The Game Before the Fall

Chapter 38: Inheritance (Part 1)

Chapter 38: Inheritance

2 years 9 months after the Fall:

"Stay with me Ardent," Vanter pressed a cloth down on the gaping wound across my chest. "Aria will be here soon."

"No," I coughed causing a bout of pain to assault my body. "It's too dangerous." We were surrounded. The Rift Walkers had broken through the dungeon barrier and now it was a free for all trying to survive. Dozens of people already laid dead, many of them people I had respected and worked with. What should have been a meeting between the allied dungeons became a bloodbath instead. We had just come back from the Destrian Desert and now this.

"Just focus on staying conscious," Vanter grit his teeth and looked around the corner. We had somehow made it out of the dungeon itself, but the outside was worse than the inside. The city of Crysis had already been torn apart but now it was once again. "We'll get back home soon."

My mind was beginning to fail me. I had already expended all my internal energy getting as many people out as we could. Without it I couldn't use Aura or mana, my body was on its last breaths. It felt empty, as if a light breeze would take me away. The only feeling that grounded me to reality was the pain that continued to strike me.

I looked up just in time to see the Rift Walker fall towards our hiding place. A rank 8. Its body elongated like a centipede with a cursed ceramic like skull for a head bleached white and covered in fresh blood.

"Vanter!" I yelled and with that last remains of my strength shoved him aside as the Rift Walker focused upon me.

"Ardent!" he called my name back as suddenly the Rift Walker was between us.

I was going to die. Even if I was at my peak, we needed an entire team to take on a rank 8. What could I do against it with no energy left? It shrieked as scythe like appendages opened up across its mouth. There was a darkness within. A deep unending black where it gaped open.

"No...," I grit my teeth. I refused to die here. I promised everyone we'd come back soon. I promised Aria... I couldn't fail her. I swung with my hand as the Rift Walker lunged to end me. At the point between life and death, where my body was empty, my hand shook, fingers blurred against reality. Without warning the Rift Walker split apart as if an invisible knife had cut it cleanly in two. Its skull divided and crashed around me, already beginning fade away.

Vanter jumped to my side an instant later, ready to defend, instead he saw the remains of the Rift Walker begin to disintegrate as they always did.

"What the hell did you do?" he asked in shock.

"I don't know," was all I could say in reply.

**

Ardent Friend:

For a moment we spiralled within the Rift. It was a haze of flashing lights across a sea of colours merging together. I held Zen on one side while Aria held the other. Then as quickly as the darkness had come, spinning the world apart, it began to reform and a blinding light filled our vision. The landing came next as we fell into something soft and cold.

I gasped and hefted Zen from the snow as Aria pulled herself up. We were surrounded by the powdery white environment. I looked around quickly trying to gather where we were. A sun shone above us in a cloudless sky but from our position it was all I could make out. One thing was clear, we weren't where we expected. It could never snow like this at home.

"Aria, where did you send us?" I asked as I helped her up, still carrying the unconscious Zen.

Aria looked around mystified, "I don't know. I just broke through and sent us into the rift. We should have landed somewhere near home...."