and all’s right with the world
by jadedair
It’s supposed to be a game.
Atoli isn’t supposed to fall over dead with just three slashes from a mercenary.
For that matter, it’s far too soon to be lying bloodied on the snow.
His consciousness ebbs, and his vision of the cloudy sky soon fogs at the sides.
Just like a dream, Darcel thinks faintly.
Yes, it’s all a dream.
He’ll wake up soon enough.
+++
“Darcel?”
Darcel blinks, stars across his sight. His consciousness wavers, ripples. He shakes his head furiously, the whiteness turning into something more familiar. Rocks and snow, the cluster of dead trees ahead.
Atoli stands beside him, curious and quiet. “Something wrong?”
The warlock game master pauses, looks around. Frozen Nest is the land of unchanging winter, one of the bleak battlegrounds for warriors old and new, locked in whiteness --
His spells aren’t doing enough damage, Darcel thinks desperately. His attackers are pushed back, but it isn’t enough. They keep coming, inching their way towards him. His magic has turned snow into slush, and it’s slowly turning red. His arms sag from the weight of his staff, cuts and burns through the armor.
Why? What’s happening?
“Atoli!” He searches for a pair of golden wings. “Where are --”
A white flash blinds him, crackles through his skin and bone. Time stands still, and a broad blade cuts through the whirl of lights and steel, descending swiftly upon his head.
“Darcel, are you feeling sick?” Atoli’s voice calls him back from visions of red snow and steel storms. “We can call off the event if you like.”
“No, no,” Darcel replies, waving off Atoli’s monotone concern. “I guess it’s just the stress getting to me. I’m fine. Coffee and Sunrise are in their places already.” The warriors should be here already, but perhaps they are taking their time organizing themselves. “We’ve just declared war on the whole of Arcana. What kind of game master would back out on that?”
Maybe he should talk to Galadriel and Sedy about it. He’s been working too much that he’s having ridiculous waking dreams of death. A game master cannot die. Not like the way mortals do.
Atoli’s gaze is unreadable, and it’s a relief when he finally looks away. “As you wish.”
+++
A distant part of him muses that he should be making a pun on
lightheaded, with the almost-scalping he just earned, but he is way too delirious with pain to care.
They leave him on the snow to die, and now Atoli stands alone against them.
Make it end, Darcel prays, with the clarity of one in a fever dream. Many times he has fallen as a game master, only to stand up again without pain nor injury, but this -- this feels like a mortal’s death. All loneliness and cold and throbbing pain, an encroaching darkness without the promise of waking.
Snow begins to fall. Atoli’s wings -- large and golden, woven with air and light -- flicker out.
Darcel shuts his eyes and tries not to listen to the sound of shredded flesh.
+++
“Darcel?”
Darcel blinks, stars across his sight. His consciousness wavers, ripples. He shakes his head furiously, the whiteness turning into something more familiar. Rocks and snow, the cluster of dead trees ahead.
Coffee stares owlishly at him. “Hey, are you alright?”
Atoli is dead, and he didn’t even make a sound.
“Atoli,” Darcel gasps, wildly turning around. Frozen Nest stretches white and empty around them, but at the edges of his consciousness it seeps red, full of faceless warriors. “Where’s Atoli?”
“He switched places with me,” Coffee answers, incredulous that he even asked. “He just teleported a while ago to Sunrise’s location. Don’t you remember?”
Is that supposed to happen? Darcel pauses, attempts to grasp the situation. It comes in bits and pieces -- the challenge to the warriors of Arcana, the short planning session with the rest of the game masters, Sunrise waving goodbye before teleporting. Something is amiss, he knows. Something surreal and wrong. For one thing, his mind keeps telling him that Coffee isn’t supposed to be with him.
“You know, I think you should take a break,” she continues, tone laced with genuine concern. “You’re staying in Arcana for far too long these days. It can’t be good. The three of us can handle this just fine.”
