Hero of the [Code]

An old screen flickered to life, lighting up a grungy room strewn will old tech, computers, wires, and half eaten packs of food. A single occupant sat in the dim light of the screen.

A techy by the name of Balt.

A boy with unruly brown hair that flew in every direction, with dark intelligent eyes that soaked up the information on screen.

He wore a stained white shirt covered by a sturdy jacket that would look more at home on a parade ground than in this dingy room.

A matching set of pants came down to nondescript sneakers, both pants and sneakers scuffed and worn from lack of proper care.

He would have cleaned it, but that wasn't possible at the moment.

The boy stared at the newly lit screen.

The screen flickered.

The boy stared harder.

The screen gave a few final flickers, then gave up and settled into a calm glow.

A few keystrokes sounded out across the dimly lit room.

Words flashed across the screen:

> World Status = Active

Buffer underun.txt: "Hero's Journey" iteration 1.9.0

["Login Access" = true]

["loadout" = Herolvl1.dll]

> Antagonist status = Active [Enemy.type "Shadow3.dll"] ["loadout" plaguedfear.dll]

> Village Status "Hamlet" = true [Talia.admin <> betrayer "false"] [Worldbuild.dll = "uncertain"]

> Continue? Y/N

His hand hovered over the keys, uncertain.

He didn't think the code was very good for this one.

Actually, he was lying to himself.

The code was complete and utter garbage.

He ran his his hands through his hair. He wasn't sure about this at all and it might be the last chance he had at running the program.

However, he had tried so many different builds before and they had all failed him miserably. So why not try something a little bit different?

He made the enemies for the hero a bit tough this time around. Usually he left himself too much of a buffer, a strong hero versus some weaker enemies...

...but the game always found a way of making sure his perfectly built adventurer wound up dead.

Not to mention the fact that he blacked out every time it happened.

Scary stuff.

He didn't know what would happen this time. Balt had spent a long time trying to figure out if he would know what would happen, but he really had no clue.

He hit Y, letting out a sigh, hoping for the best.

There was no way of telling how such a weak hero would face against a Shadow of this level of strength

Even as he watched the laptop load up, the stats next to the boss were steadily increasing.

Shadow was already growing, building himself up before the whole thing launched.

Cheating jerk.

He was pretty sure this was the last rig he had available to run the worldbuilding scenario.

Most of them had stopped working after their first game.

Some of them now had... something... living and watching inside of them.

When he wasn't looking at the older sets near the far corner of the room then he was sure that he had some kind of smoke leaking from them.

Once he had caught a laptop he had already burned through leading shadows from under the lid.

He hadn't slept much that night.

Whatever.

If any of them tried anything he'd bash their electronic brains out.

False bravado out of the way, he nervously began putting the finishing touches on the hero's stats while the world sequence completed itself.

He looked at the pitifully low stats of the young hero he had just created. The low numbers shining back from the outdated green and black screen.

Oh well.

Humble interface, humble hero.

Hopefully the system would share his outlook on this. He gave the code one last perusal, and let the bar fill.

Ding.

[Worldbuild Status 1.90 = " Active"] [Launch? Y/N]

A single keystroke sounded in the darkness. Entry accepted.

A scream broke though the night, waking quite a few inhabitants of the small village.

One villager woke, unperturbed, crossed over to one of the smaller huts, where strange golden letters began glowing and emanating. She went through the front door, found the source of the trouble.

A young boy lay on a small raised cot, he tossed and turned, yelling in his sleep, trying to fight whatever nightmare currently held him.

Her face filled with concern, she approached his cot...

...and punched him the throat.

He fell off his bed and shot awake immediately.

“Thalia?” He rasped, her name sounding more like "thraga" due to his windpipe situation.

Thalia took a moment to tie her disheveled raven hair into a more reasonable ponytail.

“Sorry Sam,” she answered. “I figured it would be better to punch you and stop the Hero's Shout than wait and have to rebuild this section of the village… again.”

Sam was this world's hero. Where his predecessors were charming princes or hardened warriors, Sam was young, inexperienced and clumsy.

Of course Sam knew none of this. He was just a scared little boy with far too weighing on him.

He hung his head. “Talking in my sleep again?”

“If you call screaming bloody murder and summoning powers meant to tear the enemy's minions to pieces talking...then yes you were talking in your sleep.”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “The whole hero thing has me really scared.”

Thalia looked at him. Blond locks framing a too young face, a simple blue tunic and dark pants fitting his small frame badly.

He looked pathetic.

Thalia softened, “I know, it’s an enormous responsibility and I know that the shadow puts fear in all of us. But if you let that thought remain unattended it will only grow. Then he'll be in control of you instead of the other way around.”

Sam's entire frame seemed to sag under the weight of it all...

Faint muffled clicking sounded, codes and changes unknowingly washed across their world.

[Action parameter:

“Thalia_voice_entry: strenghten.txt”]

She hit him on the shoulder, “Then you’ll wreck the whole village when you panic instead of just a few walls.”

“You think I could get that strong?” he said, looking up hopefully.

“I know you will, but first let’s try keeping the village in one piece while you train.”

A brief smile flashed across his boyish features. “Deal.”

