Path of Transcendence 1: Ultimatum of the Nameless God (6 page)

“That boy, Bobby, self-identifies as a homosexual, and so does the one on his left. You self-identify as heterosexual, even though you've never been seen with a girlfriend, or anything resembling a normal friend for that matter. You're lucky you didn't raise your hand to them, or you would have been prosecuted then, but your comments are still good enough for an open and closed conviction, with a five year sentence.” The white Special Agent Jones has a nasty smile on his face. He seems to be someone who gets off on bullying the weak.

Social cameras, moral police, anti-violence laws, anti-bullying laws, anti-discrimination laws, and hate crimes have made most people afraid to say or do anything to offend anyone. Only the protected races, protected classes and those with the right political ideology dare to openly offend. I made a stupid mistake that day. I knew to keep my violence hidden from the cameras and make sure there were  never witnesses, but it was still a risk every time I retaliated against someone. The stupidity of being prosecuted for such a simple taunt is real, but the government almost never bothers. They store the evidence to use as leverage. If I was a coward, I would probably be afraid, but something as mild as a maximum security prison is not enough to threaten me any longer. I have survived places that would make both the Jones shitheads crap their pants.

“I do not know what happened. No matter how many times you ask, the answer will never change. No matter what crimes you charge with, the answer will never change.”

The black Special Agent Jones puts the tablet back in his briefcase. “You should contact your lawyer, Mark. Since you aren't going anywhere for a while, we'll be back in a week or so. That should give you the chance to speak with your lawyer and understand the position you are in. If you cooperate, we can make this go away forever.”

Without a backward glance, the two Jones brothers leave the room.

Good cop bad cop turned into bad cop bad cop. Even for today's FBI, that was a ridiculously heavy handed approach. There has to be more to this than I am in a position to understand. The agent said
1,138,345 people died and another 87,565 comatose, so with me alive, that would be 1,225,909 dead because of The Nameless. Of course, the government probably knows nothing about the existence of The Nameless.

I already hated this world, when I was taken by The Nameless. Given a choice, I would never have returned, but what options do I have now? Is there going to be a way to get back to the Labyrinth of Yggr?

The Nameless has to be in control of The Nameless Entertainment, Inc., or more accurately, must have some of his followers in control of it. Would they be from Earth or from Taereun? My guess would be Taereun, and if they are from Taereun, there has to be a way to move back and forth.

A man's presence in my room startles me. I had been so lost in thought, that I never noticed when he entered. His pitch black eyes are emptier and more soulless than the black Special Agent Jones, and his build is nearly a muscular as the white one, though he is half a head shorter. His pitch black three piece suit and red silk shirt probably cost more than the average government worker makes in a week, even with their salaries being more the three times those in the private sector. His black hair and beard shine, as though they are oiled.

Seeing me notice him, the man raises the cane in right hand, which has a blood red crystal for its handle. “The social cameras in this room cannot monitor us, until I allow it again.”

The man's lips twist into a condescending smile. I do not think I kept the surprise off of my face, except for “social cameras” all of his word were in the Slave Tongue. Because of having Talon's memories, I understood the language almost immediately after the Great Fuck Over.

“So you're one of The Nameless' lackeys.” My voice is flat, emotionless.

“A pathetic toad like yourself should watch his mouth and his manners. I am here to give you a chance to live, and you are being impudent. If you do as I say, I will not have to kill you, and I might even find a use for you in the future.” His unmitigated arrogance is impressive, but I have the feeling that in this world he can back it up.

I do not say anything and just stare at him. The man stares back, and after a few minutes his arrogant smile turns into a pleased one. Either, he sees something he likes, or he is pretending to.

“No one knows I am here. The social cameras do not record me, when I do not wish to be recorded. I could kill you right now, with no one the wiser, but I would rather have you live and keep denying any and all knowledge about what happened to your dead . . . I can't really call them friends can I? You have no friends, after all.”

“So the others are dead?”

The man smirks. “Their bodies here are dead, but some of them survived their failure. Killing them may not have been worth The God's time, so they might or might not remain alive in their new bodies.”

Turning around, the man walks out of the room, without making a sound.

I do not have a clue what it might be, but there is something still going on in relation to the Great Fuck Over. I need to find out what it is, and whether or not, it will be a danger to me.

