Droning gales give voice to a dead land, like the hollow remnants of 100,000 wailing souls. With one arm outstretched Vincent holds his blade, using its enchanted flame to guide him through the dark; the other clings to Domina slumped on his back. Inch by inch he pushes through the wind and ice. With only his thoughts to keep him sane on this perilous expedition across the darkest, most isolated region of all Pangea Ultima, he finds himself wondering why he didn’t leave her on the ship, or even abandon her in the snow. She’s slowing him down. It’s unlikely the cold would affect a dark creature such as her. He reminds himself that she’s not as human as she looks. It’s just a shell, wearing the face of someone he cared about. Perhaps that’s why then, he couldn’t bring himself to abandon her again – or maybe he’s just afraid of dying alone.
He recalls fondly the first time he had seen her. The first time he’d found himself physically transported into the game. She had a different name then and so did he…
*
It was late and Vincent had stayed longer than anyone to patch a particularly buggy questline involving a little backwater village called Hoarfrost in the northern part of the map. The quest, entitled Into the Necropolis, involved rescuing missing villagers who had been kidnapped by a clan of subterranean goblins. The bug was almost game-breaking, as it prevented the player from progressing to an essential part of the main questline. His work had yielded little reward and he was ready to call it quits when he noticed a chill in the air – which despite the flippant nature of English weather was utterly surreal for a summer night. When his breath fogged the air, he knew something strange was afoot, and when snowflakes fluttered into the room, and the faint howling wind pricked his ears, he was sure he was losing his mind. An ex-girlfriend had once warned him that spending too much time in fantastical lands would cause him to lose touch with reality. It looked like she might be right.
Vincent cautiously approached the seventy-inch screen mounted to the wall, and a biting wind sent a shiver tingling down his spine. He reached out to touch the television, and to his amazement, his hand passed right through, as though it were reaching through an open window. He was now certain that he was absolutely insane. His hand trembled at the snow’s icy kiss, and he swiftly retracted it and rubbed his tired eyes. This had to be a dream. He had been working extremely hard so it wasn’t crazy to consider he’d dozed off at his desk and had concocted some fantasy about the game coming to life, after all, it was the kind of thing he dreamed about on a daily basis. But he knew what dreaming felt like, and he was sure he was awake.
He picked up the game controller and threw it at the screen, but it passed right through and landed in the snow with a squelch. He hesitated a minute then climbed through after it, instantly feeling weightless. A dark abyss surrounded him. Slowly he glided towards the wintery scene in the distance before him – strange how it had seemed so close when he reached through. A swelling pressure built up in his skull. He shut his eyes tight and squeezed his head until the splitting pain vanished. Then his feet felt cold. He opened his eyes and saw his shoes planted in the snow, which immediately soaked them through. He looked back at the screen-shaped tear in reality and through it, where the office was now filled with snow.
Taking his first steps into the game’s world, he climbed the ridge and found the little village he had been coding that very night. He shuffled down the snowy slopes to investigate and admired the little wooden houses with profound wonder. They were real incarnations of the rendered models from the game – small huts made from chopped trees, five or six scattered about with sloped roofs. He spotted a couple of NPCs on the far side of the village, heading towards a large cabin in the centre. There was no mistaking it. It was the Hoarfrost Inn.
He hurried inside and immediately his nostrils were tickled by a mouth-watering aroma. He gawked at the beast roasting on the open fire in the middle of the tavern and cautiously approached the bar. His damp shoes squelched against the creaky wooden floorboards. All eyes were on him, and the townsfolk looked him up and down with intrigue.
“A stranger,” they whispered.
“What’s he doing here?”
“Strange clothes…” they muttered.
He pretended not to hear and took a seat at the bar, keeping his head down.
“Where are you from, stranger?” a girl asked him.
He lifted his eyes to meet hers, and stuttered at her familiar unblinking face.
His lingering stare made her uncomfortable, so she stepped backwards and crossed her arms. “Can I get you something?”
His mouth hung open. His eyes explored her ash-blonde hair and every freckle and blemish on her Nordic face. Like all the barmaids in the game, her figure was shapely in all the right places, and she wore a low-cut corset over a bunchy white blouse.
