Path of Transcendence 1: Ultimatum of the Nameless God (9 page)

Nine hundred ninety-eight.

Nine hundred ninety-nine.

One thousand.

I finish my last sit-up and relax my abdominal muscles, as I lay back on the ground. Rapidly straightening my arms, I hurl the rock that weighs more than I do into the air. The thump and vibrations of its impact behind my head are transmitted to my body, through the ground.
Compared with the past, my rate of improvement is greatly accelerated. After pushing myself to the point of collapse, I can recover with a single night's rest.

In only a month and a half, I have progressed from performing my exercises with difficulty to performing them while carrying weights greater than my own body weight. The circulation of ki through my body has allowed me to develop stronger muscles than I had been able to in the past, even if I they are still only a shadow of my Half-Dvergar body's muscles. If my development continues at the rate, I will surpass the boundaries of anything that could be called human within another month or so.

I never understood how much ki could affect one's body, but there are so many things that I do not understand. Every day, I make new discoveries about what I can do with ki. I have no clue where the road I am walking will take me, but with every new discovery, I am more and more excited to find out.

Unconsciously using my ki, I rise to my feet, without using my arms to push myself off the ground. More and more I have been doing things like this over the past month. I no longer need to meditate and focus to keep the ki flowing though my body, it now moves naturally with the cycle of my breathing. Even though I no longer have to focus on ki to use it, the amount of ki I can channel is still pathetically weak compared what I could have used as a Half-Dvergar.

The forms of Shadow Fist are easier to practice with the ki in my body, but they are still not complete. Until I can use the Od, I will never be able to fully use Shadow Fist.

To compensate, I have begun to practice with the Urehara Style and what I remember of the other fighting styles that Talon learned. Over the decades of his life, after learning Shadow Fist, Talon studied dozens of other fighting styles. He never used them, but he wanted to understand the differences between normal styles and Shadow Fist. That old monk Tae Sun changed Talon's very way of thinking, when he taught him Shadow Fist.

Talon's memories are still partially intact within my mind. I am certain I lost parts of them, when I died. There are gaps that I cannot fill in, events and knowledge that seem to be far larger than the parts that remain. Without an eidetic memory, it is natural to forget and lose parts of your memories over time, but the gaps are too pronounced within Talon's memories. It must have something to do with the nature of bodies, minds, and souls. The three can apparently be separated but are probably not entirely distinct and separate. When I was in Talon's body, I could not remember some things about my life that I was certain I should know, and a few things I know I could not remember, I once again remember. Parts of Talon's memories have become my own, attached to my mind and soul now, but others have been lost forever.

With the help of Urehara-sensei's maintenance man, I built several wooden men. Both Urehara-sensei and myself are hitting far too hard to use normal punching bags any longer. After rupturing the seams on several, we decided to use posts and wooden men for our training. It sounds like I am hitting the wood with a heavy hammer, as I begin my striking practice. The distinct sounds of my hands, feet, legs, and arms impacting the wood turns into a continuous sound that continues to drone on, when I push my speed to its current limit.

After twenty minutes of continuous strikes, I stop and turn to Urehara-sensei, who is standing outside of the dojo's back door. There is a solemn air about him, as he stares at me. His ki is more controlled now, giving him the ability to use several times the amount of ki that I can at the moment. Even though his body's ability to use ki is currently stronger than mine, the increase in the volume of ki my body can handle is progressing at several times his rate of development. I also have a much better fine control over the ki I can use.

Urehara-sensei holds out an envelope. “This is probably the man you wanted information on. He was the only one that matched all the criteria you provided.”

Taking the envelope, I open it and look at the contents. There are only five sheets of paper, but they tell me what I need to know: Harold T. Sawyer was a US Marine, who served in Operation Desert Storm in the 1990s. After leaving the Marine Corp., he used his military benefits to become a software engineer. He was also a long term MMO player, who operated popular fan sites for several mass market games and made a great deal of money, when he sold them. Married and divorced three times, all or his close relatives are deceased. He was one of the
87,565 comatose Taereun: Battleground of the Damned players and is now deceased. This man has to be Thorrin Hammerfist.