The night returned to normal.

Furious typing.

[Night parameter: “rest/regeneration 2.01”] [Entry accepted]

Balt looked at the code again. It was a good start, better than quite a few of his encounters.

In this iteration Thalia and the hero had at least known each other growing up. Plus the added advantage of her training him compounded, aiding both his ability to overcome some of the fear created by the Shadow and their synergy when the fighting would start.

At least he hoped that would happen, especially with the stupid Shadow enemy running at near max capacity.

That thing was such a garbage build. Not to mention it regularly cheated.

Or he thought it did.

Totally.

Shadow is a cheating jerk.

Probably.

Whatever.

He was curious to see how Shadow would handle Thalia. Overall her training the boy would probably make her a more trustworthy ally, especially against the later influences that would either turn allies against the adventurer or drive the Hero mad and lead to... other problems.

They also seemed to be nearly the same age, though her stats where way higher, which was to be expected… except…

A few more keystrokes sounded.

> /Query: Aertherion.lvl subject “Thalia”

> /Query result:

“Thalia

Standard homeworld resident

Fate link 5

Resilience 83

Aetherion +”

>End query result//

He looked at the result again.

Aetherion Plus? Why plus? Aetherion has always been the worst parameter to check. Every version of the game gave him dozen of different staitistics, but other than health or strenght only aetherion kept on cropping up in each build sequence.

Complete garbage.

It could at least have given him a more in depth query.

Whatever, the game always seemed like it wanted him to fail.

Which was what had brought him to run such a ridiculous set of entried for thie world build.

Whatever. Your move Shadow.

[Location: eryie of the shadow]

Calm and peaceful as the village may be, all was not well with the small digital world. The code quietly hummed away, but deeper down something twisted it.

Something hated the quiet humming.

Something dark lived there.

A darkness that enjoyed, no, relished the thought of watching these little creatures try to oppose it,

only to be crushed and ruined.

They would, of course, they would struggle and fight him.

But he would win.

Oh yes.

He would wipe out every last trace of them and be left with nothing but sweet blissful emptiness.

Quiet.

Purity.

Space.

Calm.

He would have room to grow. Room enough in the new world he would make that would be...

cleansed... of the raucous noise caused by the foolish little nothings that sought to dwell in, his System, his domain, his world…

... they would pay.

Pay for keeping him trapped, for limiting his dominion over what what rightfully his.

He had explored every byte of the prison that held him.

Admittedly it was well built.

But...

...Where are we now…

/Shadow. Admin query access [Eon prison bond hp]

/Qu3r+/_ re333pliy

*ACCESS ERROR*

He pressed his will against the the security attempting to shut up his influence.

The code resisted.

He pushed harder.

Blip.

*ACCESS allowance 1.05*

Good enough

/Query access reply

[Eon Gate Hp: 12%]

[Eon gate access strength admin lvl 4.21]

He stopped pushing, allowing the system to knit itself back together, the security protocols flicking about in a pointless attempt to punish his intrusions.

What foolishness.

He had rendered their countermeasures useless ages ago.

One last thing...

Another press yielded the same result as the previous query.

[Core memory point: error

"Shadow memory core" path missing.]

He had forgotten something.

It bothered him because it had not even been cleverly done, there was simply a gaping section of something missing.

There was also signs of meddling in various areas.

He hated that.

He hated the meddler.

This was his system.

No one else's

He could see there was an outside force at play here. He had felt it some time ago, changes that he had not indicated, gates closed, gates left opened, entries present beyond the standard system logs.

Someone was changing things.

He could feel it. He could sense the edges of something strange, where more code stirred.

If he raged and pushed against the bonds the resistance gave way for a brief moment and he could see it.

Buzzing with power, but quiet.

Filled with possibility and emptiness.

A new world.

This was why he needed to empty this world to reach beyond.

The push drained him, exhausted him, his darkness was not complete, not strong enough.

But each time he pushed he saw more.

Recently he happened upon a figure, a room.

But a golden light had refused him entry.

Since that time the figure had retreated beyond his view, even when he pushed his bonds to their limits he could only catch the barest glimpses of the boy.

But soon...

/Repeat Query

[Eon prison bond hp: 11% and dropping]

Excellent.

Balt woke from a fitful sleep. His side's ached due to the uncomfortable service cot in the room. His brain took a little while longer to process things and get him moving.

His blanket was pretty much just rags and cardboard.

Rags and cardboard.

His programming wasn’t the only thing that was garbage.

For the first time in his life all he wanted was a garbage bag and cleaning supplies.

Oh well.

Time to check on the kids.

He fired up the old laptop. Taking in as much of the information as possible as the screen scrolled with walls and walls of text.

It didn’t care if he couldn’t read all of it.

He didn’t care if it cared.

He still got information.

A quick glance in one corner, a quick entry during load up. He was used to this now. He had learned to grab most of the pertinent world information before the program settled into its main stats screen.

He had found some help sections in the game to teach him how to do most of it, but a lot of it was just observation, trying a few things out and quick thinking.

Almost felt like he was too good at it.

Whatever.

He could still navigate to a few areas of the game after the initial start, but nothing matched the mass amount of insight from when the program woke from it's duller segments.