“You alright, Nef?” an old villager asked, seeing that Vincent was making her nervous.
She nodded. “Aye. Not sure about this one, though.”
“S-sorry,” Vincent said, “I’m a little lost.”
“I’ll say. We seldom get visitors in our little village. This is about as far from civilisation as you can get.” She noticed his strange clothes, and asked, “Where are you from?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” he replied.
He also wasn’t sure whether or not she was real. She seemed just like him, capable of independent thought, and unlike an NPC, she wasn’t spouting the same dialogue over and over again.
“You thirsty? Hungry?” she asked.
He nodded with enthusiasm. “Always hungry.”
She gathered a bowl and spooned some of the stew bubbling on the stove behind her. He devoured it as soon as she placed the bowl before him. The flavours were rich and hearty. Every sip warmed him thoroughly.
“How long have you lived here?” he asked her.
“My whole rotten life,” she smiled. “I dream of seeing the world but hardly have the coin for it. What brings you to Hoarfrost? There’s nothing this far north but snow and more snow. I suppose we’re plenty rich in misery too.”
“Just exploring,” he replied.
“You’re an adventurer, then?” She leaned towards him, intrigued.
“Not really,” he laughed. The idea of him plundering dungeons and wielding swords seemed utterly ridiculous.
“A wanderer, then. So what’ll I call you, Wanderer?”
“Wanderer sounds good,” he said. Better to keep it vague. Although it’s not like she could’ve googled him or anything.
“Very mysterious.” She smiled as she wiped the bar top with a damp rag. “Well, let me know if you need anything else, Wanderer.” She slinked away to deliver a tray of tankards to a table of village elders, who looked like they’d died a winter past but their bodies didn’t get the memo – which in this world is entirely possible, although the undead probably have better table manners.
Vincent finished his stew, and watched Nef work a while before creeping outside, and back through the rift. He sat a moment in front of the screen just watching the snow flutter in, wondering how all of this was possible, and how he would explain it to everyone in the morning. His mind raced with questions. He was sure he was insane and the whole thing was the beginning of a psychotic break. Eventually he dozed off, and when he awoke in the early hours of the morning the screen appeared normal again. Perhaps it had been a dream, but sure enough every night around midnight he returned and spent more time in Hoarfrost, speaking with Nef, the barmaid. Over the passing weeks, they grew closer, and keeping up his moniker as the mysterious Wanderer, Vincent learned all he could of the game world, not that it was anything he didn’t already know. This carried on for about six weeks until he had decided he needed to show Eric, if only to prove to himself that he wasn’t mad.
*
His foot slips, tearing him from his past. Vincent tumbles down a rocky mountain pass and lands with a crunch in the deep snow. After a moment’s respite he picks himself up and casts his eyes across the frigid expanse, searching for Domina. Her piercing eyes stare back at him as she sits up. She regards her icy surroundings with contempt.
Vincent climbs on his feet and picks up his sword, resting it on his shoulder. “We need to get out of this blizzard,” he says.
She stands without even a shiver. “What happened to the ship?” she asks.
“Gone,” he replies, “we’re on our own now.”
Together they scramble up the rugged ice and rock, and traverse the winding paths that weave through the mountains. Relentless snow shrouds the distance in a veil of white, slowing their advance. The cold seeps through the Dreadmail, chilling Vincent to the bone. It is unfortunate that it cannot shield him from the harsh unforgiving elements the way it resists the strike of a blade or hammer. Fitting though, Vincent thinks. His life has been nothing but misfortune since he came to this godforsaken place.
Domina stalks him closely, her expression as lifeless as the land they tread. It chills Vincent more so to see her like this, so inhuman, utterly immune to the blizzard’s razor bite. His eyes narrow upon spotting a small cavity in the mountainside. He races inside and warms himself by the fire of his God Cleaver. The burning blade illuminates the cavern. Shadows dance back and forth across the glittering icy walls.
“Maybe this leads through the mountains,” he says pointing ahead at a tunnel that stretches into utter darkness. “How are you feeling?” he asks.
Domina looks at her bandaged shoulder and frowns. “We should burn that forest to ash.”
“It’ll all burn soon enough,” Vincent replies, looking sombre.
“What troubles you?”
