The New Order, page 7
Stan, Archie, and DZ looked at one another in silence. A series of eye and head gestures seemed to indicate that splitting up was in order. As DZ snuck around the pillars and Archie stood ready to shoot at a split second’s notice, Stan crept through the seats, methodically and meticulously checking behind each and every row. However, the search yielded no results, and a quick shout down to DZ confirmed that his search had been equally unsuccessful.
Stan was stumped. Corporal Emerick was clearly somewhere within the room, but Stan had checked all the hiding places. From where he was standing, Stan could see the entire courtroom, including behind every single seat. He saw DZ and Archie checking around the pillars for a second time, and the looks of bewilderment on their faces were indicating that it was to no avail. Where was . . .
“AAAAUUUGH!”
Stan almost stumbled forward off the seats at the yell from DZ that echoed throughout the rotunda. A pained grimace had taken to DZ’s face, and he was clutching at his arm, staring in surprise at the arrow that had just sunk into it. Stan whipped his head to the side, wildly thinking for a moment that Archie had betrayed them, but his skeletal face showed surprise to mirror DZ’s and his own.
Stan heard a whizzing sound, and he turned in time to see an arrow flying out of the vacant seats toward his face. Stan lunged to the side, the arrow sinking into the wall behind him. Sheathing his axe and drawing his bow, he tried to distinguish the source of the arrow. As he stared intently at the place where the arrow had originated, utterly confused and terrified as to what was happening, he noticed something from the corner of his eye. An iron sword, having materialized in midair in the middle of the rotunda floor, was now flying across the room, on a collision course with Archie’s back.
“Archie, hit the dirt!” Stan bellowed. Archie did so without hesitation, and the sword soared over him just as Stan sent an arrow toward the sword’s point of origin. The arrow connected. Stan heard a grunt of pain as the arrow found its unseen mark. Stan saw Corporal Emerick flicker into visibility for an instant, with an aggrieved look on his face, before vanishing once again.
“Guys, he’s there!” Stan yelled, directing DZ’s and Archie’s attention to the place where an arrow was being yanked out of the unseen player’s shoulder and tossed to the ground. “You can’t see him, but he’s there!”
Recognition flashed across Archie’s face. “He’s using an Invisibility Potion!” he cried, sending an arrow toward the invisible corporal, which Emerick sidestepped. Now that Stan knew where Emerick was, he was certain he could see a slight shimmering, as if heat were rising off of pavement, wherever the invisible player was. Stan saw Emerick darting across the room. A visible diamond sword appeared from thin air in what Stan assumed was his hand, flying right toward Stan himself. Stan drew his own axe to engage the corporal in combat.
This was easily the most bizarre fight Stan had ever been in, and considering what he had endured on his campaign to overthrow King Kev, that was saying something. Stan could not determine any distinct part of the invisible enemy he was fighting. It was all Stan could do to raise his axe to counterattack the levitating diamond sword, which was making floating jabs and slices.
Stan felt his legs being swept out from under him, and he knew that Corporal Emerick had swept his invisible foot underneath Stan’s own. Stan tumbled to the floor, barely raising his axe in time to block the sword that was coming down onto his neck. As Stan struggled to regain his upright footing, he felt an invisible foot pinning his chest to the ground. Stan felt he was being drained of all energy as his blood rushed from his heart in a wave.
Just as Stan was about to determine that it was too much, that he couldn’t fight anymore, the pressure lifted the slightest bit. This gave Stan the opportunity to fling himself upward and onto his feet. The corporal tumbled down the rotunda seats, a shimmering marking his place as well as the arrow sticking from his shoulder blade.
Stan’s vision on the rotunda floor refocused on DZ trying to mend the wound from the arrow he had pulled from his unarmored bicep, but he did not see Archie by DZ’s side. Stan saw Archie firing arrow after arrow at the place he assumed the crumpled form of the corporal lay. A black tunic shielded the onslaught of arrows. As the floating tunic crept farther and farther backward toward the door, Archie advanced on him at a much faster pace.