It had not been difficult for Thorrin to come to an agreement with the elder of Emer, and now, Thorrin's Hammers were settling into their newly constructed homes. After learning about Thug Horde's raids from the survivors of a nearby village, the elder was more than happy to let the Hammer's extend the town walls and build a community adjacent to their small town. With the powerful adepts and casters who were enemies of the raiders, Emer had a better chance of surviving.

Thorrin was sitting outside his cabin, with a log for a backrest, and staring at the night sky. He was a Dvergar, the only one in Thorrin's Hammers and the only on in Emer. Had he been standing he would have been fully five feet tall, about the greatest height of a normal Dvergar, and his broad massively muscled frame weighed over six hundred pounds.

With the smoke from his pipe wreathing his head, Thorrin unhappily inspected the small amount of tobacco left in his tobacco pouch. “Damn. And where am I going to find tobacco? These villagers haven't ever heard of anything like it before.”

“You should stop smoking. It's bad for your health.”

Turning his head, Thorrin frowned at Nessa who was standing next to the corner of his cabin, with her arms crossed and tapping her foot. She was a girl in her late teens, wearing a brown dress that reached to mid-calf and sturdy brown leather boots.

With his more than human vision, Thorrin could clearly see the frown on the girls face, and the annoyed squint in her brown eyes. That face was much more than merely pretty, and framed by dark brown hair that reached to the middle of her back and half hid her breasts.

“Nessa, my girl, you need to stop telling your elders what they should be doing. I'm a Dvergar, and smoking will not do a Dvergar the least bit of harm.”

Nessa stalked forward. “How can you be sure? The people of this world are nearly savages, and know nothing about real medical science. They probably wouldn't even know what smoking related cancer was.”

Thorrin almost lost his customary frown for a slight smile, almost but not quite. Even though “Nessa” appeared to be in her late teens, the girl who had become Nessa was no more than sixteen, filled with the righteous certainty of her all-knowing, high school educated, teenage wisdom.

“Girly, you could never imagine just how much knowledge the Dvergar really have. I'm still trying to come to terms with some of the things that I've learned. The technology that they chose to lay aside could never be equaled by Earth in a million years.”

Nessa's chin rose, as she looked down at Thorrin, from her full 5'2&½ ” height. “Sounds like a typical
adult
making up excuses to cover for what he doesn't know.”

Thorrin's frown deepened, as he laughed grimly.
Girl, if you learned half of what I have, you would be quaking in your boots.

The memories Thorrin inherited from the real Thorrin, who was killed by The Nameless God, had been giving him nightmares from the first day. Even though the other Thorrin had been captured by DokkAlfar at a young age and never read any of the hidden texts, he had still learned from other Dvergar within the Battleground of the Damned. The power that the Dvergar had lain aside and still kept locked in a handful of hidden vaults was enough to destroy universes. They were old beyond measure and knowledgeable beyond anything Earthlings had ever dreamed of being.

The Dvergar of old had travelled through countless dimension in service to the Dragons, but not the dragons that existed today. The Dragons that the Dvergar served were long gone, and the ones calling themselves dragons were nothing more than the pets of the real Dragons.

Thorrin did not want to think about what the real Dragons were like, Gods was the only word that seemed appropriate. Nor did he want to think about the knowledge and power the Dvergar kept hidden: the power to destroy worlds and stars, the power to tear apart universes, the power to create universes, the power to create life.

“Hail, the town!” The sound of the voice carried oddly in the night, and Thorrin's Dvergar ears were able to hear it clearly, if faintly. It was a voice he recognized, Talon.

Menton had immediately started trying build his own personal empire with the victims of the Great Fuck Over as his subjects. Selestra had been a prisoner of Thug Horde, along with other “delegates” from a number of smaller guilds. His Protectorate was nothing more than ruse to acquire the hostages for leverage over the smaller guilds.

