Otherlife Nightmares: The Selfless Hero Trilogy (14 page)

“No. I will not. I told you not to use that name in public. We’ll speak later of this,” chided Brunhild. Her voice came from the nothing in the middle of them. As she spoke, it was as if another presence was there, standing amongst them.

“Mm, yes dear. Miss you too, can’t wait to see you tonight. By the way, you were stunning today.”

Dropping the last piece into Hannah’s hands, he reached for the hilt, wondering if Brunhild would say anything.

“Thank you,” whispered the goddess. The moment her presence left was obvious to everyone.

“As you see, there it is. We negotiated for the souls of those who were executed by the king. They were blameless in their treason as they had no chance to run counter to the decisions that were thrust upon them. I Awakened them, and then damned them.”

He said the last words as if they sickened him. With a crack, the pommel and cross-guard came free from the hilt.

“As to the home. It was one of the drops we got from killing Wrinkles, back on Vix. I completely forgot about it until last night. Rather than find us a home elsewhere, we’ll make one ourselves. Damn the world and its irrational hate.”

No one responded, not to the casual address of a goddess or to the truth of their home being where they’d met.

He retrieved six slender bars of dark iron from his inventory. Each dark iron bar had been bound already with
Strength
.

Giving the hilt pieces back to Nadine, he scooped up the broken sword bits from Hannah. Taking the base and tang in one hand, he took one of the dark iron ingots in the other.

Holding them tightly in his cupped hands, Runner directed intense spell-made heat between his fingers. Within seconds the bit of sword and dark iron had fused into an ugly dark colored mass. Strengthening his hands, he set about molding the metal into the original shape of the sword
.

Using the other bits as reference, and the ingots as flat planes, he managed to get the piece into the same shape. If not the same length or color.

The piece had
Strength
bound into it from the dark iron. He gave it a cursory inspection, then set it down in Hannah’s lap. Picking up the next piece of the dark iron and the sword, he repeated the process. And so it went.

Once each piece had been reformed, he began welding them together. He worked away any blemishes with his enchanted fingers, molding and melding it into a single solid piece.

In the end, he had a large, unsharpened, dark-slate-colored sword blank. Reaching across the aisle, he placed it in Katarina’s lap and took up the pieces of the hilt from Nadine.

For the hilt he undid the leather wrapping and disposed of it. He melted the hilt into a formless lump and then reshaped it. Replacing the cord with the red cloth he’d last used on Mortal Coil, he wrapped the handle tightly.
Spellbinding
the cloth with
Fireblast,
he then set it in place with the
Agility
lacquer.

Working smoothly, he bound each piece of the hilt with
Strength
and then welded them back together.

Giving the hilt a spin in his hand to inspect it, he smoothed out any rough spots and cleaned up the design.

He reached over to Katarina, picked up the dark blade, and set the tang into the hilt’s receiver.

He forced heat down into the hilt, where the tang met the interior, and pressed the two pieces together firmly.

None of this would work in the real world, but here…here I’m a master craftsman that breaks swords with his fingers and melts iron in his hands. Is it really so bad? Out there I was an IT goon, fixing things, checking boxes, creating profiles, dying. Slowly dying.

Abruptly the blade attached to the hilt and clicked. Immediately expelling the heat, he inspected the unfinished sword critically. All he needed to do was put an edge on it.

Casting
Stonehands,
he drew his fingers down the edge of the blade while activating
Item Assembly
and
Arcane Smithing.

The sword misted over for a second and became hazy, and then clear again. Brassy and deep, the noise signaling the successful creation of a unique artifact sounded.

Where it had looked a little rough before, now it only looked wicked and dark. The sword was fit and straight, dark with patterned lines running widthwise across the blade.

The hilt had darkened to an unpolished gray. Bright red, the hilt stood out like a beacon or fresh blood.

Calling up the item, he inspected it.

Item:

Effects-

Fireblast:
Chance to deal burning damage on hit.

Functions-

None:

Attributes-

Strength
: 30

Agility
: 3

Runner flipped the blade end over end and presented it hilt first to Katarina.

“Princess Kitten, thy sword. Unnamed, as requested.”

“Shit.”

“Truly? You can do it that easily, Master Runner?”

Katarina hesitated, her hands hovering over the black blade, then took it. As soon as her hands held it, her eyes opened wide, and she smiled. It was a smile deep from her heart, one that lit up her face.

“Yes, it really is that simple for me. I plan on outfitting all of us as such.”

Runner, there’s a problem.

Holding up a finger as if to forestall questions, he answered Srit aloud.

“There’s always a problem. What is it this time?” he said. A chime sounded in his ear that he’d received system mail. “One second, Srit.”

He opened the ship’s email program and called up his inbox. It was empty except for one message. From Yulia, his ex-girlfriend who had left him to his fate previously. Selecting the item, he brought it up to his active screen.

Runner, I swear if this is true, I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you and use your chest as a toilet. I will rip out your fucking guts, cut your dick off, and peg you with your own dick while using your intestines as a condom.

I told him to let you go, I told him to leave you be. And this? This?!

Respond immediately or I will hunt you down and end you.

IMMEDIATELY!