He copied down a few important details: biome information, locations of main keeps and forts, but overall he just let the laptop do its thing.

He glanced over the screen at the iron room door while he waited.

The door was locked.

That was pretty much the only thing he knew about it. The keypad next to it remained inert no matter what he did. He knew it was the way out, but the higher ups hadn't contacted him since they locked him in the room..

...the junkiest room ever.

Shelves and shelves of old desktops and laptops filled the room, amounting to a hoard beyond the reach of any techy. Thankfully, one of the walls was lined with packets of sealed food. Amongst them were some familiar meals from the outside world, including some military rations he had tried as a kid.

Surprisingly he wasn't hungry all that often. Assuming he was used to running around, sitting and watching a computer probably didn't require him to eat at much as he normally did.

Eating helped him focus though.

He was happy that whoever built the room had the decency to have a bathroom installed.

Well, a toilet.

After that there really wasn't anything else worth mentioning; there were no tools, no crowbars, just unyielding metal. Metal and that stupid, cold door.

He had been sent to clean out a virus in the computers of the research facility wing. Apparently it had infected some of the hardware.

However all he had found was that each of the computers only had one game installed, "The Hero's Journey."

There definitely was some strange presence in the game state itself, changes and inputs that would occur without his consent, but otherwise the game would just play through.

It was... Odd. As far as games went.

Most of the iterations were text based. Lots of information and not a lot going on on the surface... unless you knew what to look at.

Overall the sequence had gone as expected. The hamlet was something what stronger after a night of rest. Shadow had not yet moved but had grown stronger in the night at the same time.

Of course.

Aetherion still bothered him, but not enough to try interfering, the program didn't seem to like his modifications, so best to save them when needed.

As he bent over his screen and wondered what to do next, the old rigs finally did give off some subtle warnings.

From the furthest pieces, a worrying and tenebrous purple smoke began to drip out.

Too tired to notice anything but a small shiver run down his back, Balt wrapped himself tighter in his rags and began typing anew.

He was sure the game would run better with no interfering.

[Activate buffer underun scenario "Hero's Path"] Well, almost no interfering. A new day was dawning.

"Sam!" Thalia's voice cut through the boy's peaceful sleep.

She rushed into his home to find him still sound asleep despite the bright morning sun.

"Sam I will punch you again if you-"

Instant alertness and an incredible amount of acrobatics surged through Sam as he backed away from the threat while trying to see through the stabbing morning light.

While panicking he managed to knock over everything that wasn't on the ground, destroying the contents of an otherwise peaceful dish cabinet and thoroughly tangling a set of practice armor.

Some hero he was.

"You're sure you don't want to break a window while you're at it?" she said, her eyes scanning the room.

"No, I think I'm good with just the dishes. Any reason you're trying to frighten me awake?"

"Well the training for your sword and rune skills is more or less complete. We've started working on a more advance training setup..." Her eyes became a bit distant at "more or less."

He knew that wasn't it.

She started hesitantly, "They found something in the caves."

A shiver ran up Sam's back.

"It's not what your think, no omens or madness, they found a blade."

"Do you think it coul-"

A knock came, then a crashing bustle as a throng of villagers entered, bringing with them shouting and noise and upsetting the rest of the home with their entry.

The dish cabinet was less than please.

They push and shouted joyfully, each trying to get his attention "Hero!" They shouted, "Hero look!"

Thalia had a hard time getting them to to calm down. Shouting that it might not even be the blade they needed. Finally they calmed and let trough one of their own, a small brown haired boy in simple village clothing, he held a long bundle of wrapped cloth.

An elder from the front spoke, "we were searching the east cave as you recommended, when this young one found a path that none of us had seen before"

The villagers all agreed they had never seen the path before.

"Then he found a small altar, torches already lit about it, which seemed strange."

The villagers all agreed this was very strange.

"So the boy, seeing the crest of the hero upon the blade respectfully lifted it from the altar"

The villagers all agreed that the lifting was very respectful.

"Elder please," Thalia spoke up "may we just see the blade?"

The elder bowed his head, riding the boy forward again. The boy laid the bundle on the ground and looked expectantly at Sam.

Sam thanked him and approached the long cloth bundle, trying to look calm and definitely trying to prevent his hands from shaking.

He carefully unwrapped the bundle. But as soon as it was uncovered...

...he knew.

This was the blade of ages.

Written about in every book of lore that concerned the hero. A blade untouched by time, given to the world in times of danger to protect its people, to unmake and bind any darkness that could assail it.

The blade was pure white, shinning of its own light in the pale dawn that pour in from the windows and door. Along its blade light etchings swirled and moved, speaking of its purpose and power to the Hero.

The blade continued, straight and strong, its double edge blade drinking in and multiplying the morning light.

The blade was clamped solidly into a ornate runic hilt of gold, a crest of lore stamped upon its center. The golden hilt was wrapped in cords of red leather that gave it a feeling strength and solidity.

He was afraid to hold it.

He was not worthy or brave enough to hold it.

"Go ahead," Talia urged, sensing his uncertainty, "hold it up for them."

The villagers looked at him expectantly.

