby, I think. It’s not something anyone talks openly about, obviously. When I was eleven we all moved in together, and we’ve been your textbook dysfunctional family since. My mum raised Jess like her own.”
“Wow, I had no idea. Did it feel weird, getting a sister all of a sudden?”
“I guess… Growing up I felt like Jess was the daughter my mum always wanted and I was just this remnant of my dad breaking her heart and fucking up her life. I was angry and stupid and I said and did things I wish I could take back. I left as soon as I could, went to uni halfway across the country and then I moved into the city.”
“So how’d you land back home?” Ed asks.
She looks downcast and ashamed. “I got fired.”
“Fired?”
“I called my boss a raging arsehole in front of the entire team.”
“Yeah, that’ll do it,” Ed laughs. “Did he deserve it at least?”
“Yeah. He did.” Something of a smile flashes across Remy’s face, and as far as Ed can recall it’s the first time he’s seen her look any sort of happy. “But sleeping on Jessica’s bedroom floor was not exactly how I saw my twenties going.”
“Bet you didn’t see yourself winding up in an RPG either.”
“That definitely blindsided me. Although if you’d given me the option a week ago I probably would’ve taken it. Be careful what you wish for, right? I must have played Ultimate Adventure VII a hundred times when I was a kid. This game taught me so much about life and what kind of person I wanted to be…” She gazes up at the crimson moon, shimmering against the dark ocean amongst a sky of foreign stars and realises she lost sight of who that person was a long time ago.
Ed watches her hair flutter in the gentle sea breeze as she drapes her arms across herself, and he longs for a window into her thoughts. Something tells him that asking her would be the wrong thing to do, so he waits, admiring the lost expression on her tired face.
She smiles. “… The funny thing is I never even finished it.”
“What?”
“I could never defeat the undead griffin in the frozen mountains. I must have tried a thousand times, but I could never do it, so I’d just restart the game after I got to that point.”
Ed laughs. “Well, your secret is safe with me.”
Remy shakes her head. “Back then I’d have given anything to be here. Now I’m fighting to get home. Funny.”
“Is home really that bad?” Ed asks.
“Compared to this? I mean, first-world problems sure, but ever since I was little, I’ve felt like I don’t belong where I am, like I’m supposed to be somewhere else, but I don’t know where that is.”
She pauses and treads carefully over her thoughts, for her mind is not a place she can safely dwell for long. The whisper is never far away and is always eager to remind her of her faults. Selfish worthless jealous failure. You could have been so much more, done so much more.
“When I think about my future it feels like I’m in a room that’s spinning but I’m the only one who can see it. I hated my old job, but I stayed because it made me feel like I had worth even if I was miserable. Now I have nothing. And Jessica, she scares the shit out of me. She’s always been so sure of what she wants to do, but not me, I’m always drifting. Maybe I take that out on her. I know I shouldn’t… I don’t think I’m a good person… Sorry I’m just rambling now… Pretty stupid, right?” She sniffs and forces a smile to distract from the tears welling in her eyes.
Ed shakes his head and gives her a look she mistakes for pity, but truthfully he wishes he had the words to remedy her suffering. Not that any could. If only there were spells for mental anguish as there are for physical.
“I know it’s none of my business, but if you ask me, maybe you should stop treating Jessica like an NPC and start treating her like a party member.”
“What does that mean?” she asks.
“What I meant is, like it or not Jessica will always be a part of your life no matter how much you try to keep your distance.”
Somehow his stupid analogy actually sparks a little revelation and Remy wonders, whether intentional or not, if she’s caused too much damage to ever repair their relationship.
“Why don’t you talk to her about how you feel? Might do you both good to get it all out,” Ed says.
“I don’t know, we’re not really the talk-about-your-feelings type of sisters. We’re more like the stuff-it-deep-down-until-one-kills-the-other type.”
“That sounds volatile.”
She smirks. “You have no idea.”
*
A shadow whips past Jessica’s tent, and she sits up, rubs her heavy eyes and peeks outside. A primordial fear claws its way up from her stomach. A battalion of Runegard soldiers are sneaking through the village, silently pulling people from their rest and rounding them up. She spots more soldiers descending the cliffside and quickly pulls her head back inside. Before she can formulate a way to warn everyone, two soldiers burst into her tent and wrestle her to the ground. They gag her, bind her hands behind her back and drag her away. She kicks and writhes against her captors, and as soon as she slips her gag loose, shrieks as loud as she can.