His eyes drift back to the fire. “It’s nothing.”
Domina kneels forward, placing her hand on his face, then gently brings his eyes to hers. “Tell me.”
For a fleeting second, he sees the girl she used to be before the darkness took hold of her. “Don’t.” He moves her hand away. “You’re not her.”
“I’m better.” She slinks towards him.
“You’re useful.”
“Then let me be.”
“What do you see, when you look at me?” he asks.
A devious grin sweeps across her icy lips. “The Dread Knight, herald of the world’s end.”
He pulls her close. “What do you see?”
She gazes deep into his eyes, pitch dark like a starless night sky.
He releases her and bows his head shamefully. “I feel strange… my mind is cut loose. I’m tired, but I can’t close my eyes.” Vincent wipes his face up and down with both hands, but feels only cold steel not flesh.
The dour expression on his face and the nihilistic desperation in his voice evokes something in Domina – a flicker of a feeling, a remnant of her humanity. She holds him close and runs her fingers through his damp hair.
“This armour…” he sighs as she runs her hand across his cheek, again pulling his gaze to hers, “… am I wearing it or is it wearing me?” After a moment he musters a deep breath that looks more painful than anything else. “Eric’s alive.”
“Alive? But how?” she asks.
“The other players didn’t end up here by chance.” He grips the hilt of his blade and pulls himself onto his feet then inspects Remy’s festering hand chained to his belt and frowns as its fingers twitch and writhe.
Is this all because of you? he wonders as his mind returns to where it all went so very wrong…
*
All the time he had spent traversing the game world with Nef saw him fall behind with his work. Eric had been on his case about fixing the bugged Hoarfrost questline, and he finally had to appease his friend, who had enough to worry about with the shareholders and the publisher breathing down his neck. But that wasn’t the reason Vincent had called Eric in that day. He had decided it was time to share his discovery with the only person he could trust.
Eric stood impatiently behind him as he booted up the computers in the testing room.
“You’re going to lose your mind,” Vincent smiled.
“I don’t think it’s my mind we should be worrying about.” Eric let out an impatient sigh.
“I’m not crazy,” Vincent said, with a glint of crazy in his eyes.
The Ultimate Adventure VII remake in its beta version began to run and Vincent’s avatar stood idle amongst the falling snow, which danced effervescently around it. He stared expectantly at the screen, but nothing happened.
“You fixed the bug?” Eric asked him.
“Yes, but this isn’t about that.”
“Because that bug is a game-breaker. If the goblins don’t raid the town, then the whole story gets stuck. After the shitshow surrounding the launch of Ultimate Adventure XV, we can’t afford to release another buggy game,” Eric sighed. The memes would haunt him to his grave.
Vincent’s eyes darted across the screen, and looking deeply disappointed he muttered, “Just give it a minute. I’m sure…”
Certain that Vincent was overworked, Eric patted him on the back. “Okay, buddy. Thanks for bringing me in on a Sunday night.”
“It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Seriously, get outside for a bit, you’ve been in here all day every day for months. What did we used to do for fun?” Eric asked.
“Nothing,” Vincent replied.
“Oh yeah, that’s right.”
Vincent followed Eric to the door. “Maybe I have been pushing it.” He rubbed his eyes, which were marred by dark circles.
“We got you that intern to help lighten your load,” Eric said, “isn’t she pulling her weight?”
The way he casually referred to Lauren as though she were some inconsequential tool and not a person with hopes, dreams and talents made Vincent uncomfortable. “No, no, she’s great…” he insisted.
“Really? Because these past couple of months you’ve seemed kind of distracted. Are you guys…?” Eric raised his eyebrows suggestively.
“Are you kidding?” Vincent laughed. “She’s almost half my age and I’m pretty sure she’s…”
“She’s what?”
“I think she’s gay.”
“Huh… well, good, that would be a HR nightmare. Never shit where you eat,” Eric said, like a sage spouting wise anecdotes.
“Didn’t you sleep with Catherine, from design?”
“Learn from my mistakes.”
“Yeah, you’re a walking, talking cautionary tale.”
Eric’s eyes tightened with an ambitious glint, like some crook hatching a nefarious scheme. “A Chinese lesbian on our staff, that’ll be great PR. We should get her to write a blog post or something.”