“I’m --” Saying ‘I’m alright’ sounds like a lie, but how do you explain phantom visions? Coffee would only laugh at him. He touches his head, relieved that it’s whole despite himself. “I’m fine, Coffee. I just can’t back out of this all of a sudden.” He pauses, breathes deeply, willing his nervousness to recede. “I’m going to talk with Gala after this though. Maybe I should really take a break.”
“Yeah, bake some more cakes,” Coffee says with a laugh. Her expression turning more serious, she adds, “You’re taking your job far too seriously these days. Remember what Gala and Sedy told us when we first started?”
It takes Darcel a few moments to remember. It was so long ago, when he was just a newly-minted game master, fresh from the ranks of the warriors. “It’s all just a game.”
Coffee grins at him. “So liven up. We can’t die, so what’s there to do but to enjoy our time?”
Darcel tries to emulate her cheerfulness, but at the same time he thinks there’s something wrong with the thought.
It’s all just a game.
+++
“I can’t see your wings,” Coffee mutters, eyes wide with a primal fear that Darcel has never known to exist. “Darcel, please tell me I still have my wings.”
He contemplates a gentle lie, but he decides against it. He shakes his head sadly.
At a distance, the sounds of feet sinking into the snow move ever close.
“What’s happening?” She asks hoarsely, breaking the brittle silence. “I don’t understand.”
Around him the ground turns red, his leg numbing from a dagger’s slash, both arms trying to keep his entrails to where they belong. The rocks cannot hide them forever. “I don’t know.”
“What’s happening?!” Coffee repeats, more insistently, desperately. Hope and sanity slipping away at every breath. "Why are our powers gone? Why are the warriors aren’t stopping? Why aren’t they listening to us?"
“I don’t know.” It frustrates him to give the same useless answer, but he knows no other. This is the truth of their situation, and not even the pain clouding his mind could efface the fact.
When was the last time this happened? He wonders distractedly, eyes tracing the path of a lone snowflake in the air.
When was the last time I died and felt it?
Coffee’s giggling breaks into his thoughts, shatters the haze. He wants to tell her to keep it quiet, but he is too weak for that. Pain is -- exhausting.
“Game masters can’t die, right?” She tells him in-between giggles. Her shaking hands are wrapped tight around the hilts of her swords, blood on the blades. “This is a joke and we’re stupid for hiding like this. We can’t die. This --” She clumsily motions at their wounds, at the desolate landscape, the approaching pursuers. “This is nothing.”
“Yeah,” Darcel agrees feebly, his answer more of a thick bloody breath than actual words. “We can’t -- die.” There is a bit of solace in the lie. “This is just a dream.”
“A dream.” The mercenary game master earnestly bobs her head, her gaze faraway. “A game and a dream. Yes.” Her face hardens with an idea, a last burst of liveliness.
“Coffee--?”
For a moment, Coffee regains herself, offers Darcel a lucid smile. “It’s time to wake up, Darcel.”
He attempts to reach out to her, to hold her arm or
anything to stop her, but fear and cold has frozen his body. She rises from her position, beyond the cover of the rock, exposing herself to the open. A gunshot pierces the howls of the wind, and she crumples into the snow.
Darcel feels the heavy weight of steel against the side of his head.
I’m going to wake up too, Coffee.
Bang.
+++
“Darcel?”
Darcel blinks, stars across his sight. His consciousness wavers, ripples. He shakes his head furiously, the whiteness turning into something more familiar. Rocks and snow, the cluster of dead trees ahead.
“You sure you can do this Darce?” Sunrise asks with a worried frown. “You spaced out for quite a while there.”
“Wait --” A different person each time? He instinctively looks down to his leg and sees it whole, without the slash that exposed bone. “Why are you here?”
Sunrise lightly bops him on the head with his staff. In another time Darcel would have retaliate, but his mind is still numb from shock. “Of course I’m here. Atoli and Coffee are on the other side of Frozen Nest already.” When Darcel does nothing but to continue looking at him dumbly, he scratches the back of his head and adds, “Seriously -- do you feel sick or anything? Did I hit you too hard? You’re looking kinda pale.”
Atoli falls, five different swords through his chest.
Coffee lies still in the snow, a bullet through her head.