Jessica’s scream tears through the village, jolting Valentine awake. He staggers to his feet and clutches his splitting skull until the beach stops spinning, then notices two armed soldiers staring him down. The detective’s fist flies forward, but he misses and tumbles over in the sand. They draw their swords at his throat, and he holds his hands in the air and sighs. Better sober up quick.
*
Inside the tavern, Marcus and Bengeo snuff out the candles while Cleo peeks out of the tavern window from behind the raggedy curtain.
“They nabbed the blonde one, the quiet girl and the kid. Esmerelda too,” she says.
“What’s our play, boss?” Marcus asks.
Bengeo rubs his beard and frowns, thinking hard. “Get as many as you can into the caves.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me,” he says.
At a second glance, Cleo spots several guards approach the rickety stairs leading to the tavern. “They’re here,” she warns.
Bengeo cracks his knuckles and whispers, “Stay out of sight. Whatever happens, don’t help me.”
Before the soldiers can position themselves at the doorway, Bengeo bursts out of the tavern fists flying. Wham! The first man drops, then he downs two more in a single punch. The others rush him all at once and drag him to the floor. They bundle on top of the bandit who manages to take out a few more before he’s violently subdued, dragged down the stairs and kicked over in the sand. He lands at a pair of shiny metal greaves, and who is staring down at him? None other than Captain Diamond.
“Bandit,” she growls. Her face is full of wrath.
“We really should stop meeting like this,” he says, wearing a shit-eating grin.
“I ought to cut that smile off your face. For all you’ve done you’ll hang tomorrow, and I’ll be the one to kick the stool from under your feet, Bengeo.” She scowls at her men. “Take him away!”
At her word the soldiers club him over the head and drag his unconscious heap of a body away.
*
Down at the beach, the wind picks up sharply. Remy and Ed share a foreboding look. The breeze isn’t coming from the sea, but behind them. Strange. They turn back towards the village and immediately spot a Runegard gunship descending near the town. Its shiny metallic hull is shrouded by clouds of sand, kicked up by two massive propeller blades beating the air on either side.
He takes Remy’s arm and they dart behind a ridge on the beach. “It’s an ambush! What do we do?” Ed whispers.
Remy peeks over the ridge and sees the soldiers carry Jessica kicking and screaming up the boarding ramp. “What can we do? I can’t help anyone like this.” She looks defeated as she bites the fingernails of her left hand.
A tinge of hopelessness washes over Ed, but he strengthens his resolve. “I know you’re hurting right now but they need us, so spare us the pity party.” He takes her by the arms to shake some sense into her. “You killed the giganeye, you faced Grimoirh when everybody else wanted to run, you clawed your way out of a pit of zombies because you were too stubborn to die! So if you think just because your hand got cut off that you’re no good to anyone, then I got news for you. There are dozens of heroes who lost limbs and still kicked plenty of ass – Luke Skywalker, Ash Williams, Rick Grimes, Finn the Human, Robocop even. So you’re just another amputee that has to conquer evil. Forget what your head tells you and follow the road your heart takes you down!”
Ed’s impassioned pep talk quells her doubt. Her eyes dart left to right as she racks her brain, then she lights up with the embers of an idea.
“If I can get to the sword in my tent, we might stand a chance.”
“Alright, I’ll distract them.”
“Okay, solid plan. Well, it’ll do.” She looks anxious, and with a worried smile he bids her farewell. They split up and sprint across the dark beach towards opposite ends of the village.
*
Valentine is led at sword point up the ramp leading aboard the gunship when he’s struck in the arm by a rock.
“Agh!” He looks around to determine where it came from and sees Ed standing in plain sight clutching another rock in his hand.
“Sorry!” Ed cries, then hurls the second stone with more precision. This time he clocks one of Valentine’s captors in the head and sends the man tumbling off the ramp and crashing into the sand.
“Hey!” Another soldier raises his sword at Ed, who bolts through the village as more men chase him. Valentine seizes the opportunity to escape and barges the guard in front of him into the sand, then jumps off the ramp and body-slams the poor sod. He rolls on his feet and takes off running towards the tents as more men descend the ramp in pursuit. In his haste, he bumps into Remy who draws her magic sword, which comes alive as the guards rush her.
“Battle, battle, battle!” It jolts at the guards, yanking Remy along behind it.
“Whoa! Wait a minute!” she yelps as the sword swishes about and clashes with a soldier’s before swiftly disarming him. Two come at her together, blades swinging. The enchanted sword pulls her out of harm’s way and blocks high as one of the men swings for her head.