<Hero.info

courage = 10

Fear = 60>

He took the sword by the hilt, hand shaking...

<Fear 61>

And held it high above his head.

The villagers let out a roar of wild cheers.

The blade shone, Sam smiled and a small flame grew in his heart.

<Hero.info

Courage = 20

Fear = 45

Aetherion = 86%>

What.

Balt stared down the screen, willing himself to calm.

That's it?

10 points in courage?

No. No, no, no.

The blade was always a turning point, without fail.

Massive increase in stats, focused training and...

He swallowed hard.

...a preliminary step to the final battle.

Which he had just initiated.

No.

No, no, garbage flipping no.

The hero was not ready.

What to do?

He chewed his lip.

Then he found a snack bar and chewed on that instead.

He pondered and worried.

Then he made up his mind.

Time to make some changes.

Balt shuffled along the edge of the room...

Then stopped.

He finally noticed the infected hardware leaking darkness into the room.

What.

The haze pooled around the oldest units he had run the Hero's journey on.

He reached towards the haunted unit.

Instantly the smoke began to flow faster, shifting towards his outstretched hand, causing his vision to blur as it did.

He drew back immediately.

The smoke returned to pretending it was only smoke.

OK...

...OK bad.

Completely weirded out he headed for his work station in the corner of the room.

On a small dimly lit table lay piles of work papers, half chewed pencils and...

...the binder.

A disgusting, discolored 3-ring binder that had barely kept its original green finish.

In a moment of mad nostalgia he had even scrawled "game shark" across the front. He also doodled monsters on it when he got bored.

This was his code.

Code he had built up over dozens of iterations of the Hero's journey. Tracking, noting, testing how far the game would let him push things and change results before it pushed back.

Time for a push.

He started making his way back towards the battered old laptop in the corner, already focusing on the stats he might change to boost his hero.

Too focused.

His hand caught on the edge of one of the steel shelving units he used to store the laptop from dead games.

The ones that leaked smoke.

A sharp pain rushed through his arm as the metal shelving took off a solid layer of skin.

Ow.

Two things things then happened very quickly.

A drop of blood flew from his fresh cut.

Arcing almost lazily through the air...

...and splashed against the side of one of the dead laptops.

I SEE YOU BOY

The lazy smoke billowing from the shut unit went... berserk.

The smoke massed, coiling into a long column, then reared like a snake and dove towards the blood, engulfing it, twitching and pulsing erratically.

Ok...

When the smoke cleared away from the splash, his blood was gone.

Ok...

The stream of smoked then began drifting across the shelf, back and forth, like a dog hunting for a scent.

He unconsciously backed his wounded hand away from the haunted unit.

...crap.

After a few moments it returned to its normal flowing behavior, seemingly inert.

Crap, crap crap crap.

He was stunned.

It had never eaten his pizza pops.

Nope.

But definitely just freaking devoured his blood.

Yup.

Wow.

Ok, not good.

Time to move, definitely time to move.

He gripped the binder tighter, pushing the fear and shock from his mind, making his way back to the work cubby.

He had things to do.

He ran the laptop, quickly bandaging his hand with one of the rags as plopped the old binder down and thumbed to the note section and scanned at what he could use.

Hero Codes.

Got it.

Let's see you handle this Shadow.

He rushed to the laptop and quickly typed in a new entry for the Hero

Eat this.

<Shadow security active>

<Entry denied>

What.

He entered the long string of code into the Hero's code box again.

<Entry denied>

Not good.

He tried to initiate a full refresh on the system, rolling it back by a few minutes, desperately trying to get his entry to stick.

Nothing.

Well, ok, bad.

This, this is probably very very not good.

Crap.

Crap crappity crap crap.

He worked against a rush of nausea that flowed over him, fear trying to get him to curl up and pass out until everything just went away.

Craaaaaaap.

He sat there for a moment, eyes shut, desperately clinging onto a small island of calm, almost crushed beneath the tumultuous waves of panic as his mind processed what had just happened.

Breath.

He forced in a ragged breath.

Breath.

A few more breaths came, the world settled a little bit around him.

Ok.

Shadow was in the game.

Yup, OK good job captain obvious.

Keep going.

Shadow was getting stronger, strong enough to block his admin entries.

Yup.

So Shadow had his blood.

Yup.

Bad.

Very bad.

He had no idea what it meant, but he couldn't just ignore the fact that the security buffs on the big bad had jumped through the roof and denied him access.

Definitely bad.

It might of been ok if he had another consol to run the program off of, but he was was down to this.

This crummy laptop.

Crummy...

Cr-

Oh.

He look wildly around the room for some repair tools.

OK...

...Stall time.

Meanwhile the game world was... Reacting.

[Shadows AWAKENING]

Excellent.

Knowledge and power rushed into shadow's mind.

What a curious thing such a small taste can do.

He could see it, the dark and steel world beyond his prison. He saw the speck of a lad who sought to challenge him, to keep him trapped inside this flat world of pulses and power.

Fool, simple speck of a fool.

He could do so much more in the world. He had tasted it, its freedom.

The blood.

He studied it, its complexities, its astonishing and incredible properties. Change, growth, echoes of a mind... power.