Sunrise still has his wings. Darcel looks over his shoulder and sees his flapping idly. He sighs in relief.
“We’re calling it off,” he says shakily. He doesn't understand what’s happening and he is beginning to doubt his sanity, but he is sure that the memories are real. So are the phantom pain and fear pulsing beneath his skin. “Sunrise, announce it to the rest of Arcana. We’re stopping this event.”
The other warlock stares at him in disbelief. “Are you crazy? Raids and parties have been called across the continent, and we’re just going to call it off like that? I thought we agreed to this event because everyone’s bored out of their minds!” When Darcel doesn't answer, he adds incredulously, “This was your idea, Darcel!”
“It’s a bad idea.” He checks his wings again, breathes deeply that they remain. Every second counts -- he doesn't know when they will disappear. “Contact Atoli and Coffee --”
“Darce, I don’t mind stopping this event if you only tell me why --”
“Just tell Atoli and Coffee to get the hell outta here, dammit! Listen to me!” He’ll do it himself, he will leave in a flash while his powers are still intact, but his thoughts are racing, and nothing makes sense. Too distracted, too scared. The memory of lightning and the blade on his head, the dagger piercing flesh and bone. He shivers.
How does one explain repetition and memory and death?
When it’s clear that Sunrise -- stubborn, foolish Sunrise -- would not do anything without the explanation he demands, Darcel swears loudly and prepares to teleport to Atoli and Coffee’s location. “Fine, Sunrise, I’ll do it myself! Just go!”
An ice shard whizzes past his face from behind. It cuts Darcel’s face and barely misses Sunrise’s ear. The former's blood chills; the latter grins with anticipation.
As Sunrise moves forward, staff in hand, his wings flicker out.
+++
Darcel thinks it’s the same rock with Coffee (
a lifetime ago?), therefore he is sure that they will be discovered soon.
Nevertheless, he has enough time to tell Sunrise a story.
There was a warlock who woke up in a snow field.
There was a person with him, someone he knew.
Soon after, a crowd of familiar people approached and killed them.
“The end?” Sunrise breathes out, grinning despite the burns on his arm, deep gouges on everywhere else. Darcel tries not to gag from the smell of burnt flesh.
“No. The warlock woke up again in the snow field. There was a person with him, someone he knew.” He pauses, thinks of Atoli and Coffee. Without his powers as a game master, he couldn't sense them. Darcel has never felt so hollow, so -- so helpless. So afraid. “But it wasn’t the same person from before.”
“What -- what happened next?”
“A crowd of familiar people came and killed them.”
Sunrise laughs, a thick wet noise from his throat. His teeth flash red. “What a -- what a boring story.”
“I’m sorry.” Darcel swallows, attempts to organize his thoughts. All he could think of is that
‘Sunrise is dying.’
Where to go?
What to do?
“Chill. It’s not -- it’s not your fault.” He laughs again, fainter this time, and Darcel forces himself to listen. “Heh. I’m dying. Forgot -- how it feels like.”
Darcel wants to lie down, to will himself to sleep and
wake up. Sunrise will bop him in the head, Coffee will call him an old man and Atoli will try not to get involved. Then the warriors will come and it’s going to be a great sport, because
no one will die, not permanently, because that’s the blessing of the warriors and the game masters. The warriors will feel pain, yes, but game masters are above that. There's no need to worry, and life will go on.
Somehow, he knows that these things would not happen.
They will never happen.
Sunrise makes a sound beside him. Maybe it’s an attempt to laugh -- it ends up as a thick glob of red dribbling from his mouth. “Hey, if -- this -- this repeats -- try to do it -- right -- next time, Darce.” Sunrise hangs his head low, his remaining good eye closing. “Just gonna sleep for a bit --”
“Yeah,” Darcel manages to choke out. “I’ll try.”
Sunrise doesn’t respond.
Eventually, after a long lonely while, Darcel stands up. The winds rise in speed, becoming cries in his ears. His vision whitens out from the flurry of snow, but his mind remains clear.
He manages one last Meteor spell before a shield smashes into his face. He blanks out, inhaling and tasting blood, but he knows what comes next.
