HereAfter- Dragons Rising Read online

  HereAfter

  Dragons Rising

  Derek Rhys

  Contents

  {Prologue: Tavin}

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  PART II

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  PART III

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  PART IV

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  PART V

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  PART VI

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  {Prologue: Tavin}

  A roar beckoned from beyond the edge of the mountain ridge. Tavin tumbled over and looked behind to see the other man struggling. Vast wings beat the air, closer and closer.

  “Hurry!” Tavin jogged back and grabbed the man’s hand, yanking him forward. “If we’re not inside the port-point by the time it catches us, you’re good as dead.”

  The somewhat rotund man wheezed. “Kid, I barely follow yer step or yer words. Ain’tcha got that ridiculous weapon ‘round yer wrist fer a reason?”

  “Blades won’t stop that thing.”

  If they were caught, this man would die. For real. Tavin didn’t have to worry about his own life—that was safe from talon and flame. He began to think that he’d planned this poorly. Rushed things. He should have kept looking for someone more suited to the job. Someone in a younger, more strapping body. Problem was, anyone particularly active, or likely to interact with Players was already quest-locked. If he hadn’t rushed, perhaps every last HereAfter Soul on Sevceneur—the portly fella included—would be beyond his reach.

  There’s only so much he could do with Class E developer privileges.

  Frustrating as this guy was, he didn’t want him to die. Not on his watch anyway. Tavin wondered if the man’s HP could handle a roll down the side of a mountain. It would certainly be quicker to just shove him and let his spheroid form gather some speed…

  The beast crested the ridge, roaring so their ribs shook, unleashing an eruption of fire that shattered the mountainside.

  Suddenly, the portly man was booking it ahead of him, arms swinging like axes.

  “That’s more like it,” Tavin said, grinning, and kept pace.

  The heads-up display built into his vision wouldn’t tell him exactly how far they had to go, but it would let him know when they entered the port-point. Tavin mentally navigated the menu floating in front of his eyes even as his feet found their way across the roots and rocks eager to trip him. He queued up the slab of meat he’d labeled “HackSnack” in his inventory, ready to be equipped the very instant he needed it.

  “Why in the high heavens,” screamed the portly man as he flew ahead, “Are there goddamn dragons on this world?”

  Because that’s what the customer asked for, thought Tavin. Because your life is worth less than a game. A powerful gust of air cut a chill into Tavin’s spine. “Get on the ground!” He didn’t wait for the man to do it himself. Tavin knocked him down and kept running.

  For as much pep as the extra fear had put in the man’s step, it wasn’t enough to get him to safety in time. That gust could only mean the dragon, known here as a Dryvrn, had caught up and put on the brakes, so to speak, to blow another blast of flame. Close enough this time that it would make well-done shish-kebab out of them.

  Tavin unhooked his bow and drew from his quiver in one smooth motion as he plotted a course through the woods ahead. He turned around, grasping a dagger with a length of rope tied to the end. He swung it sharply and launched the point straight into the beast’s mouth.

  Dryvrn - Lvl. 100 [155,697 / 155,698 HP]

  Then, before Tavin’s next footfall caught the ground…

  Dryvrn - Lvl. 100 [155,698 / 155,698 HP]

  That was fine. He yanked the dagger back, winding it around his arm again. He had the beast’s attention now. It didn’t care about the portly man, which meant that Tavin could haul off as fast as his rogue’s Level 23 legs would carry him. “Keep up behind!” Tavin cried to the man on the ground.

  “Are you fucking kidding me??”

  Even with everything on the line, Tavin couldn’t help a slight laugh mixing into his heaving breaths. He’d wondered what it would take for the man to break character. “Do it!”

  Tavin saw the marker stones he’d erected to let him know when he was close. The clearing he saw beyond the edge of the forest confirmed it. He pushed himself even harder.

  Stamina [0 / 1,034]

  He burst into the sunlight as the heads up display let him know he was inside the safe zone and he dropped into a roll through the long grass, popping up to face the beast.

  This was his first time face to face with the real thing. Well, real as it was, anyway. The actual thing. In spite of the terror clawing at every neuron in his skull, he was amazed at how truly real it looked. Felt, even. He could smell the char on its breath. He recoiled at the heat boiling in its throat. It was a work of art.

  The HackSnack dropped into his hand and he tossed it at the dragon. As expected, it snapped the meat out of the air and swallowed without chewing. No manners.

  Tavin exhaled and stayed that way.

  Then the dragon let its feet to the ground and folded its wings down. It sat like a dog at attention.