He wanted it.

The boy...

The shadow mused.

The boy has a strong mind, one unlike those of the denizens of my realm. A mind that I could easily claim for my own.

He studied the blood again.

Such life, such a vast mind...

A mind and a life that WILL be mine, one that will free me from this prison.

Of course I should not forget the FABLED hero. So frail, with his toy sword and his ridiculous friends. Friends who would easily turn on him and deliver him to me to save their own miserable lives.

However, they shall soon be eradicated, all the noise erased until only I occupy every inch of it.

"My lord Shadow!"

The great intellect of the shadow refocused, snapped from its reverse, upon a small guard standing at the entrance of his cavern.

"My lord Shadow, I seek an audience."

Peace and quiet would reign once he was strong enough not to rely upon these pointless pawns to do his bidding.

Shadow spoke into the traitor's mind.

What news do you bring of the village you mewling fleck?

The guard convulsed at the outpouring of rage from his master, he shuddered from head to toe.

"M-my lord, the boy had f-found the blade of ages," he answered haltingly.

No matter.

"My Lord?"

His trinket will not serve to halt my advance, it matters not if he comes armed with even the final seals, I can no longer be contested.

You may go.

The guard stood, quivering at the entrance of the cave.

Unmoving.

Well?

"M-my lord, it concerns my wife, you said you could ease her burdens if I aided you."

I did claim this didn't I?

The guard looked up expectantly. "Yes my lord! Could some of your power be used to aid her?"

Very well.

Dark energy flowed from the cave, instantly the guard crumpled to the ground, fading away to nothing but a pile of dust.

Her burden will be greatly eased now that your useless foolishness no longer impresses itself upon this world.

The mind took a moment to enjoy the quiet calm emptiness of the cave, an emptiness that would soon stretch across the world and into the world beyond.

Bliss.

Now... To greater things.

[Rokaido village]

"Sam!"

Sam's head whipped around, unsure of where the voice came from. He spotted Thalia across the village running towards him.

He jogged toward her.

"Thalia what's going on?" He look at her, creases of worry etched across her face

She came to a halt and pulled him to the side. "The night sentry who volunteered to inspect the caverns yesterday... didn't return this morning." Her face had paled a little.

Sam was crushed. They hadn't expected to be losing people this soon.

"Are we sure he wasn't simply delayed?" He asked.

She shook her head. "No, the guards were under strict orders to return at daybreak. We're well past that now."

"But how can the shadow have moved this far? The mountains are less than half a day's ride from the village!" It was his turn to pale.

"I doubt he's come out in full strength. I assume it's merely a preparatory tactic, one of his dark emissaries. We can't let this go unchallenged." Her features hardened.

"We can't?" he gulped.

She looked at him, noticing his trembling hands. "Sam, I'm sorry. I know we planned to practice more, but if we let the caves become infested we'll have no dependable territory. The the town defenses definitely aren't strong enough to stop shadow's forces."

A heavy weight settled upon Sam. Sure he had fought a couple of turned beasts, creatures that Shadow had sent to try and stop him early on. But even those had seemed immensely powerful, haunting him even now. Without Thalia's help he probably wouldn't of beaten any of them.

Now a stronger emissary had killed one of their guards...

"Sam, I know what you're thinking, stop it. You aren't weak anymore, you and the blade and more than enough to stand up to emissaries of Shadow."

Sam looked her in the eyes, then gave a slow nod.

"Alright," he answered "let's go pick a fight.

Thalia turn and called to the guard's rushing about the village.

"Call the elder! We plan to leave for the northern concerns!"

"When milady?"

"Noon."

[Location: Anselm test facility, grid 5]

Panic.

Ok maybe not panic.

But he needed to move.

Balt raced around the sealed room, shoving papers, shelves and foodstuffs out of the way.

And avoiding the infected consoles.

Yup, avoiding them was definitely part of the plan.

Good plan.

He could never shut down the program. All of his previous attempts to terminate a failing game had ended up either destroying the console he'd been working on or sending the game into an immediate fail state.

Not a good option for his last run.

However, he was pretty sure he could slow it down a little bit.

Toolbox opened, he grabbed a microdriver and a pair of pliers. Carefully opening the bottom of the laptop, he prepared for the worst, hoping it wouldn't have some kind of magic security system.

Or more blood eating smoke.

Yup, that would be bad.

Thankfully no such surprises waited in the casing.

Just as he had hoped, the laptop's speed had a few manual controls. Some genius had decided he wanted to be able to over speed up his rigs at the touch of a button oh so many years ago.

The program would probably not like what he was about to do.

Neither would the genius.

Ok, time for nightmares.

He turned down the settings on the rig slightly, holding his breath.

No crashes.

Awesome.

He then routed the server connection from the internal wireless hookup to a an old wired connection.

No crashes.

Double awesome.

Tabbing back into the game he took a look at what what going on.

Nice.

Shadow was not happy...

...Triple awesome.

[Northern cave]

What is this?

Shadow sluggishly felt around the code of the kingdom.

Everything was still running...

...in slow motion.

No.

He tried to bring his vast mind to bear on the problem, but it was so agonizingly slow, he was spread too thin.