“Kill, kill, kill!” the sword shrieks.
“No killing!” Remy yells.
Valentine slips the rope binding his wrists and tackles one of the guards into the ground, saving Remy from a nasty back attack. He pins the soldier to the floor and chokes him out until he loses consciousness.
Remy’s sword prangs against the guardsman, and she falls back on her arse and tries to pick herself up by shifting her weight onto her right hand, forgetting it was lopped off. Her wound sears with pain as she leans on it and she tumbles back into the sand.
“Well, don’t let me die!” she yelps at her sword.
Its morbid eye squints, and the weapon thrusts itself forward, pulling Remy onto her feet. With a flick it smashes against the last soldier’s helmet, spinning it backwards on his head. Another strike bashes the top, forcing the man onto his knees, and a third dents the helmet inwards, making it impossible to remove. Remy kicks the guard over and he rolls about, trying in vain to prise his misshapen helmet from his head.
“Where the hell did you learn to do that?” Valentine asks over the soldier’s muffled curses.
Remy shakes her head. “This thing has a mind of its own.” She shows him the now dormant blade.
“Well, wake it up.” He points at ten armed guards charging towards them.
*
Ed sprints into the cave beneath the cliff. His palms beat the cavern walls as he feels his way along the narrow passageways and crashes into Cleo and Marcus, who pick him up. In a panic he warns them of the coming soldiers, but Cleo pulls him around a corner and holds her hand over his mouth. Heavy footsteps grow louder. The soldiers rush in and are met by a surge of roaring flame that erupts from the dark end of the tunnel and incinerates them in the blink of an eye.
Ozrune emerges from the shadows, and behind the wizard, some of the monks protect a herd of villagers and refugees.
“Come with me,” the wizard says to Ed, then he addresses the pair of bandits. “See that these people come to no harm.” With a graceful flick of his hand he conjures a sphere of light. “This will lead you through the caverns safely.”
Marcus nods gratefully and then pats Ed on the shoulder. “Good luck, kid.”
“You too,” Ed smiles. “Thanks for everything. I hope we meet again.”
“No offence, but I don’t,” Cleo laughs. “Get back to your own world and stay there.” She winks, then takes off into the tunnels with Marcus and the refugees.
Ozrune leads Ed back to the village, and as they emerge from the cave they see Remy and Valentine surrounded by a battalion of soldiers by the tents.
“Cast a spell or something!” Ed whispers.
“Wait a moment.” The wizard points to a shadow moving across the beach.
*
“Put down your weapon!” a soldier barks at Remy, who grips her sword and stands back to back with Valentine.
“Bite me,” she scowls and swipes at him.
The men raise their blades and move to apprehend them, when out of the night sky, like a rain of death, a flurry of arrows fells all of them at once.
“What the—?!” Remy scans the village for the source, clutching her sword tighter still.
“Get them!” another soldier barks from the gunship, and another dozen men descend the boarding ramp, weapons drawn.
From the dark beach leaps a tall figure, which cuts down the first of the men to reach the sand in a spin of swipes and slashes. Remy gasps as she gets a good look at the assailant. It’s Avarice, the troll girl she had met in Trout.
Another figure leaps from atop one of the huts, a bow on his back and a gleaming golden longsword in his hand. He runs four men through quicker than Remy can blink. Blood splatters across the sand as the guards topple.
“Come. We must get aboard,” the swordsman says.
Remy’s jaw drops. Before her stands Regis the Good, every bit as brave and heroic as the game portrayed him. The humble farm boy turned adventurer sheathes his golden blade with a twinkle in his eye and swishes his hair styled in anime spikes.
“Ha, you’re still alive!” Avarice laughs.
“Just about,” Remy replies.
Their reunion is cut short by the thunderous boom of the Runegard Gunship ascending into the sky.
“We’re too late!” Ed cries as he runs out of hiding.
“No, we’re not,” Ozrune says. “Everyone, come.”
Remy, Ed, Valentine, Regis and Avarice hurry to the wizard’s side. As he moves his arms with fluid motion, his palms glow amber and the sand around them scatters and spirals around their feet.
“Whoa!” Ed cries in amazement as the wind picks up and lifts them all off the ground.
“Hold on to your butts,” the wizard caws before he launches them all into the sky.
Together they glide towards the airship as it sails away, and land on a small observation deck below the hull.
“Shit, here we go again.” Valentine looks down at the hazy village as it shrinks into the distance.