Chapter Forty: Elusive King

Today was our third day in the Badlands.

Yesterday had been pretty uneventful, considering what'd been happening this past week. After the abominations had attacked us at the ruins of that Dersite base—which I later learned had been one of the old Behemoth production facilities—we slept until morning. Or, at least, most of us slept…

The Prospitian soldiers slept like babies. Some of the newest recruits, however, couldn't fall asleep, but most of the Prospitians had been fighting for many years; and while I'm sure they were rattled on some level, they wouldn't let it get in the way of their sleep. Getting rest, while in the middle of a war, was paramount. And then there was Theo, who was a freak of nature who didn't need to sleep—and by that, I simply mean he was a Thane of Breath.

It kinda made me curious about the Thane class. Each Class seemed to have certain attributes of its own, independent of the Aspect; like how Knights can take horrifying wounds and still keep fighting, or how Seers have some form of clairvoyance. Thanes seemed to be able to draw nourishment from their Aspect as one of its attributes—as long as Theo had access to Breath…air, really… His very being was attuned to the wind, so it seemed that the simple act of breathing could somehow sustain him. He still ate and drank when he could, but he did not need to. And he no longer slept because he no longer got tired.

Seeing as he no longer had a dream self—as a god tier player, his original body would have died and been subsequently replaced by his dream self—that didn't matter quite so much anymore. I'd never learned how Theo had died… All I knew was that he'd been assassinated somehow, and Gino mindjacking my dream self somehow played a role in saving my best friend's life. But I guess there'll be more time to talk about that kind of shit later. We had important stuff happening right now that required all my attention.

Last night, we'd stopped the column and made camp out in the open, in the middle of a flat wasteland that had once been some kind of giant field or plain. That way, if we were attacked by abominations a second time, we'd be able to see the bastards coming from miles away. Fortunately, they didn't attack a second time.

I woke up as my dream self right where I'd fallen asleep—in the back seat of one of the jeeps, nestled between crates of power cells for the soldiers' energy rifles. A couple of the younger Prospitians had gathered along one side of the jeep to get a good look at me, whispering to one another. When they saw my eyes open, though, they were out of here faster than the speed of sound.

The camp was abuzz with activity. I could smell coffee and the smoky aroma of the soldiers' morning cooking fires. I wondered where they'd gotten the wood to make those fires…scavenged from the ruins of the Dersite base, perhaps? I'd described the Badlands as having a faint smell of smoke, but it was an acrid smoke; a dark, tainted odor. The smoke from the Prospitians' fires had the comforting, almost sweet scent that you found around most campfires in the woods.

I yawned and stretched, sitting up. I let myself levitate a few feet, floating clear of the jeep and lighting back on my feet. I took a moment to get my bearings, easing out the kinks and cramps, before zeroing in on one of the nearest cooking fires. I knew many of the soldiers there, and I liked joining them for breakfast when I could.

"…protein squares, protein squares, and…more protein squares!" Three-Shot, the shortest carapacian at the fire, was rummaging through his squad's rations bag, announcing to his comrades what all there was to eat. Apparently, protein squares seemed to have a monopoly on the menu this morning.

The other soldiers around the fire groaned and muttered darkly to themselves and to each other. "I swear to Skaia I will not complain the next time we get the fish rations," a taller, lanky Prospitian with some sort of long-ranged rifle resting across his lap grumbled. His name was Dud—he'd been named that because, sometime in the past, an artillery shell had landed in his foxhole, but it hadn't gone off. "Anything would be better than those damned protein squares…"

"Have you taken leave of your senses, Dud?" Firehands, the burly, heavily-muscled light machinegunner, rounded on his comrade. "I would never touch that fish crap that Supply stuck us with last decade! Every time I had it, I wouldn't shit for a week."

"What if you were offered the King's Scepter or the Queen's Ring for a day?" Dud asked. "Wouldja eat fish rations then?"

Firehands had to think about it for a few seconds before giving his answer. "A week. Each," he declared. "First a week with the Scepter, then another one with the Ring. And throw in a night with the Queen herself. Then I'll eat another fish ration."

I chose that moment to make my entrance. "Morning, boys," I nodded to everyone in greeting, taking a place around the cooking fire when Firehands and Three-Shot shimmied over to create a space.