Having the upper hand, however, had made Archie overconfident. Just as Corporal Emerick was backed up against the locked doors, a potion bottle came flying out of nowhere as the black tunic disappeared into a newly created plume of black smoke. The potion slammed into Archie’s red-haired skeleton head and exploded into a cloud of blue-gray smoke. He keeled over to the ground, clutching his head in agony. DZ rushed in to help Archie, but Stan was staring in horror at a lever that he had never noticed before on the wall. This lever was in the On position.
Fear coursed through Stan. He had fought far too many players who utilized explosive traps in their surroundings to not know one when he saw one. He and his friends needed to evacuate the courthouse immediately. His shout of “RUN!” was deadened by the explosion in the center of the rotunda seats behind him.
Stan didn’t even have time to look toward his two friends when the wave of fire slammed into his back. He was launched forward at breakneck speed through the two doorframes that had held iron doors seconds before. Stan felt himself tumbling wildly through space, only stopping when he was thrown down into a viscous substance. As he opened his eyes, he realized that he had landed in the bottommost pool of the Apothecary Memorial Fountain. Although it sat a distance from the doors of the courthouse, it still had one of its sides blasted away by the explosion. Stan let the current of the gushing fountain carry him down to the road. Everything ached at once from the sheer force of being caught in that blast. However, as Stan turned his head to the side, he saw something that rendered all his pain irrelevant.
He could see two shadowy figures sitting not far away from him in the darkness. One appeared to be shaking the other, who was limp and unresponsive. Stan’s forehead immediately broke out in sweat, as did his palms. The horribly familiar feeling of dread bubbled up inside him, threatening to boil over as he ran to the two figures. He saw DZ, uncharacteristically shell-shocked, holding Archie’s body in shaking hands, a ring of items lying around them haphazardly.
Four months ago, when Stan had stood in the tower of Element Castle alongside the Apothecary, King Kev had chosen to kill himself rather than die at the hands of Stan. The magnitude of the alarm that had struck Stan at that point could only be described in two words: shock and awe. Now, seeing DZ sobbing as he shook Archie’s dead body, demanding that he wake up, another round of shock and awe whipped Stan across the face like a white-hot iron. Six hours ago, Stan had believed the Noctem Alliance no longer existed. Now, their leader had just killed one of his friends.
As Stan realized this, he became aware of a presence watching him. As the shock gave way to fury—pure, unfiltered hatred—Stan whipped his head upward to look into the smirking face of Corporal Emerick.
Stan’s body acted on its own. His axe flew from his side and into his hand as he charged the Noctem corporal. He brought his axe down onto that hatefully smug face, hoping to put as much pain as possible into the strike, only to have Emerick sidestep the attack. His axe collided with the stone ground with enough force to snap the diamond blade from the handle.
As Stan spat in fury, Corporal Emerick calmly pulled a bloodred Potion of Harming from his inventory and raised it to his lips. Realizing what he was about to do, Stan shot his fist at the corporal’s mouth, shattering the potion bottle and splattering the ground crimson. Stan was so absolutely insane with rage that the force of the punch sent him stumbling forward. He spun around on his heel to find that the corporal had already drawn another red potion and raised it to his mouth.
Stan’s shout had barely left his mouth when the bottle tilted back and the potion entered the Noctem officer’s mouth, just as a flurry of green bottles flew from the corporal’s free hand. The effect was immediate. A ring of items burst from his navel, and Corporal Emerick fell forward onto his knees, and then onto his face. Stan bellowed in fury, distressed beyond comprehension, and in a rush he felt himself fall to the ground, vaguely aware of a cloud of green gas swirling around him before he saw black.
CHAPTER 8 TENSIONS
Honestly, sir, you’re being unreasonable!”
“Please, just go back, lie down! You’ve been through a lot these past few hours, and you’re not thinking straight!”
Stan didn’t hear them. He was completely deaf to the objections of his two aides as he marched down the corridor and away from the castle infirmary. It killed him to think that while he had been lying in a bed, being detoxed of the effects of Corporal Emerick’s final poison attack, his friends had been sitting in a council room discussing what to do about the atrocities committed by the Noctem Alliance. In his desperation to get into the council room, he finally spun around to face the aides.