  Tavin took a deep breath. His nose burned as he held back the instinct to panic, immense torrents of adrenaline slowly dissipating from his system. Closing his eyes, he focused on breathing, trying to calm himself. At the clearing’s edge, he heard the man’s feet clomping towards him.

  “How the hell did you do that, kid,” the man asked, edging nervously around the dragon until he met up with Tavin.

  Tavin selected a bag of gold coins and tossed that into the dragon’s mouth as well. “It really doesn’t matter right now. Not with time so short.”

  The man made to say something, then thought better of it at the sight of Tavin’s grim mien. “Right. Of course. I understand.”

  “I hope so. I won’t be able to run this exploit again. Remember your instructions. This is a one shot deal.” Tavin toggled his inventory again, selecting the Letter. He handed it to the man. “This is everything right now. This is the life of every man, woman, and child on Sevceneur. You must not fail.”

  PART I

  ARRIVAL

  Chapter One

  A Letter Received

  Nash Evers hadn't been dead long. In fact, sometimes he forgot that he'd managed to die at all. For a man who'd lived his life rising and rising to greater heights of power, the idea that he'd ever bite it seemed as foreign as an extinct language.

  But dead he was. Five short years in the grave. Or urn. He'd never bothered to follow up on what they'd done with his remains. He'd been far too busy once he arrived in HereAfter to bother with triviali
ties like that.

  Being dead was no excuse for slacking.

  He sat uncomfortably in a green room backstage, listening to the crowd’s murmurs punctuated by cheers beyond the shut door. He looked over his face in the mirror, marveling for the thousandth time at his youthful features. The stranger he’d become accustomed to near the end of his life was gone, the old familiar lines of a 30-something a welcome return. Death had its perks.

  He was greater than Achilles. Remembered in life and death—and able to enjoy every minute of it. And no weaknesses. Not anymore anyway.

  Just five years and already he'd claimed his place among the growing power elites of HereAfter. It helped that he'd carried over a lot from life. Some wealth followed you over that abyssal chasm, and all of whatever fame or infamy you'd managed to find in your corporeal days.

  He'd been wealthy enough that even after the incredible death taxes were levied against his expiration he still had more money than most, after life or before. And his great name followed him in its entirety. Reputation has a way like that. In fact, you might say that everyone in HereAfter knew about his passing before he did. He was welcomed, barely having the time to register the reality of his own demise, before being ushered away by old friends long gone.

  That was half a decade ago. He’d leveraged his wealth to build a shipping company once the HereAfter moderators implemented object-permanence for most of the realm. Now he comfortably enjoyed the proceeds of that prescient move and was working on further building his power. First business, then politics.

  In his sights now was a seat in the Twescenea Senate. All that stood between him and the next rung of his power climb were a few million souls’ votes from his district after a series of campaign stops.

  That was his life at the moment. Now he waited until it was his time to go out and rile up the crowd. It wasn't likely to be a tough race, but not one he could rest on his laurels for either. He needed to be present. He needed to be fierce. A setback here would follow him for long ages. One thing he'd learned about the dead was that they had very, very long memories.

  On Earth, you could get away with running a campaign for political office two, three, or more times, and perhaps have a shot each and every time. But no such thing was possible in HereAfter. Eternity raised the stakes.

  Of course, HereAfter had only existed for a little less than a century—who knew what sort of reality waited at the end of a thousand years? Ten thousand? A million? Would failures become ever more solid? Would your weaknesses ever be forgotten? Could you overcome?

  Nash Evers had no interest in running that experiment on himself. If he was going to chance an eternity, he was going to do it at the top.

  He glanced over his speech again, making notes in a series of differently colored inks.

  "Ghouls, ghosts, zombs, assorted undead," a slash in green to pause for laughter, "Or, as we call each other, my fellow Souls. I'm here today to share my vision for our long future. We have much to look forward to," a purple slash, for a slight pause, "but much also to fear." Purple slash. "I am not quite as old as many of you, especially our oldest citizens. Happy seventy-fourth deathday to Charles and Mindy," red underline for a smile and applause. "You are an example of what the best of HereAfter has to give us. And I want that for everyone." Red underline.

  “I was still a young man on Decimal Day,” purple slash. “The horror and despair of that fateful moment was something Corpos in the living world could only read about. For the survivors—I know there are few of you here—we must never allow you to see such a thing again. For the rest of us,” purple. “We must ensure that our lives are safe from such tragedy, and tragedies like it. It is not enough to simply be alive. That is our great fortune. It is how we live our etern—” No. Scratch that. “—infinite stretch of life that defines whether Twescenea, and HereAfter at large, will be places worth existing within.” Red slash for applause. “A beautiful HereAfter begins here!” Red underline. “A beautiful eternity begins now!” Red underline. “Together—”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Come in.”