“She’s from north London,” Vincent sighed. “You’re a monster…” He trailed off, his eyes following a snowflake as it landed on Eric’s shoulder.
Eric looked back and his jaw dropped as a flurry filled the room. He approached the monitor and hesitantly outstretched his hand, which, to his amazement, passed right through the television, just as Vincent’s had before. After a second or two, he pulled it back, scrutinising it.
“Crazy, isn’t it?” Vincent grinned.
“It’s warm…” Eric rubbed the snow between his thumb and forefinger. “… It’s ash.”
Vincent looked ill as a horrible realisation hit him like a truck. He had fixed the bugged questline in the game, meaning that the inciting incident could’ve triggered in the game world. Without a moment’s hesitation, he leapt through the screen.
“Whoa! Vince?!” Eric cried, but he was already gone.
Vincent raced over the ridge and sank to his knees as he beheld the village, laid to waste.
“What is going on?!” Eric yelled as he too came through into the world and caught up, but Vincent just sat in the snow and watched the horror unfold before him. Hideous lumpy-faced goblins with long pointed noses and sharp beady eyes dragged the townspeople from the burning houses, cutting down any who resisted.
“We need to go back!” Eric tugged on Vincent’s jacket, and as he turned back towards the rift, a club struck his head and he collapsed in a heap.
A pack of goblins set upon Vincent, kicking and beating him until he stopped resisting. The monsters dragged the pair of them away deep below the mountains. That part was a blur. All Vincent can remember is the throbbing headache as he dipped in and out of consciousness.
He came to first, and by the time Eric awoke, they were shackled in a cage, forged of bone and scrap. He looked fearfully at his whereabouts, not a shred of natural light in sight.
“It’s all connected…” Vincent’s voice spoke from the shadows. Eric’s eyes wandered until they found him sitting in a dark corner of their cell.
“What’s going on? Where are we?!”
“Don’t you recognise it?” Vincent asked.
He did. The bones protruding from the dirt, the arched rocks of the tunnel, the skeleton strung up next to them – it was all familiar.
“Why aren’t you freaking out right now?” Eric asked.
“I am, but I’m trying to think of a way out of this mess.”
Eric shook his head. “No, I mean you don’t seem too surprised that we’re locked in a cage that looks exactly like one from our game.”
Vincent shied away. He was definitely hiding something. Eric could always tell and was undoubtedly the better liar of the two.
Vincent wondered how he could break it to him gently. “I don’t want you to panic.”
“Panic? I’m shackled in a bloody cave, a prisoner to monsters from a video game we created! I think I’m handling it pretty well, mate.”
“Two months,” he sighed. “I’ve been coming in and out of here for two months.”
“Coming here? You mean we’re really in—”
“Yes, keep your voice down, will you? Don’t want to piss off the goblins.”
“Fuck the goblins!” Eric pulled on his bonds. “I’m getting out of here!”
He writhed and wriggled and kicked against the bars until he worked his way upside down. There he hung, slowly rotating like a slaughtered carcass on a hook.
“Are you done?” Vincent asked.
Eric groaned. “I would very much like to not be here now.”
“Agreed, but let’s think about this logically. We’re in a game, and not just any game but our game. We know it inside out, we can survive this, we just need to play to our advantage.”
Eric wriggled his way upright. “Play to our advantage?”
“These creatures are stupid and have low hit points. We could probably take them as long as they don’t gang up on us.”
“You’re insane. You want to role-play? Go right ahead, but leave me out of it.”
“I’m serious, Eric, we’re in real danger here. You know how this questline plays out, what they do with the townspeople?”
Eric shuddered. “Y-yeah, alright.”
He relayed his plan, and Eric came around after a bit of convincing, then they lay in wait, haunted by the nerve-shredding screams that resounded throughout the dungeon.
A goblin finally came to retrieve them, and as soon as it unchained the cage door, Vincent conked it on the head with a bone he’d yanked from the skeleton sharing their cell. They quickly unshackled themselves using the monster’s hatchet to break the chains. Eric looked both ways out of the cell as he stepped out, and both directions seemed equally eerie, stretching for miles into nothingness. The screams seemed to emanate from the right, so he decided their best bet was left and jogged a short way before he realised Vincent wasn’t following. He stood looking towards the screams and clutched the goblin’s hatchet in one hand.