I have to make this stop.
+++
“Darcel?”
Darcel blinks, stars across his sight. His consciousness wavers, ripples. He shakes his head furiously, the whiteness turning into something more familiar. Rocks and snow, the cluster of dead trees ahead.
Atoli stands beside him, curious and quiet. “Something wrong?”
His friends dead in the snow. Blades and bullets and burns.
He grabs Atoli’s arm, feels his wings beat furiously. He still has time. “Let’s go to where Coffee and Sunrise are.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask!” He has a vague sense of where they could be -- somewhere south, near the road leading to the frozen lake. His wings flutter again, a dance of lights. He still has power. He still has time. “C’mon, Atoli!” The swirl of teleportation magic hovers above them, bright against the ashen sky.
The other warlock regards him with weariness. “There’s no use.”
The magic flares, signaling its near-completion. The surroundings begin to blur and fade into a nondescript gray. His thoughts race along with the melting scenery. “What do you mean?”
“This is just a game, Darcel.” Atoli sighs, and for a moment, before the magic swallows them both, he sees the despair on the stoic game master’s face. “You’ll see.”
+++
This time, they are together.
Lying in the snow, staining it red.
Just as suddenly as they have come, as wordlessly as they have attacked, the warriors of Arcana retreat once they have perceived their mission to be over.
“They kept me alive,” Darcel says with a half-hysterical chuckle. “Even for just a little while.” He couldn’t feel his legs, and his left shoulder had been filled with bullets. But he is alive. He will die soon enough, but he is alive for the meantime.
“Coffee?”
No answer.
“Sunrise?”
Silence.
I’m going to die staring at a boring cloudy sky. And it’s better that way. He has to thank the person who knocked him flat on his back. Dying sideways would have been hellish for his injured shoulder. Better to stare at the boring cloudy sky than at the mangled corpses of Coffee and Sunrise. He wishes for the winds to rise and roar, to block the echoes of Coffee’s screams as the flames wreathed her, of Sunrise’s last words before a blade found his neck.
Bolts and blades and bullets and burns.
Time to wake up.
Try to do it right next time.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. Again and again he fails. Again and again they are gripped by pain. A sense of impending doom threatens to swallow his consciousness whole. It hurts to do anything. “Atoli, are you --?”
“Yeah.” Atoli’s voice is so weak he has to strain himself to hear. “I’m still -- here. Because
they want you to know.”
“They?”
“The ones behind this -- this loop. You’re not the first, Darcel.”
That explains the resigned looks, the unsurprised reactions. Yet there is also budding anger, of enraged disbelief. “S-so -- so this has been happening -- for a long while -- why didn’t you --” He would cry if he has the energy for it, but the little left in him he devotes trying to keep himself lucid. To know and to remember.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I did.” And for the first and last time, Darcel hears Atoli laugh. It sounds hoarse and broken and teetering at the edge, glass-fragile against the winter stillness. “Many, many times. I -- I tried to break free. Alone, or with you all. I-I tried, Darcel.” His laughter turns into something like a sob. “I t-tried so -- so many -- times.”
“There has to be --” It hurts to breathe. It hurts to live. “As long as it -- it restarts -- there has to be a way.”
It hurts to try.
“It’s no use.” Darcel turns his head to Atoli’s direction and sees him grinning, half his face an unrecognizable pulp, blood dripping from swollen lips. “I told you -- it’s just --
it’s just a game --”
+++
“Darcel?”
Darcel blinks, stars across his sight. His consciousness wavers, ripples. He shakes his head furiously, the whiteness turning into something more familiar. Rocks and snow, the cluster of dead trees ahead.
“Oh good,” Galadriel says with an approving smile. “For a moment I was worried.”
Gala! At the moment Darcel dares to hope. If there is someone who could help him -- an authority that transcends the power of the game masters,
the power of the world itself -- then it’s Galadriel.