"Knight," the rest of the soldiers all murmured in greeting. I was making a lot of progress. Many more of the soldiers were speaking to me without clamming up than before. I guess they were gradually starting to realize that I wasn't some sort of primal, mystical force of nature—I was just a teenager. A teenager with the ability to manipulate energy, sure…but still a teenager!

Dud was the one with the coffeepot. He leaned over the fire and sniffed the coffee. I wasn't sure if sniffing coffee could determine whether or not it was done, but the carapacian seemed to be able to manage just fine. "That's ready," the sharpshooter confirmed. "Cups!"

The Prospitian soldiers all retrieved their tin mugs from their mess kits, holding them out to the fire. One by one, Dud filled them all. Firehands tossed me an extra mug, so I was able to have some too. I blew on it for a couple minutes, watching almost in awe as some of the Prospitians simply started sipping it while it was still scalding hot.

"Anyone seen Theo, lately?" I asked while I waited for my coffee to cool down. Usually my best friend was around to greet me when I woke up, but I hadn't seen him yet. I glanced around, seeing the blank looks on everyone's faces. Crap. "Sorry, anyone seen the Thane, lately?"

I always forgot that the inhabitants of the incipisphere didn't know us by our first names. Our titles were our names to them.

"The Thane's been up with the Marshal all night," Firehands replied. "Discussing plans for the attack today, I'd assume. Our early start yesterday shaved off an entire day's march; we will be out of the Badlands by late morning."

"And I hope we never have to go back in," I murmured, still shuddering at the memories of those mutated, radioactive zombies that were all that remained of the Dersites unlucky enough to survive the nuclear bombing that took place here, while suffering from prolonged radiation exposure over the decades and centuries. "I'm surprised we haven't met any resistance along the way. Any resistance from the Black King, that is."

"He must not know of our presence, here," Firehands surmised. "Sending an attack force through the Badlands is a laughable notion at best…it's never been done, and the Black King would not be expecting it."

"Or maybe he does know we're here…" Three-Shot brought up the opposite possibility. "Maybe he's got enough strength lined up at the Black Keep that he doesn't need to harass us. He'll just stomp us to jelly when we poke our heads up."

That ushered in a brief silence over the campfire, unbroken until Firehands gave a loud guffaw. "You're just as good at being optimistic as you are at hitting moving targets…"

We didn't talk about anything important. No earth-shattering revelations, thought-provoking discoveries, or anything like that. Just a bunch of soldiers enjoying their coffee before a day of marching…and a potential siege later this afternoon, or tomorrow at the very latest.

The order to break camp was given shortly afterward. Cooking fires were stamped out, coffee quickly finished if there was any left, tents and bedrolls stowed away. The soldiers all reported to their officers, who got them into the formation. The column quickly began reassembling itself.

Unsurprisingly, I found Theo in the mobile command post. The inside of the MCP smelled like tobacco smoke; the Scarred Marshal had his small wooden pipe hanging out of his mouth as he pored with Theo over a detailed map of the area where the Black Keep is located.

"…and until the Rangers are able to provide verification for these maps, we would be wise to consider them outdated and unreliable," the Scarred Marshal was saying to Theo when I walked into the room. "Ah, Knight. Glad you decided to join us, this morning. Did you enjoy your coffee?"

I was no stranger to passive aggression. "Yeah, it was pretty great. Some of the soldiers sure can make a mean cup of joe."

"Well, do make sure your caffeine rush and subsequent crash does not affect your performance in the upcoming siege," the Scarred Marshal suggested, not even looking away from his map. "I would very much like for you to take a role in the battle that comprises of something more helpful than yawning."

Theo pulled me out of the MCP before I even got the chance to reply. "Okay, man, no more pissing off the Marshal today. We're gonna be attacking the Black Keep by evening—trust me, you don't want to fuck with him right now."

Within fifteen minutes, the vehicles were firing up their engines, and the column was on the move once more. Like before, I walked at the head of the column alongside Theo. Yesterday, Theo had been busy with the Marshal—again, planning shit for today, I could only assume—so I hadn't seen him all that much. I hadn't really gotten the chance to start telling him about what was happening on the Land of Rain and Rivers until now; he was curious to know how my consorts' revolution in the North had gone.

"…and so, after we got the Northerner dudes to start getting their shit together and meet everyone else at the Forbidden River, an elder took Scales and me to a return node, and-"

"Wait, a what?" Theo frowned, giving me a sidelong glance.

