Dream Drive Ch. 04

"Hey," he said. "You alright?"

She was crying again. She couldn't stop crying. She was thirsty, and she was crying. She needed that water. "I'm fine, you asshole. Stop asking me that. You look like an Indian that's been put through a washing machine with blood for detergent, and you're asking me if I'm alright. Well, fuck you."

Jackson looked down. He tore a bit of his sleeve that was already hanging off. She flinched a bit when he raised it to her face, but relaxed when he started using it to wipe the gunk away.

"I didn't say you could touch me," Rachel said.

"I wasn't asking permission."

"Shut up, Jacky."

Jackson sighed. "Well, I guess I broke the deal."

"Yeah. You did." Jackson withdrew his hand. "Hey!"

"What?"

"You missed a spot. A lot of spots."

Jackson hesitated, then smiled. "I guess so." He wiped a tiny bit more off her cheek, then started on her neck.

She stood there, letting him work. Letting him clean her. The tension in her muscles started to fade, just a little bit. "How'd you find me? I thought I ran pretty fast."

"Party system," he said. "Look on your minimap."

She looked. She was a green arrow in the center of her minimap. Jackson was labeled as a blue arrow right next to hers. "That was smart. Maybe you grew a second brain cell. I guess you upgraded from Cro-Magnon to Neanderthal."

Jackson frowned. "You know, I think Cro-Magnons came after Neanderthals."

"No one likes a smartass. Just take the fucking compliment and be happy."

Jackson glanced around her back, still frowning. "Your hands are still tied? You should have said."

"Used all my daggers."

Jackson put a hand on her shoulder and rotated her. She felt her binds tug once, twice, and then rip away. She rubbed her wrists, and then a dagger was in front of her. "Here," he said. "Just in case."

She took the dagger. It was made of bone, and had a hooked, jagged edge. And it was covered in blood and bits of gore. But at least it had come from him. That made it a bit cleaner, right? That didn't make any sense, but it did, at the same time.

Rachel sighed. Sometimes being crazy was hard work. "Thanks. For, you know. Rescuing me."

"No problem."

"I think it was a pretty big fucking problem," she said. "How many of them did you kill?"

"Just now?" Jackson asked. "Maybe...four or five? I was just holding them off so you could get some distance."

"No problem, he says," Rachel said. "Do you enjoy making other people feel like shit? I wouldn't have said that. I would have said I want to be thanked with essence crystals."

"I guess we're just different people."

"No shit." She cocked her head. "Hey, were you serious when you said you had a fiancé?"

"Serious as a heart attack," Jackson said. "Why?"

"...just checking again," Rachel said. "I still can't believe someone would willingly marry you. By the way, this bone dagger is shit. Did you pick up any of mine?"

"No. Didn't see them."

"Forget it. They can be replaced."

Rachel turned away from him and stepped into the dim lighting. She didn't want him to see her face. It was all twisted up and uncomfortable. It felt like the oil was back. A different kind of oil.

I'm not disappointed. I don't care who he's fucking. It's not like the famous gamer champion Jackson Vedalt just risked his life for me or anything. I hate you, thoughts. Go away, stop bothering me.

"Go away!" Rachel shouted.

"Uh..." Jackson looked over his shoulder, then back at her. "Me?"

"No, you idiot," Rachel said. She waved a hand at her forehead. "Up here. In there. Somewhere. Thoughts. Being annoying."

"...right," Jackson said. "Sorry. I left my mind reading cap at home."

"Was that supposed to be funny?"

Jackson was making that stupid tiny grin of his. "I thought it was kinda clever, yeah."

"Fucking stupid piece of fuck. Making fun of me. I don't get made fun of, I make with the funning. You better fucking remember that."

"Whatever you say."

"Stop grinning!"

"Make me."

"I've still got more PvP ideas to test, you know."

"Hey," Jackson said. "Let's not go overboard." He looked thoughtful. "Speaking of information, though, something cool I just discovered. If you -"

A rattok shriek called down the stairs. Jackson and Rachel exchanged glances. The patter and clatter of claws on the floor was growing louder. There was another shriek.

"Playtime's over," Jackson said. "We can't fight up the stairwell. Let's go."

###

Jackson took off deeper into the dim tunnel.

The hair on the back of his neck pricked up. Jackson blinked a few times. Something was hanging around - some kind of potential. The air felt oddly dry. Crisp. It wasn't like the rest of the ruins.