“Gala, what’s happening?” He looks around to see whether a fellow game master is around. There is no one else in sight. If he tries to sense them, they barely register in his mind. Why are they so far away? Are they even here? If no -- then he supposes it’s good news, but he wants to be sure. Somehow, even with Galadriel standing beside him, the situation is -- off. “Where’s -- uh, Atoli? Coffee? Sunrise?”
The sage shrugs. Does that mean she knows nothing of this? “I thought everyone’s going to have an event. The usual ‘kill the game masters’ one.” She laughs. “You even managed to drag me and Sedy into this. I’ll try to be -- ah, gentle. We need to have our fun from time to time.”
For a moment Darcel falters. How do you tell someone, who is practically a goddess, that you mean to stop their ‘fun’?
Bolts and blades and bullets and burns.
I have to try.
“Y-yeah, well --” Darcel sucks in breath to calm himself, glances over his shoulder to see his wings, watches them flutter blue and gold. He looks at Galadriel straight in the eye and inwardly prays he wouldn’t sound crazy. “I want to cancel this event right now.”
The administrator’s eyes widen. “But you sounded so enthusiastic about this earlier.”
“Galadriel, I know this is unbelievable but --” This would have been easier if Atoli is here, but there’s no time. The warriors are coming and history is folding upon itself. No matter the changes, it always ends the same. “Our game master powers disappear and we’re stuck in a loop. A time loop. The warriors come, our powers are taken away, and then the warriors kill us. Then I -- I ‘wake’ up standing here, and it repeats all over again.” His chest beats cold at the sight of Galadriel’s unreadable expression. “Please, Gala. I’m not talking crazy. You could ask Atoli later, but for now --”
“You mean this?” The sage snaps her fingers before smiling indulgently at him. “Darcel, I thought you would have figured it out sooner.”
“W-what --”
Cold like crystalisk gems. “What do you mean, Gala?”
“Look behind you.”
He does, obedience trained by respect and habit, and he sees nothing but the dead calm, the frozen landscape. The sharp, biting winds touch his cheeks, stings his eyes. His breath catches.
“
My wings --”
“
Your powers,” Gala interrupts. “Really Darcel. If Sedy and I are the ones who gave them to you, who do you think could take them away?” She clucks her tongue, sounding like a disappointed teacher. “Atoli didn’t need to have it spelled out to him, and it only took him two repetitions.”
His mouth goes dry and, despite himself, his mind begins to piece everything together. The answers rear their ugly head. “I-I don’t understand.”
“Darcel, I’ve told you before,” Gala tells him, with the patience of a mother to an ignorant child. “This is all just a game. You reign over the mortals, even the reincarnated ones safeguarded from permanent death, but we -- Sedy and I -- reign over you.” She yawns, one slender hand over her mouth. A theatrical move to emphasize a point. “And we’re bored, Darcel.”
It takes a while before her revelations register in the warlock’s mind. It hits him harder than the shield that crushed his head, or the blade that almost tore his leg. “
Bored?” He spits out, incredulous and heartbroken and so, so confused. “So you’re doing this -- this time looping -- trapping everyone -- because you’re
bored?”
“Yes,” she answers without hesitation, as if it is the most natural thing in the world. “You wouldn’t understand. You’re not like us. Eternity is something you can’t even comprehend. It’s not something you can hate with all your being. When you literally have forever, it gets boring really, really quick.” She walks closer, points a finger to his chest. “Even with the powers we’ve given you, deep down, you’re a mortal just like them.” She gives his body a mild tap, and an electric pain courses through the warlock. He stumbles back groaning, hands madly scrambling over the spot she touched, knees giving out to let him fall into the snow. When he opens his eyes she finds Galadriel standing over him, her gaze devoid of the compassion he used to find in her.
This is a lie, isn’t it? A dream? Even if the pain feels concrete, his heartbeat loud and rapid, his sensations sharp and clear, this must be a dream.
This can’t be real.
“We know nothing of mortal things like fear and death and pain. But creatures like you -- mortals, whose nature is to
die -- can experience them. They make life interesting. People struggle and do illogical things to avoid what they dread.” She turns away, gestures to their surroundings. “That’s why we put you and the rest in these situations. How do we call it -- ‘thriving in adversity’? Yes, that. It’s very beautiful to watch.”