“What the hell are you doing?” Eric called out in a hushed tone.
“I’ve got to find someone,” he replied.
“Find someone? Who could you possibly need to find?”
“A friend.”
“Oh no, we’re not doing this, we’re not adventurers, we’re desk jockeys! When was the last time you set foot in the gym? You’re gonna fight your way through this dungeon to rescue some NPC who isn’t even real, with what? A blunt axe and a can-do attitude?”
“I can’t leave her here. I understand if you don’t want to come with me.” Vincent smiled at his friend and took a deep breath. “If you follow that path it should lead back to the village, just watch out for low-level critters, nothing crazy, maybe a couple of giant spiders.”
“Oh God. Why’d it have to be giant spiders?”
Vincent shrugged. “It’s a trope.”
“Someone else will come along,” Eric said.
Vincent frowned. “Someone has.”
“I meant someone with actual combat experience.” He let out a deep sigh, and begrudgingly his conscience wouldn’t allow him to abandon his friend. “Alright, we find this girl and we get out. That’s it, right? I’m not dying for some hero fantasy of yours.”
A grin crept across Vincent’s face. “Agreed, no dying for either of us.”
With that, they traversed the sprawling network of tunnels deeper into the mountain. The blueish cave walls, every cobweb, every bone that lay scattered in the dirt was like déjà vu. Vincent had spent months debugging and replaying this particular dungeon, and it was as familiar to him as his morning commute. They kept to the shadows to avoid any patrolling goblins and cut down any oversized bugs or rats with the hatchet they’d looted. Eventually, they came upon the dungeon’s central chamber, which was lined with corpses grafted into the walls with a black mucus. Some had long rotted away, but others looked fresh, likely the poor villagers. Vincent scanned the bodies and desperately hoped that Nef wasn’t among them. A shriek startled him. Peering through a hole in the ground, he saw her in a hollowed room below, shackled to a stone altar by those abominable creatures.
Vincent called to Eric who had wandered down a small tunnel, but he continued, his attention fixed on treasure ahead. He crawled through the stalagmites to reach a beaten chest and kneeled before it. Sliding his hands along the rough lid, Eric quietly opened it and lifted a grizzly looking battle axe which he gripped with both hands. Its handle was crafted from bone and the head adorned with a goblin skull. He felt its weight as he admired the onyx head. Eric grinned at Vincent. This wasn’t an ordinary axe, he held ‘Gobchopper’– a unique weapon capable of dealing high damage against subterranean hell-spawn.
As he made his way back, Eric caught his foot on a rock and fell face first into the dirt. The axe slid across the cave floor to the hole overlooking the altar. Vincent lunged and caught it in time, and Nef’s wide eyes twinkled with hope as she spotted him. She screamed and he raised a finger to his lips as he pulled himself back up, and she nodded affirmatively.
“That’s her?” Eric whispered.
“We’ve got to get her out before… Oh no.” Vincent’s face turned deathly pale as the goblins began to chant.
“Domina! Domina! Domina!”
From the shadows emerged a writhing tendril. Its needle tip oozed gooey black tar. Nef let loose a bloodcurdling scream as it rose above her, and two of the goblins prised her mouth wide as the tendril slithered its way down her throat and force fed her the foul liquid.
“We’re too late, let’s go before they see us!” Eric pleaded, but Vincent shot him a fierce glare. “Yeah, alright,” he sighed.
“You’ve got my back, right?” Vincent handed Eric the Gobchopper.
Eric hesitated. “Y-yeah, but what are you—?”
Vincent leapt without a second thought into the chamber and landed on the altar. With a swing of his hatchet, he butchered the tendril and pulled it from Nef’s throat. She puked and retched and violently choked, while Vincent fixed his attention on the abomination crawling from the shadows. A beautiful naked woman emerged with a twisted grimace across her face. Her wild matted hair writhed like snakes across her icy skin and she walked on six spindly stalks that protruded from her back like the legs of a spider. She curled her pale lips back across her razor teeth and opened her mouth wide as another tendril slithered from her throat and swayed in the air.