  The door swung open and Nash’s favorite assistant, Trindy, stepped through. Leggy, blonde, perfect proportions that he was certain she had paid extra for in passing. He glanced away. Despite his youthful looks and almost limitless virtual virility, he kept affairs at bay. He hadn’t been much of a hound in life—there was little point in starting now. Besides, the one time he’d let his heart get away from him, it hadn’t ended well.

  “A message came for you Mr. Evers,” she said. Her eyes betrayed an unrequited interest.

  He refocused and drew up his Heads Up Display. He called down his inbox but noted no new messages. “I don’t see anything. No alerts earlier either.”

  She stretched out her hand. It held an envelope made of thick, rough paper. “Actually, it seems to be a letter, sir.”

  Now that was unusual. It was all but unheard of to send physical letters. “Hunh. Well, give it here.”

  The corners of her lips pulled back nervously. “Should I hold off on bringing you to the stage?”

  “How important could it be?”

  “It is a letter.”

  Nash tore the envelope open and sat back in his chair. “There’s still a few minutes. We stay on schedule.”

  “You got it, sir.”

  He watched her leave, smiling to himself. She must have paid very well for her HereAfter avatar.

  Nash sighed and slid out the folded sheet and pulled it open.

  A chill shot down his spine as he eyed the first, few lines in a strange code.

  >,|[>.,

  |.,

  |{

  {./>,

  It was a cipher. He couldn’t read it right away, but the unusual mix of characters told him one thing: There was only one person who could have sent it.

  Someone who shouldn’t be able to send him a letter here.

  Someone who shouldn’t be dead.

  Chapter Two

  An Older Code

  “That goddamn kid.” Nash knew somewhere inside of himself that shouldn’t be his first thought on hearing his only son, Isaac, might be joining him in the afterlife.

  Of course, the new circumstances of life and death certainly made the blow hit a bit less hard.

  He’d always been put off from children—his own and others. He’d never wanted one of his own, but things had gotten sticky. Kids got in the way. Especially with someone like Nash who took the concept of family seriously. So seriously that he wanted to ensure he kept his own as small as possible—nonexistent—to reduce risk.

  His whole life was a constant interplay between risk reduction and profit growth. Kids didn’t factor into either of those things well. He’d tried to keep his own as far from a factor in his life, but that was often made difficult. Little ones find a way.

  And here, even in death, it was still impacting him. He had an election to run and now he had to spend time cracking codes. All he could think was that it better be serious. Deadly serious—whatever that might mean.

  Nash closed his eyes and pulled air in through his nose, pushed it out between his lips. He focused on his breathing until his mind was empty of all else. Then he snapped to attention—emotionless automaton, a perfect recreation of his best self from his most lucrative days. At the height of his Earthly power he’d been able to crunch twenty digit calculations in his head, negotiate deals, and look damn good in a silk three-piece, all while ignoring whatever tides of stress and emotion lesser persons might have been swayed by.

  His eyes traced over the series of slashes, arrows, brackets, and other assorted figures, falling back some three decades or so in time to when he’d sat with Isaac—a rare attempt at parenting—as they’d crafted the code together. Over the next few years, they’d elaborated and refined the system, sending a series of increasingly complex letters back and forth.

  What iteration of the cipher had t
hey ended at? Nash teased apart the figures and his memories. Good lord, how many of those messages had they sent each other? Back when he thought he could train his son to be like him. Someone to carry on the name and legacy. Before Isaac chose to become the disappointment he was. Nash was surprised Isaac had remembered the code at all.

  Finally, the pieces fell into place.

  “Sevceneur.”

  The first word. A name. One he recognized well, in fact.

  In HereAfter, citizens could choose what sort of place they wanted to live. Entire worlds—planets, actually—were crafted after the tastes of people. Nash had chosen Twescenea—Twenty-Second Century Earth. It was a facsimile of his own time and place. He knew it well. Other lived in older times, some lived on colonized worlds, other enjoyed fantastical realms reproduced from fiction or freshly conceived for the citizens.

  Sevceneur was a peculiar one. Seventh Century Europe. The citizens there had specific requests, particularly that their experience be as close as reasonable to the actual experience of that century while remaining reasonably pleasant. That is to say, the same physical environment, with nice weather, good crops, and none of the wars. Oh, and no technology. No reminders of where they were or what they were.