“This isn’t a game!” He shouts, trying to push himself up, to stand tall and tell her just how twisted she is. Even if she has taken back his powers, even if he stands no chance, he wouldn’t stand for this -- for this
madness. “We’re talking about people here! Pain and death -- they’re no games! You have no right to play with our lives like this! ”
And Gala turns to him, her face adorned with a demented grin, her eyes wide with a tyrant’s conviction. “But it is a game, Darcy! You’ve acknowledged it yourself. You’re a game master, remember?” Darcel opens his mouth, but the memory of Coffee’s voice, carefree and distant, comes to the forefront.
It's all just a game. “This world is a game because we made it into one. We can do anything we want with it to keep us entertained.
We do this because we can.”
“You’re crazy,” Darcel mutters as he shakes his head, his breathing shallow. Either this -- this creature is crazy or he himself has gone down the deep end and he is imagining all of this. “You and Sedy. You’re crazy. No -- wait. Wait!”
This is a dream, a lie. “You’re not Galadriel. You’re just screwing with my head! The Gala I know doesn’t talk of this bullshit!”
“Oh Darcy, Darcy,” Galadriel exclaims, clapping her hands in delight. “It’s really worth it to let you know. Atoli’s reaction was boring. When he figured out what’s going on, he just resigned himself to it. You, on the other hand -- I think you’ll fight, no? Until the end. Do it, Darcy.” She smiles at him as if he is some favored, obedient pet. “Keep us entertained for a while longer. But for the meantime --”
Darcel feels something sharp and heavy behind him. He slowly turns around, his blood frosting in his veins, as he finds a familiar face holding a two-hand sword. Sedy grins at him, as if this is a meeting of old friends and this is his way of saying hello.
“Our king would like to have a piece of the action himself.”
+++
“Darcel?”
Darcel blinks, stars across his sight. His consciousness wavers, ripples. He shakes his head furiously, the whiteness turning into something more familiar. Rocks and snow, the cluster of dead trees ahead.
“Geez Darce, get a grip.” It’s Sunrise, and he’s repeatedly tapping the crest of his staff against Darcel’s head. The insistent pain dispels the grogginess, the surreal possibility that this is just a dream. “You feeling alright?”
Keep us entertained.
“The old man is feeling his age,” Coffee says with a mischievous giggle. “Don’t you think so, Atoli?”
Atoli makes a noncommittal sound as a response.
Darcel looks at each of them and begins to laugh, sinking to his knees in the snow. His wings beat at every intake of breath, feathers raining down around him. He laughs until tears roll down his face.
Sunrise stares at him, apprehensive at his sudden change of demeanor. “H-hey, Darce? What’s up with you?” Even Coffee looks disturbed, unable to quip anything witty or funny.
“O-oh, nothing, nothing.” Only Atoli looks on, impassive. Understanding. “This -- this just won’t end anytime soon, right?”
“What are you talking about?” Sunrise asks, growing more alarmed, the same time Coffee exclaims, “Darcel, tell us what’s the problem!”
“Nothing.” Darcel braces himself against the snow, watches his hands sink into the whiteness. He could feel their heavy gazes and Atoli’s unspoken sympathy.
“Nothing at all.”
+++
“So, who’s next?”
“Coffee? Sunrise? Or do we reset Atoli and let Darcel retain his memories?”
“The last one sounds interesting.”
“Although controlling the mortals to kill them -- it’s easy, yes, and it makes for a variety of deaths, but it will get boring after a while.”
“What do you suggest then?”
A pause. “Hm, why don’t we make them kill each other?”
Laughter rings throughout the white, empty space.
“That’s a good idea, Sedy.”
+++
Word Count: approximately 4.5k
IGN: Tyfainne
A/N:
[ul]
[li]I wish that word count was joking...[/li]
[li]A segment of this is dedicated to Alexae. This is soooo your fault. :silly: [/li]
[li]Massive, massive creative license employed. I'm sorry if I offended anyone!
[/li]
[li]I don't think it even makes sense...[/li]
[/ul]