“Eric, help!” Vincent cried as the creature crept towards him. He could hardly believe he was staring down one of the most dangerous creatures in Ultimate Adventure lore – a corrupting hag.
The goblins backed away still chanting, “Domina! Domina! Domina!”
Against his better judgement, Eric leapt onto the creature from above and hacked ferociously with his axe. Foul monster blood splattered his face as he cleaved its neck, almost severing the head. The hag swatted him against the wall and pinned him with one of its stalks. He roared at the sharp sting in his side, and he squirmed on the end of its leg as it thrashed him about and threw him to the floor. He hit the dirt with a thud and his glasses went flying. Sweeping his hair from his eyes, Eric squinted as the blurred creature howled in agony, flailing its slender arms in a futile attempt to reattach its head, which was hanging sideways by only a few threads of tissue. Eric lifted his axe and buried it in the beast’s abdomen, spilling its guts everywhere. The monster collapsed with a shriek and gurgled until it died. The chanting died down, and the goblins watched and whispered to each other. Eric fumbled around in the dark for his glasses while the hag’s corpse festered and melted away, revealing a gleaming green jewel which shimmered like a beacon, illuminating Eric’s face. He put on his cracked spectacles and looked hungrily upon the gem, which called to him with a soft whisper.
“Eric, wait!” Vincent cried, but it was too late, he had already gripped the crystal shard tightly in his hand, and in an instant it bored its way into him.
The shard had chosen him, but for what purpose was still unclear. Perhaps his fear, his desperation, his hunger for survival had enticed the crystal. Perhaps that’s all nonsense, and he was simply a willing dope who all too quickly took the gem in hand. Either way, it became a part of him. The whites of Eric’s wide eyes shone from his blood-soaked face as he examined his left hand with intrigue. But for the dull ache in his palm, there was no evidence the shard ever existed. It left no scar or blemish.
Vincent hacked away at Nef’s brittle chains and freed her as the hiss of the goblins surrounding them became a chorus of fury. It seemed the creatures sought to avenge the death of their beloved mother. Eric got on his feet and doubled over in pain, pressing his hand against his soaked jacket. The beast’s stalk had struck him hard, and its pointed end had torn a deep gash in his ribs. He was so full of adrenaline he hadn’t noticed the wound, but his shirt now seeped red and he looked up at Vincent, trembling.
“I don’t want to die,” he whimpered.
“You’re fine, it’s just a scratch,” Vincent assured him, but Eric was always the better liar of the two.
“Why aren’t they attacking?” Nef cowered behind Vincent and coughed more of the foul liquid up while the goblins grew ravenous, savouring the scent of her fear like a fine perfume.
Vincent noticed their beady eyes were all fixed on Eric’s hand. “The shard!” he cried. “They fear it!”
Eric worriedly examined his palm and held his arm out. Most of the goblins cowered, but braver ones began to step out of line and jerk towards the three of them as they backed into the tunnel the hag had emerged from.
“Stay back!” Eric tensed his whole body, trying desperately to wield the crystal shard somehow. The game had always been very vague about what could and couldn’t be done with the shards, so he hadn’t a clue how to use it.
One restless goblin jerked towards him and swung its blade, which nicked his outstretched hand. He retracted it sharply. Blood gushed down his arm and he poured all his fear and desperation into a mighty shout. In an instant, the shard flickered within him, and he clenched his fist as nerve-shredding pain lanced through his arm and crackled through his body. The goblins howled in fear at the jewel’s unholy glow and tripped over each other long enough for the three of them to flee. Vincent pulled Nef and Eric through the winding tunnels as the creatures’ evil roars echoed behind them. It sounded as if every goblin in the dungeon was amassing in pursuit.
In all the mayhem Vincent had got turned around and wasn’t sure where he was going. A light at the end of the tunnel filled him with hope, and he hurtled towards it. The cave opened up into a vast chasm deep underground, where molten lava ran like a hellish river. A wide stone bridge connected both sides of the gorge – a remnant of the long extinct dwarves and their subterranean city. They sprinted across and snaked through desolate streets carved of black stone, past empty dwellings and dilapidated ruins. Vincent knew all too well what had become of the former residents – the crystal had warped them into the very creatures they were fleeing from. All roads led to a towering temple built into the chasm, and Vincent led them up the scarred broken steps. Gargantuan columns of rock that propped up the mountain were all that remained untarnished. The climb felt never-ending, like taking the stairs at Camden Town station, which Vincent often did when the escalators were bust. They reached the top and looked back. No goblins were in sight, but their screeching chorus resounded through the under-city. They certainly weren’t far behind.