That man was definitely some kind of caster, or maybe a medium, so mana can obviously be used even here on Earth. If mana can be used, ki should be usable as well and maybe even the Od.

This is my second day in physical rehabilitation. I am amazed at how much the body's musculature can deteriorate, after being in a coma for a year and a half, but at least it accomplished what dieting and exercise never could, I lost my fat. The odd thing is that I do not have the folds of excess skin that would normally exist after so much weight loss. My body's reactions to things other than medical treatments seems to be abnormal as well.

Despite my determination, my muscles tremble, as I do sets with pathetically light weights. Even with the use of all the normal treatments and therapy for coma patients, I am nothing more than a shadow of what I was before the Great Fuck Over. If I was not in this condition, I would never have acquiesced to performing such pitiful exercises.

My physical therapist is standing to the side watching me, with a critical look on his face. He should be happy, I am working harder than anyone else would. Normal people, people without the experience of being burned alive in a car wreak, would never be able to ignore pain of this level and go beyond the weak rep and set requirements of my rehabilitation program.

John, my physical therapist, is worried that I will injure myself, and he will be censured for it. He tried to physically restrain me from doing the exercises I know are necessary, at least he tried until he looked into my eyes. Whatever he saw in my eyes was enough to drain the blood from his face, and he stopped interfering. He is content to scowl at me from the sidelines now.

Still, my body does not feel like if fits me, it does not feel like it belongs to me. My body is not in sync with my soul and my mind. I feels like I am twisted between the two disparate existences. For nearly twelve years, I lived as a Half-Dvergar, and as hard as it was to adjust to being Half-Dvergar, it is even harder to adjust to being merely human. My soul changed, and probably my mind as well.

I can never forget what it was like first adjusting to that superhuman body, the body and the memories of something more than human. The body empowered me, and the memories haunted me.

Floating near the ceiling of the Chamber of Transition, the spirit of The Nameless God looked down on the collection of bodies with mismatched minds and souls below himself.

Every living thing is made of the combination of a body, a mind, and a soul. Each of the three is part of the whole. The Nameless God had taken the minds and souls of the players of the game Taereun: Battleground of the Damned and placed them within the bodies of what were once their characters. However, the minds and souls did not match the bodies completely, and some were a better fit than others.

Of the many victims of his experiment, The Nameless was only truly interested in a few. One of those that held the most interest was a Half-Dvergar. If he had been standing, he would be close to six feet tall, but the breadth of his shoulders was still nearly the equal of a Dvergar. The player was Mark McGuinness, and the body was Talon.

Lying on the cold stone floor panting like an animal, Mark McGuinness looked around. His
thick beard was laying on his chest. He reached toward his beard, and froze at the sight of his hand. It was not his hand. It was thick and wide, with heavy callouses and scars.

He was in the same giant chamber, where he appeared in his real body. Making a clockwise circle followed by a counterclockwise circle with his left hand, Mark attempted to bring up the game menu, but nothing  happened. Taereun: Battleground of the Damned only had a single game menu, with two buttons: “Help” and “Log Out”, but even that was no longer there. There was no game menu, no way to log out.

As he watched, the corners of The Nameless' mouth quirked upward in a smile, filled with malicious anticipation. Unknown to Mark McGuinness, The Nameless reach out with a tendril of psi energy, touching his mind.

I will even give each of you the bodies and memories of your game characters.
The Nameless God's words echoed in Marks mind.

I may have the body, but if I have the memories, they are hidden. Fucking so-called god.

Pain tore through Mark's skull, as a torrent of memories that were not his own flooded his mind. The memories followed the same general pattern as Talon's character background, from
Taereun: Battleground of the Damned
. The last memories were at the point Mark started the game. He recognized the room, where he first opened his eyes as Talon.

Questions echoed through his mind.
Did his life end at the point where I started playing the game? Did my choices during the character creation and how I played the game cause him to live such a painful life? That could not be right. The real Talon was not my game character, was he? What is happening to me? What happened to Talon?

The more he tried to think about the memories, the more intense the pain became. Mark was barely clinging to his sanity. Talon's memories were so strong, so violent, so brutal, that they were crushing Marks personality.
He was helpless, screaming inside his own mind. At least, he thought he was only screaming inside his own mind.
How could just his left over emotions and memories be so overwhelming? I can't take much more! I can barely separate him from me. Compared to him, what I endured after the accident was nothing.