“Uh, Srit. I just received a lovely piece of correspondence. Reads a bit like the manuscript for a slasher flick. Would it in any way happen to do with the problem?”

Probable. Jacob has told the rest that you are the person who put them here.

“Not allowed to use those kind of words, remember? Though that’s an interesting claim on his part, since I have no memory of doing it.”

Runner, who else could have done it?

“What?” he whispered. Doubts and concerns started to flood into him.

The officers are dead. I’m the only person in IT. The only person who could load such a program directly into the mainframe is me.

No one else alive on your ship had the permission, or ability, to do what you described to me previously.

“I’d remember though. I…I’d have made logs or left myself a…” His words trailed off as it all came down on him.

He’d left a message alright. It was waiting for him when he’d logged in. His theory had been that the medical server had gone down. In the case of an emergency, the officers would be awoken. IT would then be awakened if no officers responded.

Runner would have been kicked from stasis without medical supervision or proper warm-up protocol. His brain would be fried with stimulants from the pod and battling the effects of stasis at the same time.

Put in the position he’d just described to himself, he would do exactly what had happened. Program the ship to take a direct course for home, load everyone into the game hosted on the main server, move their brain patterns over, leave a message for himself, and…

And then load himself over. Which would be damn near impossible since he would be awake for it. It would scramble his memories terribly and possibly scar him permanently.

That and burn the memory of the entire ordeal clean from his mind more than likely. From the improper wake up, the stimulants, and the pattern move, unlikely was the chance the memory would ever surface. But it all fit. It all fit perfectly.

Every member of the crew would have their memories return in a relevant order. In fact, they might have started off with a vast majority of their memories intact. More so than Runner at least.

Runner’s own memories were more like they had been jammed in a blender and left spinning on “liquefy.”

“I take it the crew is up in arms over it?” Runner whispered.

Correct. There’s more though.

“Correct is also an unacceptable response. How could it be worse, Srit?”

He told them on the forums to check their shipboard bank accounts. They know what year it is.

Chapter 6 - Plans within Plans -

6:04pm Sovereign Earth time

11/09/43

Runner could only shake his head.

Of course. Because the only way this could be worse is them knowing.

Looking to the rest of his group, he could only offer up a tired smile.

“Looks like the cat’s out of the bag. Everyone knows the year apparently. Our dear friend Jacob told them. On top of that, they all believe I’m the one who put them here. Which, to be perfectly honest, is probably accurate. I’m the only one who could have done it due to the requirements and system needs.”

“Cock sucking bastard. Eject the scumbag already, Runner! You’re the captain of the ship, call him a mutineer.”

“Yes. Listen to Hannah,” Katarina grumbled.

Not a bad idea, but at this point they’d view me as a tyrant and dictator. Would that help me or hinder…

“N-n-no! He can’t do that. It’d be m-murder.”

“I concur. It would be premeditated murder, no matter which way he spun it.”

Nodding his head, Runner felt torn. It really would solve a number of problems. It had the potential to create many more though.

He has already insinuated that he could be killed for saying these things. If he were to disappear, it would only confirm his accusations.

The fact that Srit knew that piece of information was disconcerting. It also effectively removed his ability to deal with Jacob directly.

“Apparently, and I’d like to know how you’re aware of this, Srit, Jacob has already been telling people that if he were to die, it’d be because he spoke out.”

I have been integrating with the AI inherent to this program. I am replicating myself through injections into its code. I have gained control over a few of its lesser functions—this includes its global chat log for players.

Right, that’s how it can get worse. Srit is taking over the system itself and I’ve yet to secure any type of a deal with her. The moment she gets full access…

Laughing, he looked to his feet. Even to his own ears, his laughter sounded broken and hollow.

“Right, then. Things I can solve immediately. Damage control on Jacob.”

He opened the ship’s system and fired off a quick reply to Yulia, assuring her that, while true, he’d loaded them into the game to protect them from certain death due to what appeared to be sabotage on the bridge.

Next, he unlocked all the systems he had previously locked the crew out of. Everything except for the communications logs. It would serve no further purpose to block them out of anything with a date; yet communications could be an issue.

Creating a ship-wide broadcast emergency alert, he quickly filled in the details that would be pertinent to anyone who read it. It stuck to the key points: forty-four thousand years had passed, Runner loaded them into the game to save their brains from being scrambled, a local population was helping them to get out, Runner was acting as the de facto ambassador, captain, and commander, and Jacob was actually a criminal on the run. Runner embedded a link to the video of Jacob raping the dead crewmate, then sent it.

“Okay, that’s as much as I can do for now. Moving on, moving on. Artifacts. We’ll be making your short swords next, Hanners, when I get a chance. Honestly, though, I think I want to collapse in my bedroll and sleep.”

“When-n-n did you eat last? Are you eating properly?”

“I think so? I can’t remember, Rabbit. Kinda blends together after a bit.”

“That’s not good. I will m-make you dinner, you’ll eat it, and then sleep.”

“Yes, Rabbit. Though I think I need to have a chat with Lady Brunhild first. Then I’ll eat, then sleep. Promise.”

Again the cabin grew quiet. It would seem Brunhild had been right about not mentioning her. He’d fix that later. For now, he had to play the role in case she was listening. He had made giant leaps in his standing with her and would not be set back now.