"Why did you stop?!" Rachel asked.

"Do you feel that?" Jackson turned, brushing her. Static electricity stung his finger.

Rachel winced and slapped his hand. "Ow! Dick!"

Jackson stiffened when he saw their pursuers - then frowned. He pointed. "Look."

Several rattok were at the bottom of the stairs - but they didn't go beyond the landing. They bayed at the end of the stone hall, shrieking, growling, but they didn't follow.

"Something's up with this part of the ruins," Jackson said. "The rattok are afraid of something."

"Well, we can't go back now, can we, fuckface?" Rachel said. "They've got us penned in. Unless you have something that can blast through three dozen of them?"

"...not really."

"Well, let's keep going. And don't shock me again."

Jackson turned to follow her. "I guess that's an improvement from no touching."

"I didn't rescind that order."

"You might as well have," Jackson muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Rachel muttered a string of what sounded like pretty nasty words under her breath. He stayed close behind her. She marched forward into the dark, all confidence now that she had a weapon.

With her cloak on, he was only able to tell she was shorter than him. Now that it was mostly a black rag on her neck, he got a sense for how small she really was. Her black leather wrapped her tightly; she was thin, petite. Barely over 5 feet, if that.

Her hair, though, was another story. It was spattered with the black oil from that freakish ceremony, but it hung almost to her waist.

"Say something," Rachel said.

"Like what?"

"Anything," Rachel said. "It's too quiet."

It was quiet. The passage they were in was dark. The air was dry, still, and definitely getting warmer.

"...uh..." Jackson stuck with his current thought. "I like your hair."

Rachel fixed him with a glare that could have set wet wood on fire. "My hair is filthy."

"Well, the color is nice," Jackson said.

"It's covered in oil! Or whatever the fuck that shit was! Did you see what happened to those guys?!"

"There was more than one?" Jackson said. "I saw the one before you. That was messed up." Jackson paused, then cleared his throat. Even if she would rather die than admit it, she'd been pretty upset by what happened. He should move the conversation away, get her mind away from it. "Anyway, if it was clean, it would just look that much nicer."

"I hate dirt, I hate grime, I hate this fucking shit ruining my hair. I'm a girl, you know. I like looking good. Shocker, right? Well, it's going to take days to get it back to normal." She was stroking her hair with her fingers, now. "I'm trying to ignore it. I'm not good with that. It distracts me. Can't stop thinking about it, you know? Every time I take a step I can feel it stick to my neck because it's so weighed down." Rachel drew a breath between her teeth. "So don't say you like my hair like this. It's...nauseating."

So much for avoiding things that worry her. "Sorry. I'm not much of a talker."

"I noticed."

"So, um...how old are you?"

Jackson could practically hear Rachel's teeth grind. "Man, you're really batting a thousand, huh? You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? You're trying to piss me off. Getting back at me for insulting your two brain cells. Look, I don't insult people. I make observations."

"...yeah."

"I'm 19," Rachel said. "Nine and ten. Not a kid. Not a child. Not a little girl. So get that shit out of your head."

Jackson decided to try a new strategy. "What would you like to talk about?"

"I don't know. Wait, yes I do. Did you have a bowl of stupid for breakfast this morning, or is this how you normally - oof." Rachel grunted as she bumped into a column. She rubbed her nose. "It's too fucking dark."

Jackson thought for a moment. They didn't have anything to use for light. He could see his hands, a few feet around himself. His spear glinted a bit.

Spear. Jackson grasped his essence. The tip of the weapon glowed white. It wasn't much, but the space was dark enough and small enough that the glow brightened it considerably.

They were at a dead-end. The column Rachel had bumped marked the first of several pairs of pillars. They lined a rectangular room at the end of the passage. As the glow from Jackson's spear tip waxed and waned, their shadow shifted and bobbed over the walls.

"Eerie," Rachel said. "I can still feel that static."

"Yeah..." Jackson walked forward. He could definitely feel something. A heavy, warm crackling. "There's something going on here. Let's take a look around."

Jackson walked between two columns. With a mental hand still on the ball of his essence, he drew a rune, the same one, over and over again - Mountain, a square bottom with two even triangles on top of it. His runes were a grey, rather than white, but they provided a bit more light. As long as he held his essence, they'd stay floating in the air.

