End Online: Volume 4 (19 page)

Turning my head, I
abruptly stand up and move to the console on the side of the room.

“Where did you escape to?
I need to know so I can get there before you log back on.”

“The… city.”

“It will take some time,
but please wait here for me until I arrive. It will probably take me a few
minutes,” I say to her with unease. “Hopefully, the others aren’t too angry.”

Just before I log back in,
I notice my heart beating rapidly and can’t help but think back on how close my
face and Fen’s were. All it would take is for me to move just an inch, and we
would have-

‘No, I shouldn’t be
thinking about such things! It is preposterous!’

***************************************************

Once in the game, I open
my eyes to the nostalgic church ceiling covered in icicles and frosted glass. I
sit up and look around at the various pieces of rubble spread around as I
exhale, filling the air with fog.

At least, that is what I
had expected. When I open my eyes, I find myself to be staring at a massive
opening in the sky with the midday sun glaring down from the center. My senses
are momentarily stupefied as I try to work out where I am, and why I am not
back in Iceridge.

‘The walls are made
of some kind of stone. They are also covered in gashes from a set of extremely
large claws. Where am…!’

I sit up at full alert.
Much to my chagrin, in front of me there is an enormous dragon covered in black
scales. I would sneak away before it notices me, but its tail is extended over
where I remember the exit to be. To make matters worse, its violet irises are
fixated directly on me.

“Why… how are you here?”
The deep voice of the dragon causes the entire mountain to tremble.

“I-I’m not sure. I died,
and instead of going back to Iceridge, I awoke here.”

I don’t hide anything from
the dragon. The last thing I want is to be helplessly killed again.

“Hmmm…” His rumbling voice
passes straight through me and shakes my very core.

All of a sudden, the
dragon turns insubstantial, eventually fading away like smoke in the wind. What
is left is a man, six foot two and facing away from me as he finishes pulling
on a black leather overcoat. This is the human form of Grael I am more than
familiar with.

Grael turns to face me, his
violet pupils still locked onto me. He takes a few casual steps forward which
almost seem to bend space, travelling ten meters with each one. He reaches out
and touches one of his fingers onto my forehead. The finger seems to pierce
into my skin, but I feel nothing and receive no damage from it doing so.

“Hmm,” he appears to be
deep in thought on the problem. “It appears to have something to do with the
minute amount of my essence that I left inside of you. When you died, it tried
to return to its place of origin, dragging your soul along with it. This will
probably repeat in the future as well, how irritating.”

“W-what do you mean,
happen again?”

“Worm, keep your mouth
shut unless told otherwise. It means that wherever I am, is where you will
revive.”

My jaw drops in surprise.
I also have a faint fear of being summoned into danger practically every time I
die. Just as I am thinking about it, I notice Grael’s eyes staring at me with a
different kind of interest.

“There is something
strange about you. Whenever I see you, I start to get an incredible desire to
beat you down. I wonder, have you become any stronger than last time?”

I have become stronger,
but I still have no interest in fighting this dragon. I reach down to grab my
swords in my belt, but only grasp onto the one hilt. With dread rising in me, I
open my cloak and search for the other sword.

‘I must have dropped
it with the death penalty…’

To make matters worse, it
is my main weapon as well, the ‘Fire Imbued Meridium Scramasax’. At the same
time I quickly check my stats to view the loss. I have lost a considerable
amount of points in my stats due to the higher death penalty awarded to
player-killers. While my lower stats are only two or three points less, my
highest stat, agility, has lost a grand total of fifteen points.

“What, is something wrong,
worm?” Grael frowns when he sees me despondent.

“My main weapon is gone.
It must have dropped when I died.”

“A beast without its fangs
is a cripple. Forget it, leave this cave and be gone. Don’t die again, or you
will perish ten times over by dirtying my presence.”

“G-got it.”

Just as I go to walk out
of the cave, a large black tail lands down in front of me, sealing off the
exit.

In a voice as strong as
the mountain, Grael asks, “Tell me, where about in the West were you?”

“Sorry, what?”

“Speak, worm! Before I
change my mind!”

“I-I was in Swordbreak,
participating in the arena. T-there is a tournament coming up in a week with a
prize that I want.”

“What prize? Perhaps it is
worth adding to my collection.”

“Ah! The prize isn’t that
good! It is only a few gold coins and some old, ancient tablet.”

Grael’s large dragon form
head swings around at a blinding speed, coming to a stop less than a meter away
from me.

“Did you say an ancient
tablet?”

“Y-yes.”

“Interesting, I wonder
which one it is…” Grael seems to trail off his own thoughts in pondering.

“Which one?” I ask him,
but he completely ignores my question.

“You will go enter this
competition and win this stone tablet for me. I will wait here for you to
return”

“I… I can’t.”

“Are you telling me you
won’t do it?”

“No! I simply can’t do it.
Not only have I lost one of my weapons, but the competition is in less than a
week. If I was to rush, it would take me at least two weeks before I could get
there.”

Grael’s eyes narrow,
glaring daggers at me. He doesn’t respond, only stares into my eyes. After a
long period of time, he slowly lifts his head and looks up at the sky, deep in
thought. I use this as an opportunity to send a private message to the rest of
the party members. Considering I logged off, I have been forcefully removed
from the party and the mantle of party leader was passed on to one of the
others.