“Enough!” Stan bellowed, harsher than he had anticipated. The aides staggered backward with fear in their eyes as Stan’s hand had instinctively glided to the axe handle by his side. He was too infuriated to give them the luxury of an apology. The Noctem Alliance had killed Archie, and the only thing he cared about at that moment was destroying the organization once and for all. The aides now did nothing to stop Stan as he jammed his fist into the button on the wall, opening the double doors and granting him access to the council room.
The depression hanging in the room was plain, and this was reflected on the faces of the seven players sitting around the table. DZ, Gobbleguy, the Mechanist, and Charlie sat next to one another in a row. Their expressions were forlorn, and seemed more weary than sad. To their left, however, was a totally different story. Jayden and G were Archie’s best friends, and they did nothing to hide the fact that they had been crying over his death. Their eyes still red and puffy, they exuded an aura of grief and anger. Stan felt the terrible sensation of likening their emotions to his own when he had learned of Sally’s death.
Only when Stan’s eyes lingered on Kat, however, did he stop for a moment. She seemed filled with the same depressed exhaustion that Charlie and DZ were giving off, but there was a distinct note of discomfort on her face as well. As Stan pondered what it could be that was causing this, he noticed that she was shooting a stream of uneasy glances in the direction of G, who was sitting next to her. All of Stan’s curiosity vanished in an instant, to be replaced with irritation. Kat merely had a problem with G. Worrying about such things at a time like this was unthinkable.
“Hey, Stan,” said DZ, his voice devoid of its usual cheery, upbeat quality. “They let you out of the hospital early?”
“I checked myself out,” Stan mumbled in reply. “They say I should still be there, but I feel fine.” Nobody was foolish enough to disagree with him.
As Stan walked over and took his seat between Charlie and Kat, he looked up and a sob erupted from his throat without warning. Sitting directly across from his seat at the table was the chair normally occupied by Archie—empty. It was at that moment that it hit Stan like a wrecking ball: Archie was gone, and he could never again return to Elementia. Grief welled up within Stan yet again, only to be immediately replaced with more rage at the Noctem Alliance. The reason he was there flooded into Stan, and he turned to Charlie, a gleam of fire in his eye.
“Is the city secure?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Charlie. He sounded beat. “Bill, Ben, and Bob have the city on lockdown. There are patrols on all the walls, and nobody’s allowed in or out of the gates until we say so. They also have officers searching the entire city, making arrests and interrogating anybody who may be linked to the attack. So far”—Charlie let out a sigh—“they haven’t found anybody. Eleven fighters were part of the attack, including Corporal Emerick. All of them died rather than be captured.”
Stan’s heart sank. He hadn’t really been expecting anything else, but it still infuriated him that he had no way of capturing these players and interrogating them. Stan was just about to make a remark to that effect when the door flew open behind him. He spun around to see Blackraven marching into the room, a book in his hand and a triumphant smile on his face.
The effect of his arrival on the rest of the room was immediate. Stan felt all those sitting nearest him on the table immediately tense up, shooting a dirty glance in Blackraven’s direction. Across from them, Jayden and G also snapped upright in their seats, but their anger seemed to be more directed at their fellow councilmen around the table than at Blackraven. Stan realized with a start that he must have missed something in the days he had spent recovering. After all, this was a closed council meeting, and Blackraven was not on the council. Something serious must have happened.
“Here it is, it is right here, Charlie!” said Blackraven, barely suppressed joy in his voice, and brandishing his finger to a page in the open book. “Even you can’t deny what is written in the ultimate law of the land!”
“For the last time, Blackraven, it is not happening,” whispered Charlie harshly, a vein twitching in his temple. Stan was alarmed to see Charlie’s quiet fury. “There is absolutely no reason to do something that extreme now that the crisis is over.”
“Excuse me,” cut in Stan, “but what’s going on here? Blackraven, what are you doing here? This is a private council meeting!”