Pictures were etched into the stone. Jackson followed the mural from where they'd come in. There was a sky scene, with clouds. A massive hand stretched out over a group with halos and wings - angels.

There was a dividing border, and then another image. Half the angels were shown falling into a spiked pit. The other half raised their hands up toward the hand. A lightning bolt stretched from the hand toward the angels in the pit, as if striking them down.

"The hell is this supposed to be?" Rachel said.

Jackson jumped, then sighed. "Don't scare me like that."

"Heh. You should've seen the look on your face. But seriously." She waved at the mural. "Any ideas?"

"It looks like the War in Heaven," Jackson said.

"There was a war in heaven?"

"Kinda," Jackson said. "I'm not exactly a biblical scholar, but this seems to fit with what I know so far. Did you get the bit about us being inside the Tower of Babel, or something?"

"Yeah. I mean, the words popped up, but I was sort of busy at the time. I didn't get dropped in a nice quiet place like you."

Jackson nodded. "I'll give you the short version," Jackson said. "The Tower of Babel was a big thing mankind built to try and reach heaven."

"God, we're stupid," Rachel said. "You would think that a person would hit rock bottom at some point, when it comes to faith in humanity, but nope. Just keeps on shrinking."

"I think God agreed with you," Jackson said. "The story goes that God destroyed the tower and forced the men to all speak in different languages, so they couldn't work together to rebuild it. Well, I think there's other interpretations, but basically it's the story of why we have different languages."

"So what does this war have to do with the tower?"

"Well," Jackson said, "the war was led by Lucifer. He was angry for a few reasons. I think the main one was being jealous of Jesus. Anyway, the point is that he rebelled with a bunch of the other angels. God cast them down into Hell." Jackson indicated the lightning bolt chasing some of the angels into the pit. "That's this, here. The rebel angels became the demons that we know and love today, cursed forever for their hubris."

"Ok, fine," Rachel said. "But what about the tower? You said it was destroyed. But we got banished to the bottom of it." She raised her hands. "Doesn't feel very destroyed to me. And where exactly is the tower? Are these ruins the tower?"

Jackson shook his head. "No. I think this whole world is the base of the tower."

"What the fuck kind of tower are we talking about, exactly?"

"The kind angels would build," Jackson said.

He drifted to the last mural. It depicted a tower rising above the surface of the world. Angels were gathered around its base, hands raised. The big hand of god was hovering over them in the clouds, palm open. Below the base of the tower was a small depiction of the spiked pit, and in the center of the pit was an inverted pentagram.

"...the tower is just a metaphor," Jackson said. "It's not the kind of tower we're thinking of. The people I met - well, they're basically Indians, but they have their own Christian theology, sort of mixed in with a native spiritualism. Their spirit guide told me that the angels are building the tower to honor God, and that demons are trying to destroy it. We're marked with pentagrams because we're warriors of a powerful spirit called Shakhan, who guards the base of the tower, and wants to stop the demons from succeeding. I think Shakhan is probably an angel that guards the gates of Hell or something."

"Wow. Serious shit."

"I told you this wasn't a game."

"I dunno," Rachel said. "Sounds like the plot of an RPG if you ask me. I thought the inverted pentagram represented Satan, though. What's this guardian Shakhan thing supposed to be?"

"Don't know yet." Jackson hesitated for a moment. Should he tell her about the Mountain Meet?

No. At least, not yet. That was a sensitive thing. Shaka would say that he had to keep the whole tribe in mind. She seemed like a pretty good person, underneath the...idiosyncrasies, but it was the tribe's call, not his. "I'm going to find out, though," he said. "Right now, it seems like we just have to climb the tower and kick ass." He glanced at her. "How did you find out this was all real, anyway?"

For the first time he'd seen, Rachel avoided his gaze and sat on her tongue. She shrugged. "Things happened."

"I logged out, and some rattok blood followed me," Jackson said. "I figure we might be able to transport things, but I'm not sure. Clothes definitely don't go. Maybe it has to be very close to the skin."

"Good to know," Rachel mumbled.

Jackson looked at her. "You ok?"

"I'm good. Just taking all this in. Maybe it's not all just a game. What happens when everyone goes back to earth with these powers, though? We're invincible, sort of."

"I dunno," Jackson said. "Once the beta goes live, there'll be 5000 and change players. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens."

"Why did you quit out early?" Rachel asked.

"Me?" Jackson said. "I was only in that tournament for Isis."