They scrambled through the temple until they reached the grand throne room. If the walls could talk, you’d cover your ears. Bones and body parts were strung up like morbid bunting, a celebration of lives lost, of agony inflicted. It was a dead end. The only passage out of the throne room was caved in.
“I don’t like the look of this,” Vincent said. “A big chamber, lots of bones, that usually means—”
“I don’t feel good,” Eric groaned as he stumbled towards the steps that led to a broken throne atop a plateau. He grew weaker by the minute and couldn’t climb more than a few.
“You came for me, I thought you weren’t an adventurer.” Nef looked feverish. Her pale lips smiled before she coughed and fell to her knees, retching to expel the foulness from her body. Her eyes turned a cloudy white as she balled up on the floor, and Vincent held her as she convulsed.
“What’s happening to her?” Eric cried. “Those things were chanting—”
“I know!”
“If she turns—”
“Just shut up a minute!” Vincent clutched the poor girl tightly. “She’s ice cold.” He looked worriedly at Eric who was distracted by something, and squinted at a shadowed figure that sat atop the throne. He couldn’t quite make out who or what it was in the dark.
“I don’t think we’re alone in here!” he said as a shiver ran down his spine.
“It’s just an old suit of armour. Probably the last poor bastard who found himself trapped in here,” Vincent replied.
Eric was transfixed, and took off his specs to rub his eyes. He could’ve sworn the armour moved, but his vision was blurred, his mind was racing, and he was losing blood, so he knew he could be imagining things. He turned sharply towards the shrill war cries resounding through the ruin.
“They’re coming,” Vincent warned. Taking Nef in his arms, he hurried up the steps past Eric, frantically searching for a secret door or something, anything, to get them out. He looked at the rusty armour and at the skeleton wearing it. “Don’t suppose you know an exit?”
The howls and hisses of the goblin horde grew louder with every passing second. Vincent knew there was no escape, but he laid Nef down atop the plateau and kept searching out of sheer blind desperation.
“Shit! It’s a dead end, Eric.” He threw his head in his hands.
“D-dead end?” Eric shuddered, and the garbled war cries of the goblins were deafening. “No, no, it can’t be a dead end! There are always secret passages and trap doors and—”
Vincent shook his head. “Not here, friend.”
Eric fell to his knees, and pressed against his wound. “I don’t want to die,” he whispered to himself over and over as he rocked back and forth and pictured his office in his mind – his comfy leather chair, his cabinet of awards. “I want to go back, I want to go back, I want to go back.”
The horde burst into the chamber and charged towards them.
“I want to go back!”
Eric’s despair ignited the crystal. Pale green light shone from his palm and he howled as the shard came to life. He shook, horrified at his flesh which rippled like water, and in a flash he was engulfed in light. “Vincent, save me!” he cried then imploded into nothingness.
A wave of fiery energy pulsed from where he stood, and knocked the horde back, sending Vincent tumbling down the steps. In an instant, the light dispersed, and Eric was gone. All that remained in his place was a small malformation in the air, like a glitch in reality, and the faint echo of his parting scream.
“E-Eric?!” Vincent trembled. “Oh God.” He slumped on his knees, cradling his head in his hands as grief struck him like a hammer. He had no time to mourn, though, the horde were already on their feet again and thirsty for blood. Vincent hurled his hatchet into the crowd. “Get back!” he cried as tears welled in his bloodshot eyes. He stumbled up the steps, tripped backwards and fell at the armour’s feet. The horde mauled him as he screamed, “I’ll kill you all!” and then he felt a hand grip his wrist – cold, unforgiving metal.
He gazed in fear at the armour coming to life before him. It clambered piece by piece onto his body as if it were alive. The relic was rejuvenated by his life force and the rust fell off like a diminishing illusion, revealing its true form. By the time he realised what it was he had stumbled upon it was too late, it had attached itself to him like a parasite.