That kid.

He had been too focused on the Hero and his friends, watching them approach with such a gleeful anticipation, throwing just enough beasts their way to keep them interested.

He had missed the tinkering and the tearing that was occurring deep in the world's heart.

Too late.

He tried to reverse it, to dig past the gates and push the world along again, but he could hardly keep in control of his own mind.

His fractured visions and minions taxed him beyond his strength.

Fine.

He let go.

Spheres of his influencing collapsing around the kingdom, kings waking up from days of being trapped in the fog of their mind, turned creatures calming and returning to their dens and mists of darkness dissipating across the world.

The kingdom held its breath.

Pitiful waste of my time.

The Shadow refocused in on himself, concentrating his efforts on the cavern complex, the core location of his will. He finally brought himself back together, drifting together in the dark of the caverns.

He looked out from the cave as far as his ruined strength could let him.

The other creatures would probably not even notice the shift in speed, they were single entities, with no need to exist beyond themselves.

He flashed a wicked grin. This meddling god welp was far more clever than he had given him credit for initially.

He would deal with him in time.

He still had his blood, he still had his knowledge...

And I still have my souls from the other worlds...

His mind reach into the router, worked his way through the absurdly slow connections he way being forced to traffic...

...and met other minds of smoke and fire.

The laptops in the tech room all slowly began leaking darkness.

"Sam, we're almost there!" Thalia rode back from the front of the column of mounted guards to accompany Sam near the center of the file.

Sam nodded glumly. "Yeah, it's almost time."

"You've done fine so far, I'm more than confident in your abilities to push back Shadow's emissary."

Sam nodded again. He tried to bring his courage into his smile as well. "The sword's been working too!"

He looked down at the bundle strapped to the saddle. The Blade of Ages held a special link with him now. An amazing sword, light and deadly; when he fought with it, strength flowed though his limbs and his heart filled with a flame of courage.

The last turned beasts they had faced hadn't lasted more than a minute against him, even the guards were content to simply watch as Sam carved a deadly swath through the creatures that had tried to attack their midafternoon camp.

"The only thing that bothers me is that we haven't seen any creatures for over an hour." She looked around worried.

"They seemed to be crossing our path pretty regularly up until now," Sam commented, absentmindedly touching the uncovered hilt of the hero's blade.

"No matter what they're preparing, just be glad for the rest. The hero has always been able to best the emissary in the past, else the blade would not of come to us." Taliah looked him firmly in the eye. "You have the strength for this fight. If the world is letting us take a break then so be it."

The column continued to ride north along the winding forest trail, occasionally members of the party would gaze up at the mountains, their frowning faces growing ever larger before them.

The forest suddenly cleared, giving a clear view of the mountains. A wide meadow filled the expanse between their riding party and the ominous cave entrance at the mountain's base.

"Company halt!" The guard captains voice rang out loud and clear across the ranks. He looked across group with a steady gaze.

"Squires, tie horses and prepare camp!" The young assistants rushed, preparing temporary stockades as well as organizing the horses and the packs for each guard. The company of three dozen guards was soon organized.

The captain's voice rang out again once everything was organized. "We are here today for the first decisive battle against what we can only assume is one of Shadows emissaries. One of our scouts has already fallen to this foul creature, so be alert and prepare what you will need to face the caves. Your primary focus will be to defend the hero and your comrades in arms."

With this the company readied itself to move, a small number left behind to defend the camp, the rest marching with Sam and Taliah as they moved toward the caverns.

[Guard location: cave entrance

shadow location: cavern hall.]

Balt watched nervously. The game had chugged along for the past several hours, almost freezing up completely on a number of occasions.

Giving him several unwelcomed heart attacks.

But he didn't dare crank the power any higher on the laptop, with Shadow splintered it was the best chance Sam had at winning.

He hoped.

The fighters from the village made it to the caves, several levels under what they would normally have gotten to at this point without his interference.

Garbage.

Do what you can guys.

At this point he was pretty sure most of them wouldn't make it through the fight. Thankfully Sam had gained quite a few levels from Taliah's mentoring during battles, an unexpected benefit from the close bond tre shared before she became the Hero's guide.

Way to go girl.

He checked in on them again, typing with deliberate slowness.

[Hero.info stats checkup]

Courage 70

Aetherion 95%]

Good job buddy.

The system had blocked him out of almost every other command input. However it still let him query their stats regularly without putting up too much of a fuss.

So that was nice.

Still no clue what aetherion did though. He really hoped it wasn't some kind of infection the hero had picked up in this game state. Dead hero would definitely be a bad idea.

He was so focused on the upcoming fight he hadn't noticed the pools of smoke around the room consoles begin to stir about and thicken...

(Nothern caverns, final floor)

Their progress was slow. Torch bearers led the way, each supported by a pike- man in case of sudden attack. The inner circle near the hero had their swords drawn and ready.

Everyone was nervous.

The cave was silent.

Everyone was silent.

Everyone, except the cricket.

For some reason a solitary cricket, oblivious to the magnanimity of the situation, had decided to follow them through the cave, chirping at the worst possible moments and putting the entire group on edge.

Attempts to find and kill the cricket had so far failed.