"A return node," I repeated myself. "You know, the small gates scattered all over your planet that bring you back to your house?"

"Oh yeah!" Theo's eyes lit up as the appropriate memories returned to him. "Forgot about those things…never really got around to using 'em."

"So anyway, I go back to my house, which actually isn't located all that far away from the Forbidden River, and Scales comes with me so he can rejoin his people faster. And that's where I am right now…sleeping in my own bed… And let me tell you, after a month of sleeping around, under, or in trees…there really isn't anything like sleeping in your own bed."

"So, when are you gonna attack your Denizen, then?" Theo asked.

I could only shrug. "Two days, maybe? The Northerners move fast—they've been waiting for a long time. The first of them are probably even arriving at the Forbidden River now. There'll be a council of war tomorrow to discuss formal plans for the attack, then the day after we'll be marching into the Old One's Garden."

"I wish Gwen would answer me when I message her—what you're doing on your planet would fascinate her," my friend said to me.

I arched an eyebrow to that. "Why?"

"Because what you're doing…it's a whole different way of winning this game," Theo explained to me. "Traditionally, you're supposed to focus on building up your house and traveling to some of the other worlds, too, through the seven gates. I actually passed through your planet for a few minutes. The point is that by the time you reach your seventh gate, you'll be ready to face your Denizen, but you… Instead of doing all that, you just went and rallied all your consorts, and are now taking the fight straight to your Denizen. This isn't how the game is supposed to be played…but Skaia seems to be allowing it. Maybe it's more like an alternate method for us to face our Denizens, only harder? Like a higher difficulty setting?"

"Dunno." I shrugged. "I haven't really been putting much thought into it. I just kinda assumed that's how I was supposed to do shit on my planet. It's not like my Sprite was helping me, or anything…"

"You think you should call him?" Theo's next question was, and it caught me a little off-guard. When Theo could see that I wasn't sure what he was asking, he went on to clarify. "Your Sprite. Don't you think you should summon him for your battle? He'd be a massive help."

"I'd rather roll around in nuclear waste…" I muttered. My Sprite tried to kill me soon after he was created. Yeah, he'd come back to help me get to my first gate afterwards, but he'd made it clear that he didn't want anything to do with me after that. Even if I wanted his help, there was no chance in hell he'd ever give it. "How would I even contact him? He's been with Cass this whole time, and she hasn't exactly been answering calls lately."

"Just use the pendant he gave you," Theo explained. "Its primary function is to summon your Sprite—he's bound to it."

Oh, yeah… The amber and red pendant that my Sprite had given me. I'd found it around my neck after I woke up in the main village of Clan Nathair—I'd been barely conscious when my Sprite had given it to me, so I didn't really remember what all he'd said about it. Probably something along the same lines as what Theo told me, unless he was really trying to fuck me over.

We continued to march well into the morning, traversing several more stretches of open waste, broken by the occasional patch of hills or mountains. The Rangers had barely slept; they were constantly out there in the wastes, working in tightly-rotating shifts, plotting out the best possible route through the radiation for us to take. Luck would have it that our route would actually deposit us on the western boundaries of the Badlands just four miles south of the Black Keep.

I'm not sure how the day/night cycle worked here, on the Battlefield—it is located in the center of Skaia, which is itself the surrogate 'sun' of everything else in the incipisphere. You'd think it'd be daytime all the time… But that wasn't the case. Of course, it's also far from the strangest thing I've seen here. Here in the Badlands, though…it was almost like a state of constant night. The light of Skaia was unable to penetrate the thick veil of storm clouds that hung low over this region of the Battlefield. So it was hard to tell when the day actually started.

Still, judging by how long we'd been marching, it would be safe to assume that it was getting towards midmorning, late morning by the time we spotted the ruins of more mountains in the distance. According to some of the Rangers I'd spoken to over the past couple days, those destroyed mountains had once been the Solemn Peaks, forming the western border of the Badlands. Now, of course, they were nothing but a cracked, ravaged labyrinth of hazardous terrain.

"Hear anything about Gino, yet?" I asked Theo.

My friend's expression morphed to one of surprise. "Is that genuine concern that I detect?" For once, I couldn't really tell if he was mocking me or if he was being serious. He was definitely getting better at being deadpan, regardless.