Talon's
life was nothing but an endless cycle of torture and battles, all of it at the whim of the Masters. He never knew freedom, until he escaped into the Battleground of the Damned. His freedom was the freedom to fight and kill at his choosing instead of the Master's bidding. Even in the Battleground of the Damned, he fought for decades. He only found peace within himself, after the monk Tae Sun became his teacher.

Mark was not sure how much time had passed, but the pain was not quite so bad. The memories and emotions of Talon were not overwhelming him anymore, not completely anyway. However, he was having trouble clearly remembering my life on Earth. There were gaps that were being fill with pieces of Talon's life. Because of the extreme strength and forcefulness of Talon's memories, the memories of Mark and Talon were blending. Without his understand or realizing it, some of Mark was lost, and some of Talon's traits and nature became a part of Mark. Without noticing, Mark was beginning to think of Talon as his own name.

He clearly remembered The Nameless God from the lore of Taereun: Battleground of the Damned.
Could he really be the God from the MMO? Or should I say, could the God from the MMO have been based on him? The Nameless Entertainment, Inc. That was the name of the company that developed Taereun: Battleground of the Damned. Did it mean that he was involved in everything from the beginning?

Am I assuming this is real? Yeah. I think this is all real. Fuck me.
Talon looked around the Chamber of Transition. It did not feel like he was in a VR simulation any longer, no matter how realistic it was, something was always unexplainably felt not quite real in a VR simulation. That feeling was gone.

The moans and sometimes the screams of other people were audible all around Talon. Turning his head to the side he saw a number of bodies on the ground near his own. They were clad in leathers, robes and armors. None of it was clothing that could find on Earth.

Struggling unsteadily to his feet, Talon looked around for something that would serve as a mirror. A number of polished surfaces were in the Chamber, and he took a step toward one. His face twisted into a mask of shocked incomprehension, as he hurtled face first into the irregularly shaped machine.

What the hell happened?

He pushed off the floor with his hands to stand up again, and flew six feet into the air.

What the hell? Is the gravity that light?

Talon looked at his forearms, covered in thick heavy muscles, just like the rest of his body. An involuntary shiver ran through him. Looking at his reflection in the machine's polished surface, he saw the long thick black hair and beard that framed a broad hard face. The face was divided by a nose that was like the blade of a ruined axe, twisted and misshapen from the dozens of times it had been broken. A heavy bone structure and bushy eyebrows shadowed the eyes that were dark and shiny as polished onyx.

His eyes moved from the face to the rest of the body. It really was a Half-Dvergar's body, Man tall and Dvergar broad. A magically created hybrid, that was sterile like a mule. Thick powerful muscles covered shoulders that were more than twice as broad as a normal human's. With only a fur vest covering the torso, hundreds of old scars from Talon's decades as a gladiatorial slave, followed by more decades in the Battleground of the Damned, could be seen.

A grin split Talon's mouth.
I really was superhuman. I am Half-Dvergar.
Talon was a living, breathing monster. Stronger than any human could ever dream of being. In the game, I did not have to deal with the incredible difference in our strengths. Now, I have to adjust to this body.
A laugh, a sound like gravel being shaken in a wooden bucket, rumbled from deep within his thick chest.

Talon started by shuffling along like an old man, barely raising his feet off the ground, so that he could move without launching himself into the air. Time and again, he stumbled and fell, before he got used to moving in a semblance of a normal walk. He was still bouncing a couple feet into the air with most steps, but it was better than leaping uncontrollably.

I could use this body normally, when Taereun was a game. So, why is it so hard now? What has changed?

Talon was not the only one, having a hard time. Hundreds of others were trying to get used to their new bodies, as they stumbled around. A bare few were Dvergar and a small number were Alfar. Most were human, with a smattering of Half-Alfar, but they were in the minority.

I can understand Dvergar having a hard time adjusting, but why are Alfar and humans have a hard time too?

The complex character creation system of Taereun: Battleground of the Damned ensured that most player wound up as humans or in some cases Half-Alfar. When the weeks long process that could open up Alfar or Dvergar did not guarantee one of those races, most players were turned off of spending the time. As a result, only humans were common. Mark McGuinness' character creation had taken almost three months, and Talon was the only Half-Dvergar ever given to a player.