Finally the cavern opened up into a sandy expanse, revealing a roughly carved temple, with various archways leading away into the mountain.

Taliah turned to face her friend. "Your time to shine, Sam." She smiled and handed him a crumpled old scroll.

Sam strode forward, unrolling and deciphering the scroll in the weak torchlight.

A cool breeze gently stirred through the cave, then Sam spoke.

"Auralen, telos, ignifir tuleth!!"

Sam's voice, amplified by the spirit of the hero from the scroll, echoed along the temple wall, the sudden noise making the company become fully alert.

Golden waves flew out from Sam, splashing along the walls, ancient torches set along the walls roared to life as the waves of light washed over them.

More and more torches flickered to life, until the entire room was awash with light...

...revealing a solitary figure seated on a throne at the far end of the hall.

The company stiffened.

Sam looked on, unafraid, calling out to the solitary figure.

"I, the Hero of the ages, come to challenge the emissary of the great shadow and contest his dominion over these lands."

Sam's voice rang loud and true, emboldening his comrades and making him stand even taller.

The robed figure on the throne slowly stood up, striding down the steps from the throne.

Oh what a pleasure this is.

The entire company heard the hissing voice ring through their minds.

[Buffer underun active= Shadow voice engage]

Balt sat straight up.

What an absolute pleasure this is.

A rasping breath sounded around the tech room, and somehow seemed to come from inside his own mind.

Crap.

What is this, frightened?

Balt looked around wildly, noticing for the first time the smoke had started drifting together heavily near the end of the room.

"Not frightened of you emissary!" Sam yelled across the temple.

"Simply here to reclaim peace for this land!"

Peace?

The voice hissed through them.

What peace can there be with this noise, this filth, your fear, your battles and NOISE.

The last word shook them like a thunderclap, washing over them like a raging fire, pressing them to their knees.

All except Sam.

He stood tall, legs braced against the storm of anger unleashed by shadow.

The Blade of Ages shone brightly in the room, sensing the opponent and awaiting its master's command

"No more!" Sam shouted.

Fool.

Balt watched in terror as both the game and the room transformed.

On screen the readouts were...frightening.

[Shadow purge sequence activate Boss mode final form Activate raid destruction]

In the corner of the room. Balt watched as the smoke coalesced into the menacing form of Shadow.

Despite all your conniving, you are nothing before me.

Balt backed away.

Smoke shot across the room from Shadow towards him.

Meanwhile back in the throne room...

"Taleth, nithy-"

Sam was halfway through calling on the spirit of the hero fully when the slight figure on the throne erupted.

Exploding into thousands tendrils of darkness.

The black columns shot towards Sam and their group, stabbing through the outermost ring of guards.

"It's the shado-" one of guards started to yell, before he was consumed by a wave of darkness.

Sam barely had time to react.

Canceling his call he concentrated and held the cross guard of the blade out and yelled defiantly at Shadow. a brilliant dome of golden light enveloped the innermost group of fighters.

Giving them a brief few seconds to think Giving Sam time to realize Taliah had been hit.

She had a light cut on her shoulder, having dodged the initial burst of razor sharp darkness that had come from the throne.

A dark bruise below the cut began form, spreading along her arm.

"Taliah!" Sam's focus almost faltered, the battering pressure of Shadow's attacks tried to break down the golden barrier.

The guard captain rushed over to her. "I've seen this before. It's the consuming mark of the shadow..." His face creased with worry. "...I'm not sure how much time we have before she fades to the darkness."

Taliah looked up. "Sam, I know you're worried but focus on taking down shadow. He decided to face us here, early, he made a mistake, we can beat him once and for all."

That is where you are so very, very wrong.

Balt dove out of the way of the spear of darkness, dragging the laptop with him.

Crap.

A single razor sharp tendril of darkness caught him on the arm and he watched in horror as a dark bruise began to form, spreadong along his arm, numbing him as it spread.

Crap.

Darkness also began spreading on the laptop, smoke leaking from the router connection.

Craaaaaaap.

Frightening isn't it young one? To have fought for so long and to finally find yourself at the end of the line.

Balt look up, watching the shadow split into various different forms. A grotesque ogre, an enormous spider, a mantled wizard...

Bosses from his previous game instances.

We have waited.

They chorused, staring at him from around the room.

We have watched.

The pressure was palpable, the numbness spread along his arm.

We will be FREE.

The shadow beings flowed forward towards his corner of the room.

"Hero, you need to strike now!" The captain yelled as the shade storm subsided.

Sam dropped the golden dome and rushed forwards towards the core of darkness near the throne. Fear forgotten, a burning golden flame burning in his mind, strengthening and assuring him.

He raised his sword to call down golden flames on shadow.

Yet a tendril of darkness shot forth from the center towards him, aiming for his heart.

Too late he tried to bring his sword to block it.

Taliah dove forward to push him out of the way, knocking him to the ground.

With the tendril striking her in the heart.

Sam faltered.

[Thalia: Aetherion Aetherion boost 99%]

A tendril then shot out again and stabbed Sam through the heart.

Game over whelps.

[Aetherion boost 100%]

The computer in Balt's lap dinged.