The goblins swarmed, beating him with their clubs and hatchets, but by some miracle their weapons bounced off the black armour like cheap plastic toys. An uncharacteristically intelligent goblin adapted and sliced its jagged knife across the bridge of Vincent’s nose. He clasped the horned helmet and pulled it onto his head for protection as he screamed. With the final piece attached, the armour roared to life. He could feel each segment tighten around him, bolstering his bones and muscles. Unbridled strength flowed through him like a riptide, and from the darkest depths of the blackest void a magic blade appeared unto him. He gripped the hilt of the God Cleaver sword and fought his way onto his feet. He lifted the blade while the creatures relentlessly assaulted him, snarling, spitting, snorting. It was chaos like he’d never known. With a thundering cry, he swung wide, cleaving twenty goblins in half with a single blow. The blade erupted in a blaze of scorching hellfire and slid through them like soft butter, felling dozens at a time. More and more poured from the tunnel. Their bloodlust knew no bounds, but he killed every one that came at him. He could feel the armour encouraging him to smite them all and grew frenzied as body parts stacked up around him. He decimated every wave until finally, they stopped. The hall was splattered red. The sight of their kin’s dismembered and smouldering body parts was enough to ensure their respect or at the very least, exacerbate their terror. The survivors huddled together by the entrance, grunting and squealing and one by one, they knelt before him. To them, he was the Dread Knight – bathed in the hellfire of the god-killing sword, a walking demon of legends long past, returned to rid the world of light and life.
Vincent clasped at every breath as he composed himself. Slowly the fire of his sword flickered out, and he sheathed it on his back. He examined his hands, clad in the pitch-black gauntlets. The armour had no seam, as though the plate mail had joined together into one chitinous exoskeleton. Recalling the game’s lore in his mind, he shuddered. One who spills blood in the Dreadmail is doomed to wear it until they meet a bloody and violent end, and all who take up the Dread Knight’s moniker meet such a fate. Such is the price to pay for unrivalled power. There was no going back. His life as Vincent Golbez was over.
In the chaos he had forgotten about Nef, who sat upright and looked at him with sunken eyes. She was changed too. Most unsettling of all was her cold, vacuous expression, like a machine booting itself up. She knelt before him, for all creatures of the void owed allegiance to the Dread Knight Grimoirh. He was their saviour. He would herald the world’s end, silence the song of life that had driven the demons and monsters so mad and in doing so, reclaim the world for them.
Together they ventured back to the smouldering remains of Hoarfrost. The blizzard had calmed, and the sun began to rise, but the rift into reality was gone. Vincent knelt on the ridge overlooking what was left of the village. It took all his might to prise the helmet from his head, and he tossed it into the snow. Attempts to remove any other piece of the armour proved utterly futile. It wasn’t coming off. It was as much a part of him as he was it. Vincent, Wanderer, Grimoirh, it didn’t matter what he called himself anymore…
*
It’s fitting, Vincent supposes, that all of this will end right where it began – deep beneath the frigid, desolate wasteland. His only hope of respite is a quick death once he’s cast this cursed world back into the void. He can’t be certain what will happen to him after he plunges the shards into the heart of the world, corrupting it until it breaks apart, but truthfully he doesn’t care. The armour has extracted a terrible price for keeping him alive on his perilous journey – his humanity. He feels as though he has become the armour itself – a cold, hard, empty shell. With every passing day, the last vestiges of himself slip away like melting snow.
The black tunnel gives way to blinding light. They emerge on the other side of the mountain and Vincent gazes ahead at a colossal storm stirring on the horizon, tearing the ice and snow into the air, as if the sky and the earth were at war.
“What is that?” Domina looks humbled by the tempest.
“The Scar is past that barrier,” he replies. “When the crystal was forged, it bore a heavy price. They bled the world for its power, inflicting a deep wound that would never heal. This storm is like a scab, it’s the world’s last defence.”
Domina trembles at the sight. To stand against Pangea Ultima itself seems like a mad feat.
“What makes you so sure this will work?” she asks.
He turns to her, his cold eyes brimming with confidence. “As the Dread Knight it is my destiny to destroy this world.”