That crazy bastard Talon had to run off to free her. He can't even use his powers, and he still threw himself in the lion's den. That little bitch hates his guts, but for some reason, he keeps saving her.

“Come on, girly. Talon's back.” Thorrin began walking toward the gates. His frown rigidly deepened, when he saw Nessa's blush.

One of the gate guards came running up. “Thorrin, there's...”

Thorrin held up his hand. “I know Talon's at the gate.”

The Hammer's mouth hung opened slightly, his eyes wide from surprise. Thorrin ignored him and continued walking toward the gate at a brisk pace.

“Who is there and what do you want?” Thorrin's gravely voice carried clearly in the night.

“Talon, I have one other with me.”

“Come on in.”

Neither Talon nor Selestra made a sound as they advanced to the gates. They could have been shadows for all the impact they made on the world.

Thorrin bowed slightly to Selestra. “Selestra, it's good to see you. How are you faring?”

Selestra glared at Talon “The sooner I am away from this beast, the better I will be doing. Is there someplace around here I can rest?”

Thorrin frowned, but his expression looked more sad than hostile. “Nessa, can you take her to the your cabin.”

Nessa stepped out from the surrounding Hammers, with a smile on her face. “Hi, I'm Nessa. I'm a healer, if you have any injuries that need tending.”

Selestra glared at Talon again. “Nothing serious enough to need a healer.”

The other Hammers thought their whispers are too soft to be heard, began speculating on what Talon might have done to Selestra. Exactly as she intended, new seeds of mistrust had been sown against Talon.

Even with Talon's rigid expression, Thorrin could see that Talon was angry, maybe angry enough to explode.

Thorrin looked around, his frown turning cold. “Everyone get back to your own business, and stop gossiping where you can be overheard.”

The Hammers looked at Thorrin and then Talon, turning pale. The glare from Talon's murderous eyes turning their bowels to water. They could not help wondering, if Talon overheard them, as well, and what he might do to them.

Thorrin stared toward the burgeoning village and the Hammers for a few moments, before turning to look at Talon.

“Let's go somewhere else to talk.”

Thorrin's frown deepened. “Might be for the best.”

Thorrin followed Talon from the camp, neither of them speaking as they walked. Talon climbed to the top of the southern ridge of Emer's valley. From that perch, they could see for miles to the north and south, but the views east and west were blocked by more stony ridges.

“It was bad?” Thorrin's tone was clearly questioning.

Talon shrugged. “No worse than I expected. Most people are gutless sheep, and that's no different for gamers. It may be even more true for gamers, considering how cowardly most players are in PvP games. The ones too scared to fight were caged like livestock. It was pretty easy to see they had already been badly abused. One Thug, or maybe a lackey rather than a Thug, I interrogated had a woman tied up in his tent. It was obvious he'd been raping her.”

“Where is she now? She didn't come back with you?”

“I left her there. She wasn't my problem, I was only there for Selestra.”

Glancing at Talon, Thorrin felt a shiver go down his spine. Despite the cold emptiness in Talon's eyes, Thorrin kept his tone and expression neutral. “That's pretty cold. I better not tell Nessa about that, or she'll get upset.”

“I don't like people. I'm not putting myself out for someone I don't know from Eve.”

“Things are going to get ugly, real ugly. Thug Horde, more like Menton, is not going to take this lying down. You might have been better off killing everyone that saw your face.”

Talon frowned. “Have you noticed how easy it is for us to kill now?”

Thorrin looked at Talon sidelong, not quite turning his head enough to face him. “How many years passed for you inside the game?”

“How many years?”

“Yeah, how many.” Thorrin turned his head to look Talon straight in the eye. “Different people played the game differently. I might be wrong, but I don't think I am. For you, the game was not a game. You lived it. So how many years was it?”