"The grand prize was 50,000 Vitcoins!"

"I'm low-maintenance," Jackson said. "I wanted my copy of the game as soon as possible."

"You arrogant prick. Do you know how hard everyone had to work to get there? That was the most publicized gaming contest in years, and Jackson Vedalt went and quit before the finals started!"

"Who cares?"

"I cared, obviously. That was a disgrace."

"I earned my place," Jackson said. "It was mine to do with what I pleased." He shrugged. "But if you want to play a game, you should just say so."

Rachel looked taken aback. "...yeah. I do. I want to play Wing Commander: Alpha Squadron."

"Oh yeah. I love that game. Sure." Jackson smiled. "Fair warning, though. I'm pretty good."

"I know."

"...you do?"

Rachel leaned forward and studied the mural intently. "Let's find a way out of here."

Jackson couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted to keep talking with someone in the real world. Usually, he made conversations as brief as possible. And Rachel - she was totally off the wall, but he found her oddly fascinating. And he kinda wanted to know where she was going with that. Something was nagging at him, something he was missing.

Well, it was like she said. They had priorities. He continued on down past the columns.

The wall opposite the entrance to the room had another image. Jackson drew a few runes in the air, creating more light. There was a tree carved into the stone - a massive tree. This one was a little different; it had hundreds of spindly little branches, dotted by round orbs. Fruit, maybe?

Under the roots of the tree was the spiked pit. An inverted pentagram was etched in the center. Hell again, and Shakhan's symbol. According to the murals, Shakhan was at the base of both the Tower of Babel and the giant tree. Did that mean they were the same thing? Or was there some other connection?

A shadow moved on the wall. Jackson ignored it. With runes floating every which way, the columns were making several shadows in each direction, and they were all bobbing a bit.

The shadow turned, showing a long snout. A claw reached up.

Jackson dove to the side. "Rattok!"

A huge crack snapped over the room. An explosion rocked the wall behind him. Bits of stone rained down on his head. Jackson scrambled up on his hands and feet and pushed his back against the column.

There was a smoking hole in the center of the carved tree. Purple light crackled around the gouge in the wall, then vanished. Jackson peered out around the edge of his column.

The old rattok stood there, its cane raised high. It was the one from the theater. Red robes hung ratty from its arms. It shrieked, then started drawing runes with a precise hand.

When it finished the runes, a black box above its hands absorbed them - sucked them in. Crackling purple energy reverberated back out of the box and into the creature's cane. The box vanished, and it raised its wooden rod, now pulsing with lightning.

"Rachel!" Jackson hissed. "It's got magic. Don't go into the open!"

The rattok's head cocked at Jackson's voice. It pointed the cane, and a lance of purple energy burst forward. Jackson ducked back and held his head as stone collapsed down around him. That thing was like a laser cannon.

The old rattok growled and shrieked. It stamped a foot.

"Blank, camera, action!" Rachel shouted.

Jackson furrowed his brow. What the hell did that mean?

The rattok wove more runes in a line over its staff. The energy changed, gathering into a rotating purple ball at the end of the cane. It sloughed off the tip and floated forward into their room.

Lightning leapt from the churning ball in tiny beams. This time, they didn't explode - they bounced. The room was filled with purple lightning. It roared louder and louder.

A beam of violet energy struck his arm. He pulled back - it felt painful, as if his skin was on the very verge of burning. His health took a dip.

He was hit by another, and another. The magic burned holes through his clothes. His HP jumped downward in fits and spurts as the occasional bolt of lightning burned into him. 55. 43. 36. 29. He curled tight and tucked in his head.

Eventually, the ball of lightning wore itself out. The energy couldn't bounce forever. The storm of violet beams halted.

Jackson could feel the pulses coming of the rattok. It was holding its essence, creating more runes. He wasn't sure if he'd survive another one of those, but if they moved into the open, they were sitting ducks for that staff's energy bolts.

Rachel's voice came again. "Blank, camera, action!"

Blank, camera, action? Wasn't it lights, camera, action?

Lights. His runes were floating around, keeping the room lit. She wanted him to kill the lights.

Jackson released his essence. The room plunged into darkness.

He threw himself from behind the column. The rattok mage was an obvious target - he glowed with the purple light radiating from his own cane. Its eyes darted, confused - but it raised the staff. It could sense the attack coming. The lightning crackled sharply, gathering itself for an attack.