“Mason. I’m sorry, I
died. I was killed by another player and did not even have the chance to
escape. I know this is entirely my fault, but I will not be able to return to
Swordbreak for at least another two weeks. If the rest of you wish to leave
Swordbreak, I wouldn’t blame you.”

“This is your fault
Lost! We all received the notification not only when you received the player
killer status, but also when you died. Everyone is furious, especially Verde,
and we were already planning on leaving Swordbreak without you. Your
selfishness has set us all back!”

“I’m sorry…”

Our conversation comes to
an abrupt end, not only because Mason stops talking, but because Grael starts.

“Very well, I will resolve
that for you. Just this once, I shall permit you to witness this one’s
greatness. Don’t fall.”

Just as I was beginning to
ponder what exactly he means by those words, one of the dragon’s claws flashes
behind me. The tip of the claw catches on my cloak, and with one swift motion,
throws me into the air. I land face first on a hard, warm surface, covering my
vision with darkness. I raise my head and see an enormous, menacing spike wide
enough that it would take three men hand in hand to encompass it.

The fact that I am on the
dragon’s back is obvious, yet I cannot seem to completely believe it. I touch
the scales and feel warmth entering through my fingertips, my ears pick up the
rasp of of scales rubbing against one another. Off to my sides I see a pair of
wings so large that they could cover the sky in darkness. It is not until I
notice the wings raised well overhead before my senses return to normal.

In a moment of panic, I lunge
forward and grab hold of the spike on the dragon’s back. Unfortunately, the
enormous pillar of bone is simply too large to properly grasp. The wings around
me flash towards the ground, creating a violent hurricane in the cavern and
causing the intensity of gravity on my body to multiply as I ascend from the
cave at breakneck speed.

The forces around me are
too great, and with such a poor grip on the spike, I slip backwards. The
sensation of free-falling takes hold, but it quickly disperses as I hit another
spine on the dragon’s back.

The weight of my body
begins to lighten as Grael stops ascending and begins flying west. I brave
crawling over to take a peek over the side and see the world ten thousand
meters below. The people are like dots and the numerous minor towns are small
enough that I could fit them in the palm of my hand.

I move back and rest
against one of Grael’s spines for support as the world below slowly rolls past.

“Direct me when we get
near. I only know it is to the west.”

The dragon’s voice is much
gentler than earlier, almost as if the exercise has him in a good mood.

The sun falls down beyond
the horizon and night encompasses us by the time Swordbreak comes into view. I
call out to Grael and point to the faint lights of the city far off in the
distance, but I’m unsure if he can even hear me. He must have, as he curves his
body to change direction toward it and nearly causes me to fall off in the
process.

We fly a single loop
around the city before descending in the darkness. Just before the lanterns of
the city shine their light onto the massive dragon, he turns into a black mist
while descending.

My footing suddenly
evaporates and I fall into the smoke. I feel nothing as I pass through it, only
suffering the blindness of not being able to see anything around me. The mist
disperses and something grabs my cloak behind my neck. The fully clothed Grael
has me firmly in his grasp, stopping my fall a foot away from the ground. I
speculate about how he manages to be clothed every time he transforms, but soon
pay it no thought. He must obviously get dressed in the darkness before his
human form is revealed.

“Good, we are here. Ugh,
the scent of all these humans is horrid. I should just burn this city to the
ground.” He speaks while scrunching up his nose.

“No! You can’t do
something like that!”

“Why not, hmm? Don’t test
me, worm. I won’t do it, because all large cities like this have a special corp
of soldiers stationed in the castle which are a true pain to deal with.”

“What special corp?”

“That’s none of your
business. If you ever run into them, however, you will probably be dead before
you even get the chance to run. Stop distracting me! You said you lacked a
weapon.”

“Ah, yes, I did.”

“I notice that the power I
left in you has grown, even if only slightly. That is good. It means you should
be able to make good use of this.”

Grael lifts up one of his
hands, and a thick black essence, darker than the night sky, forms above it. I
glance around and see more than one curious player staring at us. Trying to
ignore the eyes around me, I watch as the dark essence floats towards me with a
steady bobbing. It stops right in front of me, quivering slightly before
separating into two halves.

Each half then begins to
solidify, extending longer and thinner by an unnatural force. The darkness
starts to condense further, suddenly seeming less of a gas or liquid, and more
of a solid substance. After the space of a few more breaths, it coalesces into
a twin set of short swords.

Each blade is identical to
the other. The handle is made of what appears to be black leather twining
around the hilt and interlocking with itself. The crossguard shines with a
black metallic gloss, showing a hint of violet. The straight double-edged blade
is only three fingers wide, three hand spans long, and made of steel darker
than the night sky. I stare intently at the blades of the swords and I can
almost make out some sort of faint runes carved into the surface of the steel,
yet they disappear like illusions that were never there.

“As the power I left in
you grows stronger, so will these weapons. They are formed to suit the best
weapon for you, and cannot be dropped or lost unlike the last ones.”

His voice is like
background noise as I am entranced by the swords. I reach out my hands and grab
onto the hilts, taking them into my inventory and opening up their stats. The
most interesting thing about the weapons, is that the two swords are a single
item.