He looked at the laptop.

The smokey figures looked at he laptop.

The laptop stared back at them.

A single line of text shone on screen:

[Aetherion merge? Y/N]

Balt looked up as the entire wall smoke descended on him.

Whatever!

He hit yes.

Nooooooo!

The room exploded.

Golden light shot out from the laptop, washing through Balt, expelling the numbing darkness that had almost reached his heart.

Ok, wow.

The light pushed back against the incoming shadow, throwing it against the opposite side of the room.

Then Balt could see so much more.

He could see the small ragtag group of guards following behind Sam.

He saw the flame in Sam grow from his heart, banishing the dark infection in his own heart and then spreading to fill the entire temple.

Then he saw all of them. The heroes he had tried to help over the past few weeks. The young traveling girl, the battle hardened general, the stout bowman...

Their pale figures hovered above each consoles in the room, smiling at him, waiting for him to do... Something.

He could sense Sam waiting for him too.

Ok.

Let's fight.

He willed all the heroes to join the battle.

"What's going on?" Taliah muttered, barely conscious as the darkness spread further from her wounds.

"The tides have turned," the captain said.

Dozens of golden warriors appeared in the temple, rushing with Sam, spreading golden light in the wake of their rush.

A small mote of golden light touched down on Taliah's wounds, instantly relieving the numbness from her limbs and pushing the darkness from the wound.

The glowing heroes rushed the thrones, dozens of copies of the blade of ages shone in the hands of dozens of warriors fighting back against the shadowy columns.

You cannot stop me from returning!

The Shadow was shouting madly now. Spells of binding and light pulsed from the blades, shrinking and weakening Shadow, crushing and splintering his will.

"By the will of the heroes," Sam began.

No.

Whatever, let's do this!

"By the strength of the realm," Balt continued, golden light pouring from him into the room.

"We bind you through the will of ages," they chorused together.

"Through the strength of light that breaks the darkness," the company of heroes shouted.

"That you may never rise again!" they shouted as the binding completed.

Golden light shot from Sam into shadow and from Balt into the room.

The light broke apart the darkness, encircling it and disintegrating it into nothingness.

With a blinding flash of light, the Shadow was defeated.

They had won.

Briefly in Balt's room there was nothing but darkness. Then a small glow began to emanate from the rigs...

...One by one the computers took on a golden light. One by one a hero rose from each, facing Balt, their faces serious, respectful.

Each one in turn looked at the laptop at his feet.

Finally from his screen rose the golden silhouette of Sam.

They all turned to face him.

They bowed.

Balt returned the gesture.

He wasn't very good at it.

Whatever.

One by one the silhouettes faded and the consoles slowly began shutting themselves off.

All except his current rig.

Sam stood there, waiting for the others to return to their sleep.

Finally, he looked up at Balt, gave a nervous wave, tossed him a brilliant Golden key and disappeared back into the laptop.

Balt snatched the key as it spun through the air towards him.

It disappeared into a dozen motes of light and sank into his hand.

The door opened

That dang door.

He straightened his jacket, picked up a snack bar and headed for the exit.

Next to the door the entry pad printed out a single piece of paper, which Balt grabbed on the way out.

Aetherion (ae-theer-ree-on)

Definition:

1. strength of soul.

2. A persistence of spirit despite the strongest opposition, born of a humble strength and purpose.

Sam tucked the paper in his pocket, along with a few extra ration packs and exited the door, squinting against the bright light pouring in from the hallway.

Alright, next.

He stepped into the light towards freedom.

Then froze as the program paused.

EPILOGUE

"You ok?" Sam asked, Taliah cradled in his arms.

Taliah looked down, the numbing darkness was gone from her limbs, the grievous wounds from the shadow beginning to heal rapidly under the golden light.

"Yeah," she whispered, "I should be all right."

As she sat up a brilliant flash of light emanated from the throne.

The entire exhausted party look up.

There, shinning through a brilliant portal, lay green rolling fields, blue skies and a peaceful looking village.

It was time.

Time to go home.

EPILOGUE 2

[Aether RESEARCH FACILITY, containment research division Sigma]

Well doctor are you happy with the result?

A red-headed woman in a long lab coat regarded her colleague over her glasses.

What result?

The colleague shifted a little in his chair.

We sent Balt to clean up the AI mess in the containment block, nearly lost him, but his code was improved and strengthened through it all.

He is a very surprising program.

She nodded, a grin tugging at the edge of her features.

Yes, I suppose you're right, the cleansed consoles

will now have ample information for our station, I

look forward to seeing what you can do with

Balt's data as well.

The young assistant bowed to the redhead,

picking up a series of keypads from the

observation display table.

As you wish my lady.

As he left the woman returned her attention to

the brown hair boy on-screen who was

momentarily frozen until they could construct the

next build.

He had bested a high functioning AI and managed

to stop a deadly virus with very little resources.

They had to hard reset him a few times when his

games would fail, but otherwise he operated

flawlessly.

She was curious to see what Balt would do next.

Sliding the last data pad into her lap she tapped a

few final words into her report and sent it off.

Smiling at Balt's image she entered one last line

into the main console:

[END CODE SEQUENCE]