I couldn't help but scowl. "Maybe I just want to know if anyone's found his body," I muttered. But there really wasn't any heart in the biting retort… Truth be told, I was kinda concerned. No, I didn't like the guy…but I liked the fact that he'd vanished even less. I hoped nothing bad had happened to him. Yeah, he was an arrogant douchenozzle a lot of the time, but he wasn't a bad person…

"And we still haven't heard from Gwen, either, obviously…" I added. Gwen, on the other hand, I didn't feel any need to hide my concern for. Of the eight of us, I'd say I probably knew her the least. I knew that, like Gino, she'd been popular and played lacrosse in her high school, and she'd excelled at math…and boy, could she sing. I knew her from community theatre over the summer, where I'd been introduced to her and Tami by Cruz, and we'd done several shows together since.

She was a nice girl, and I especially didn't want anything bad to have happened to her…

"Nope, nothing…" Theo grumbled. If he had any ideas of what may have happened to either of them, he didn't share. Instead, he changed tack. "At least Tami still keeps in touch…"

"Not Cruz?"

"You haven't heard?" This time, Theo didn't sound so surprised that I was out of the loop on current events. He was learning fast. "Tami told me Cruz has been fighting with the Prospitian Navy for a while, now. Influenced a lot by you, actually; he started working with the White Admiral not long after you left to come here."

"That so?" My curiosity had been sparked. I found the image of Cruz fighting in a naval battle a difficult one to visualize. Maybe if Jack Sparrow smoked pot instead of drinking rum… I mean, it wasn't that I didn't think Cruz could do it, but… I've known him since I was little—our dream selves grew up on Prospit together—and it was hard to imagine Cruz doing anything action-related. "What's he been up to with the Navy?"

Theo gave another shrug. "We don't get much news of the Navy down here; the Skaian clouds wreak havoc with radio signals. Only thing Tami really mentioned was some sort of mission Cruz went on—he said he needed to get to the Veil, took a single ship, and didn't come back for a week. I've been meaning to ask him what he was up to, but he hasn't been online."

I felt a twinge of dissatisfaction. I guess I was realizing just how isolated I'd been this entire time. The only time I've ever seen any of my friends was when I was dreaming, for cryin' out loud… Gino and Gwen could be dead, for all I know…

Theo and I fell back into silence as the column reached the mountains we'd spotted a while back. We had to travel north for a short while—twenty, thirty minutes—until we happened upon a narrow valley that seemed to wind its way through to the western side of the remains of the mountain range.

Our progress was slowed a little when we entered the valley—there were giant rocks and…well, pieces of mountains, for lack of a better description, littered all throughout the natural corridor. Lengths had to be taken to circumnavigate some of the more cluttered portions of the valley. It got kinda annoying at times, sure, but it was still preferable to taking a week-long detour to find an alternate route around the mountains.

It wasn't long before we found ourselves marching through a dense gray fog, little eddies of wind agitating the misty vapor that hung in the air all around us. The slopes of the ruined mountains rose up on both sides of us, shadowy walls of a misty corridor, preventing us from straying where the corridor did not lead. We wound our way through the valley until the mountains fell away and the fog started to thin.

Gradually, as I was able to see the ground, the charred wastes gave way to the bare, black-and-white chessboard pattern of the earth of the Battlefield. Earth that hadn't been ravaged by a nuclear hammerdown. First there was earth, and then there was grass. Then we emerged from the fog and into the daylight, as if someone had just fast-forwarded time by twelve hours from night to afternoon.

We were out of the Badlands. There was no celebration to be had, though. As soon as we emerged from the wastelands, the column was promptly turned to the north, and we continued to march. I think we were also moving slightly to the west at the same time, because the Solemn Peaks gradually started moving further and further away, until all we could see of the Badlands now was a gray line of fog sitting beneath a front of black clouds.

The Scarred Marshal emerged from the MCP after the first two kilometers. He must have been communicating with the Rangers, because another two of the Pale Marksman's operatives appeared and met with the veteran division commander straightaway. They gave the Marshal a quick report before hurrying off and vanishing into the hills that dominated this region. As for the Marshal… I couldn't really tell what his reaction to the report was. He seemed surprised, angry…as well as in a state of disbelief.