Talon frowned. His eyes squinted slightly, before widening in shock. “Twenty-five years give or take. That's longer than I've been alive.”

Thorrin snorted. “I always knew you were young, despite your hard-ass attitude. So you spent at least twenty-five years fighting, killing and dying. Did you ever seriously think about how much that would change your mentality? I'm no shrink, but I still know enough to know that experiencing a life like that, even virtually, has to have an effect. You're trained in some kind of martial arts in real life too, aren't you?”

“Yeah. I suppose you could call it Koryu. Selestra's father teaches old style Japanese martial arts, and I started training with him when I was five or six. This isn't pretty sports stuff like Tae Kwan Do, or specialized ring fighting like Mixed Martial Arts were, before they outlawed them. He teaches the kind of arts to keep you alive when someone is out to kill you. It's an art for fighting and killing.”

Thorrin chuckled. “I always figured that. You didn't use magic arts like just about everyone else in the game. You mostly use pure skill and innate physical ability, so it was pretty obvious that you really knew how to fight. Knowing that, I don't thinks it's odd that you could kill so easily, when you need to. I don't think it's really a bad thing considering our situation either.”

Talon frowned. “I've mastered all of Talon's fighting arts that I could in real life. There were things that were completely beyond human or rational, but the rest of the style could actually be used. Even the normal stuff is the most dangerous martial art I have ever seen.”

A long silence fell, while Talon stared off into the distance. Thorrin did not say anything either, and just leaned back slightly, so he could watch Talon without being observed.

After several minutes, Talon broke the silence “You're a lot older than I am aren't you?”

Thorrin laughed. It was a sound of pure amusement, with no sarcasm, hostility or bitterness. “I used to say I was older than dirt, but I wasn't all that old when I said it. Let's just say, I'm probably the oldest person who played Taereun: Battleground of the Damned. I started playing MMOs with one of the first. You ever heard of EverQuest?”

Talon nodded. “The screenshots I had seen looked like shit, but I supposed for such an ancient game it was normal.”

“I'm just over a century old. I started playing MMOs with EverQuest, and I was older than you are now. Up until Taereun came out, EverQuest was the best game ever made. It had something no other game managed to duplicate. I can't really put it into words, but EverQuest was special. Taereun was like that too, it had that special something that set it apart from other games.

“I don't know what you think about what's happened to us, but I'm grateful to that bastard. I've been crippled for decades, even nano-surgery can't fix my nerves, and then VR came along and made me feel like I was whole again - at least while I was plugged in. I spent three-quarters of every day in the game. But here and now, I can really walk. It's not a VR simulation. I'm not dead from the waist down. I don't piss and shit in a bag. I don't live my life surrounded by the reek of my own wastes. Hell, I can even get a hardon. Now, I just need to find a hot Valkyrie chick and get laid.”

Thorrin laughed, slapping his leg, until he could barely catch his breath. Then his face sobered, and a sense of resolution seemed to fill him.

“In all seriousness, I'm going to die in this world. I'm going live hard, fight hard, and die a whole man, er a whole Dvergar. Even though it will mean my imminent death, I don't want to go back, after we find this God's body. I don't want to be a half-dead slab of meat again.”

Talon turned to Thorrin. “Then, you're going to seriously search for the Nameless' body?”

“Yeah, I'm going to do it. I think most of the Hammers will too. We're an old style friends and family guild, even though we were pretty heavily into the raiding. That's why we have the kids like Nessa around. When we find them, we take them in and look out for them, until they can take care of themselves. I tried to do it with you, but you resented anyone trying to help you, so I never pushed it.”

A shadow seemed to come over Talon's eyes.
“You know not everyone is going to actually try to complete the quest, right? It might even turn out to be a slim minority that attempt to follow through.”

Thorrin nodded his head, while staring at the ground. “Yeah, now that this is no longer a game, a lot of people will be terrified of dying. There are a few among the Hammers that will probably fall into that group. We're going to have to find a place where they can all live in relative safety until we send them home.”