Talon looked around the Chamber of Transition. On opposite ends of the huge room, there were two sets of doors. Both sets of door were closed, with no visible handles or locks, from where he was standing.
How are we supposed to open them? Do both lead to new zones? Does one lead back to the Battleground of the Damned?

Talon knew he would have no friends in that room, but many of them were his enemies. He stepped into a shadow, and activated an one of abilities from the Shadow Fist. He should have blended into the shadows, becoming all but invisible, but nothing happened. Concern visible in his face, he tried to use the Fist of Darkness and nothing happened. Not expecting it work, he tried to use the Fist of Light, and as expected, it did not work.
Was that what The Nameless meant by saying we would need to master our new bodies? Would we have to learn how to do what our characters did as part of the game?

Looking around, he saw other people were using spells, and there were still others using combat arts.
Why can't I use Shadow Fist? What are they doing differently?

Again, he tried to activate the shadow cloak that he used in the game, but still, it did not work.
Why? In the game, I just had to think of the abilities I wanted to use, and they worked. What is different? Without being able to use Talon's powers, I won't have a chance against anyone even half competent.

Talon stayed in the deepest shadows, his gaze roaming around the chamber. He did nothing to draw attention to himself. As time passed, he grew hungry, but only sparingly drinking from a water flask.

“THUG HORDE!”

“THUG HORDE!”

“THUG HORDE!”

“THUG HORDE!”

“THUG HORDE!”

The yells come from all over the Chamber. Talon watched, as the people yelling the guild's name gathered in one place. Thug Horde's reputation was among the worst of any guild in Taereun: Battleground of the Damned. They were known for hurting people as badly as the could, in any way they could. Their attacks were not limited to in the game. They used forums to spread lies and innuendo, and when they could get another player's information and avoid being caught on the social cameras, even harassed people in real life.

Violence erupted near where Thug Horde was congregating. They were trying to establish their dominance over the other players. Before anyone could escape or organize, Menton, the leader of Thug Horde, was trying to force as many people as possible to submit to his rule.

As Talon, Mark McGuinness had been in hundreds of fights with Thug Horde. One, that lasted over six months, had become one of the legends associated with the game. Menton had ordered his guild to crucify Talon, as an “example” to solo players. Even with the pain dampers on, crucifixion was an unpleasant experience in Taereun: Battleground of the Damned, but Mark had always played with the pain dampers to zero. After fighting his way out of the Land of the Dead and reviving, Mark had hunted down every lone member or small group from Thug Horde he could find, and crucified them all. It was the start of an enmity that never ended.

Around an hour after Thug Horde started their subjugation campaign, one of the gates opened.  Talon was two-thirds of the way around the perimeter of the Chamber from the open gate. Even with a relatively clear view, he was unable to see anything beside darkness outside a short tunnel.

Staying in the shadows, Talon began to move around the perimeter toward the open gate. There were a few minutes of indecision, before people began to separate into general groupings. Some moved away from the gate; some move toward it; and some clustered in the middle of the Chamber.

Even without his supernatural abilities from the game, Talon still had his trained body, and the martial arts training of two worlds to draw upon. Despite his mass and bulky size, he seemed to flow through the shadows in the gaps between the machinery.

A crowd of people were milling around near the door. Talon was surprised, no one had gone through the door by the time he reached it. Many times, he had read forums posts or heard people in the game opining on what they would do, if they were really living in their game's worlds.

Talon did not think or agonize over his decision. He was anxious to get out of the Chamber as quickly as possible. Pushing past the crowd, he kept moving forward toward the gate. At first, there was only some mumbling, since no one was willing to try and stop him.

“Hold it, you! Menton hasn't given anyone permission to leave yet.”

The voice, which Talon recognized, came behind him. Turning, he glared at Nero Black, one of Menton's guild officers.

Nero Black paled. He was human with dark brown skin, but Caucasian rather than Negroid features. An odd feature of Taereun: Battleground of the Damned was that even though there were characters that had dark brown to black skin, there were no characters who possessed Negroid facial features.

“I don't answer to Menton. I'll give you a few choices. Ignore me. Go back to licking Menton's asshole. Die and find out if death has become permanent. You decide.” Talon's lips twisted into a smile, that was colder than the depths of space, and move savage than an angry bear.