Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

“I’m so excited!” Rin waved her fists under her chin, peering around like a kid at Disneyland. “If we find those schematics, can you imagine all the things we can invent? Telephones! Maybe even radar, and radios!”

“Yeah, then we can mine all the metals out of the ground, build a bunch of nukes and wreck this world the same way we wrecked the last one,” Gar remarked sourly. “Why do you guys need this thing, anyway?”

“Short answer? Baldr Hyland is possessed by a crazy Ryuko developer who’s on a crazed, self-righteous mission to save Archemi by cleansing it of ‘squalor’, whatever the fuck that is,” I said. “In the process, he’s trying to unleash the world bosses of the game on us. World bosses that have been corrupted by some kind of system virus, we think. We’re trying to find the weapons that defeated the Drachan the last time around. Perilous Symphony and the other Warsingers are those weapons.”

“Oh.” Gar tapped some ash off his cigarette. “So he’s just like you, then.”

“What did you just say?” Karalti whirled on him, fists clenched.

“What? You think I’m deaf? Hyland’s plan for Archemi is basically what Hector said you folks were doing while we were sitting down with the Avatar not even an hour ago.” Gar gestured airily toward the ceiling. “You’re going to break down these Dragon Gates, let the Drachan out, and try to kill’em before they wreck the place, which according to the Avatar, they will. Y’all couldn’t even solve a goddamned riddle. It ever occur to you to try listenin’ to one of the most learned men in the damn world?”

“It ever occur to you that you don’t know anything about what we’re doing or why?” I retorted. “You didn’t want to know anything about the crisis in Ilia, so we didn’t tell you. Now you want to judge our goals based on one overheard conversation? You can’t have it both ways.”

“I don’t rightly recall anointing you as my leader,” Gar said.

“And I never took you on as one of my team. So unless you actually want to be a part of it, keep your patronizing bullshit to yourself.” I glared at him, then turned to the edge of a cracked and broken platform. “Come on, Karalti.”

Karalti tossed her hair over her shoulder, shooting Gar a scathing glance before turning to join me. Suri just shook her head, and she and Rin started for one of the nearby entryways.

“Guess I’ll go look in one of these rooms and see what I find by myself, then.” Gar scowled, jammed his hands in his pockets, and took the other door.

Karalti and I went to the edge of the cracked and broken floor, assessing our path forward. With the Bond in play, we were able to gauge a quick route forward.

“I say we take the first door to the right,” I said. “We can scooch along the ledge to the others from there.”

“It’s almost like you read my mind. Race you there!” Karalti tensed down, wiggled her butt like a cat, and leaped over to the first platform.

“Hey! It’s not a race if you just start without calling it!” I jumped after her as she ran for the next platform.

Karalti laughed, looking back over her shoulder at me. Her eyes were dark, her lips parted, and I felt something dark and playful rise in me as I lit after her. I caught up to her by jumping right over the first platform, catching onto the wall, and launching off from it. I landed just ahead of Karalti as she skidded to a stop in the doorway of our chosen room.

“Hmmph. Now you see why I just started without saying anything.” She stuck her bluish tongue at me. “You cheat.”

“All’s fair in love, war, and ninja racing.” I grinned back at her.

We sobered up as we pushed on the double doors. As they swung inward, soft blue lights sputtered to life, hissing and crackling as they tried to burn mana that had sat inside these mage globes for millennia. And what they shed light over stopped both of us in our tracks.

“What the hellll are THOSE?” I whispered.

Chapter 46

The ancients had used this room as a specimen lab, and the first thing we saw as we cautiously entered the room, was a row of small tanks with parts and pieces of creatures still contained within.

A heavy, unnatural silence hung over the room as I wandered toward one, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. The creature looked like it was made of digital snow, and no matter what angle I observed it from, it refused to come into focus. I could almost make out horns, spines, barbed tentacles, mandibles… but every time I thought I’d pinned some memorable feature about it, I couldn’t find it a second time.

“What the…?” I tentatively laid a hand on the thick crystal sealing it off from the room, and strained to try and put a shape, a form, something to whatever I was staring at.

The thing lunged at the glass.

“FUCK!” I vanished, a panicked forty-foot teleport backward, and blundered into the opposite wall with the Spear clutched in my hands.

“What!?” Karalti dropped the pot she’d been examining. It smashed to the ground, and I froze, watching the tank for any sign of movement.

“Nothing. Just a stupid jumpscare.” Even so, my heart was pounding as I eased down, zooming in on the tank. The small creature inside was still blurred and out of focus, in the exact same place it had been before. I had no idea if it had even really moved. Staring at it for too long made my eyes ache. “What do you see when you look at this thing?”

Karalti meandered over to