He did not order us to stop the advance, however. Quite the contrary, he didn't give us any new orders, merely retiring to the MCP in silence. I'd heard that when we emerged from the Badlands, the Black Keep would be located just four kilometers to the north. Well, we'd already gone half that distance, so we didn't have very far to go. But even as we completed our third kilometer and started drawing near to the Black Keep, we didn't stop to reform into battle formations, which was highly unusual.

Eventually we finished our fourth kilometer and emerged from the hills onto an open plain…an open plain that also happened to have a massive castle made of some sort of black stone sitting in the middle. We had arrived at the Black Keep. Dersite banners waved and flapped in the wind from their mounts on the Black Keep's outer walls, its citadel, and its towers. Fixed energy turret and anti-armor emplacements lined the outer walls, as well. And even though the stone of the castle was black, it still managed to catch the light, almost making it sparkle in the late afternoon daylight.

There were massive, towering outer walls, with gates built into several points of the defenses. Smaller buildings had been built inside the walls to house the Dersites who lived there, as well as the places that kept the Keep running—its armory, its mess hall, its weapons factories, etc. etc. But in the center of everything was a giant, towering citadel with four smaller turrets built into all four sides, each facing a different direction, each made of a different color stone.

Apprehension began to creep its way into my gut. My Roman Lightbowie waited within my sylladex, itching to be summoned, and I found I would start unconsciously creating small flames around my fists when I let my mind wander too much. I waited as we marched towards the Black Keep for the Dersite monarch to emerge, towering over everyone and everything else with the power of his scepter, ready to stomp us all underfoot.

And even then, the Scarred Marshal did not order us into battle formations. The soldiers were murmuring again, voicing their unease with the situation.

But we were quickly able to notice that the Black Keep, the personal fort of the King of Derse and commander of the entire enemy army, was missing one fundamental thing… Dersites. There were no Dersites to be seen. No behemoths, no commandoes, no regular soldiers, no guards, no sentries…nothing. Nothing and no one.

The answer to why the Scarred Marshal hadn't bothered to order us into battle formations was quite clear, and it was also confirmed when we literally walked up to and through the gates—which were already open—without any resistance. The Black Keep was empty.

It had been abandoned.

I was one of the first ones through the Black Keep's front gates. I walked slowly, mouth hanging slightly open as I took in the sight of the empty castle. The only life here was a family of rabbits that promptly hopped away into the shadows of one of the buildings when they saw us coming, and the twenty or so Prospitian Rangers who'd been attached to our column.

The Rangers' commanding officer, the Pale Marksman, was conferring with two of her senior operatives on the steps in front of the entrance to the Black Keep's citadel when we made our entrance. As the Prospitian soldiers fanned out and started searching the grounds and buildings for any Dersite stragglers, the Scarred Marshal left his MCP and made his way across the greens towards us.

"Hey PM, what the fuck?" I called over to the female Ranger as Theo and I walked up onto the steps with her, referring to her by the informal nickname used by some of her subordinates. "Where is everyone?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Knight," the Marksman replied.

By then, the Scarred Marshal had caught up to us. He was wearing an eyepatch, today, covering the empty socket that had once contained his left eye. It made him look pretty badass, actually; he should really consider wearing it all the time, rather than just during battles. "I take it you have nothing new to report?" the division commander grunted, coming up to our step, glancing up at the eerily silent citadel that towered above us.

The Pale Marksman shook her head. "Negative on that," she said. "I sent some of my scouts out while you boys were still getting out of the Badlands, but we found nothing. The surrounding regions are empty, too. No telling exactly how long they've been gone, but I would wager a guess at…four days, perhaps more."

I stopped myself from rolling my eyes when the Scarred Marshal scowled. This guy was a master at finding new reasons to get angry as fuck. "C'mon, Marshal, lighten up! We made it through the Badlands and we took the Black Keep; we've accomplished our mission-"

"Foolish boy…" The Scarred Marshal rounded on me, almost baring his pointed teeth. "We did not take this Keep, we simply strolled in! What you do not understand is that since the beginning, the Black King has always concentrated his largest, most powerful forces here, around this very castle. The entire surrounding region was once swarming with Dersite commandoes!"

"And now, no one is here," Theo quickly caught on to why the Marshal was distressed. This left enough enemy troops unaccounted for to make any sense of comfort I'd been feeling completely get blown away. "So if the Black King and his core forces aren't here…then where did they go?"