“I am well aware of that, Stan,” replied Blackraven, plopping himself down squarely into Archie’s vacant seat, “and so I figure that I had best be here for it, considering that I am now a part of the council.”
“Get out of his chair!” barked Charlie. Kat gave a little squeak of horror at the outburst, and Gobbleguy broke into tears. “You are not a part of this council, Blackraven, and to try to suggest it would make you a traitor!”
“You are accusing me of treachery, Charlie?” bellowed Blackraven, standing up to stare Charlie down from across the table. “I only want what is best for Elementia, and I would like to see action taken against our enemies quickly, without wandering through the political swamp of your bureaucratic elections!”
“Are you aware, Blackraven,” responded Charlie, kicking back his seat to stare the bird-man in the eye, “that those elections are the only thing keeping Elementia from turning into a dictatorship, like the one that we fought to take down just four months ago?”
“ENOUGH!” screamed Stan. Without thinking, he pulled the ceremonial golden axe from its sheath and brought it down into the table between Charlie and Blackraven. The golden blade snapped from the handle and fell onto the table with a loud clang. Stan didn’t care. He wasn’t even sure what they were arguing about, but he knew that if they were to deal with the Noctem Alliance, they could not be fighting with each other. The room fell silent. All were staring at Stan with humbled looks on their faces. He was the president, and it was his turn to speak.
“No more yelling!” said Stan, speaking in such a way that he was breaking his own rule. “We are the ones in charge of running Elementia, and right now we have to deal with the fallout of this attack. Anything that we need to discuss, we can discuss it like responsible people.” Stan turned his head to Blackraven. “Now, Blackraven, why do you think that you’re on the council? Council members don’t just join, they’re elected by the people.”
“Thank you, Stan! You see, that’s what I’m—” started Charlie, but Stan raised a hand to cut him off.
“Yes, I’m well aware of that, Stan,” replied Blackraven, smirking at Charlie. “But this is a special case. It says so, right here in the Constitution.” And he held up his book so that Stan could see the words The Constitution of the Republic of Elementia, by Bookbinder55, on the front cover. Blackraven pointed to a spot on the open page and began to read.
“‘All members of the Council of Eight, a group of eight players whose job it is to run Element City and the rest of Elementia, shall be elected by conducting a vote among the entire population of the server, UNLESS . . . ,’” he said with emphasis, as Charlie had opened his mouth to interject, “‘the server of Elementia is in a state of emergency. In that case, the council may appoint a temporary member until the emergency is resolved.’”
“Dude, we keep telling you, we ain’t in a state of emergency anymore!” said DZ, his eyes wide with frustration. “The police’ve got the city secure, and the Alliance is gone for now! Why is there still an emergency?”
“I’m sorry, are you serious?” asked Jayden, speaking for the first time and with a dark note in his voice. “Do you not realize that Archie is dead?” He hesitated for a moment, trying to keep his composure. “G and I have known him since we first started playing this game. We thought that . . . when we lost Sally . . .” Jayden’s jaw was trembling, and tears were slowly leaking from his eyes, but he pressed on, “that we would never have to go through that again. But . . .”
“But now Archie is gone too,” continued G as Jayden became too distraught to continue. “The Noctem Alliance took Archie from us, just like King Kev took Sally. And now you expect us to just sit here and go through an election while the people who killed our friend are still out there?”
“Jayden, G, I understand what you’re saying,” said Stan evenly, trying to hide his alarm that the two of them were taking Blackraven’s side. “But you know, you’re not the only ones who’re upset that Archie’s gone, and the fact that he is doesn’t mean . . .”
“Oh, please, don’t even try, Stan!” cried Jayden, whose red face was now knitted in anger. “You don’t care that he’s dead as much as we do, don’t even pretend that you do! If you did, you’d agree with us without even thinking about it!”
“That’s out of line, Jayden!” seethed the Mechanist, jumping to Stan’s defense. “Stan is devastated, as we all are, that Archie is dead! He’s just keeping a level head and trying to preserve the values of our country instead of acting out of rash hatred!”
