Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG - Chapter 238: (End of Book 2)

A loud crack echoed out across the water, followed by the vibrating hum of metal. Nick stared at the sword in his hand with an utterly inscrutable expression. Then raised his head and bellowed to the heavens. “Come the fuck on!”

Before I knew what was happening, laughter poured out of me in a crescendoing wave, growing to a guffaw. Most fictional depictions of the sword in the stone comprised the sword sliding out freely, as if it’d been sheathed there. This result was likely far more realistic, if not entirely anti-climactic. As Nick slowly turned toward me, utterly furious, I tried to clamp down on the laughter, snickering instead. “Let me guess, this has never happened to you before?”

“Yuk it up, edgelord.” Nick brandished the ruined blade at me threateningly. It had snapped clean in half at a jagged angle and rose to an uneven taper at the end, giving the supposedly mythic blade a toothpick-like appearance.

I raised my arms in exaggerated surrender. “Please ser. Don’t prick me to death.”

“Show you a prick.” Nick muttered, holding the blade horizontally and studying it in disbelief. “What the actual fuck, Gawain? I thought he actually liked me.”

Something Gawain said came to mind. “The way he talked, it sounded like this place was originally meant to be a tower floor, but it was abandoned and left unfinished. If that’s true, it kind of makes sense.”

“FuuuUUuUUUUUuuUUuUck!” Nick reeled back as if to throw the blade clean across the chamber, thought better of it at the last moment and swung it downward instead, swiping impotently at the air. The end caught an uplifted section of rock and shattered, taking another few inches off the sword as the fragments ricocheted and bounced, skittering across the stone and into the water with a series of plops.

I clamped a hand over my mouth. Nick was silent as a funeral. Slowly, he attempted to replace the sword into the gap in the stone. For a moment it stood upright.

Then fell over. The gemstone in the hilt shattered.

“I’m done!” Nick threw up his hands.

Somehow, I managed not to laugh. I bent down and picked up the sword. It didn’t even register as an item. No feeling of magic either, but the heft and weight felt fine, about average for a sword its size. “Okay. Obviously, there are some flaws with the metal.”

“You think?!” Nick raved.

“Might be a structural issue. That’d be on theme, flawed and unfinished like the ripple itself.” I shifted my head from side to side. “But the metal itself might be valuable. If we find someone to melt it down, might be enough material left to reforge a spearhead, or a dagger.”

“Right! Great! Let’s melt down Excalibur!” Nick rambled. “Actually, why even make it a weapon? We could just gussy up a couple of grails while we’re at it. Get into the grail trading business.”

“Probably not enough metal for that. If you factor in circumference, thickness, the base, and the rounded edges, there isn’t enough for a single grail, let alone…” I trailed off, as Nick looked about ready to have a heart attack. “Uh. There might be enough for a small grail?”

He squished his face with both hands, accentuating his reddening cheeks. “Just. Gonna take five.”

“Yeah. Catch your breath.”

Maybe the real Excalibur was the friends we made along the way.

I snorted, wisely keeping the joke to myself as I inventoried the sword, gathering the smaller metal fragments scattered around the rock as well. It probably wouldn’t add up to anything, but I’d consult Erik and Kai first. If they couldn’t do anything with it, I’d dispose of it quietly. The less said about it after today, the better.

On my stomach, I could see a glint of metal from deeper in the hole. Maybe if I loosened the rocks around the edges and came back with the proper tools, I could get the rest of it out.

“Matt.” Nick called, the beginnings of alarm in his voice.

I stood and brushed myself off, walking to where he stood at the edge of the outcropping, looking down into the water.

The planners were moving like ants in an overturned anthill. They were scrambling over the top of each other, water above them boiling as they moved in circular patterns, going everywhere and nowhere at once.

“Did taking the sword out piss them off?” Nick asked.

“Hard to say.” It was a classic setup—grab an item in a suspiciously safe area, only for the innocent creatures that surrounded it to take issue—but that didn’t feel right. They weren’t trying to climb towards us or even pushing up against the rock. Rather, they seemed ignorant of us as they went about their business.

A clearing formed off to the left-hand side, the planner crabs spreading out and illuminating the dark floor beneath. There were many vertical rectangles scratched into the dirt, spaced out in an oddly familiar setup I couldn’t place until I spotted the tail of a clear comet above them.

“That’s the skyline.” Nick said immediately, his brow furrowed.

Another clearing formed. Then another. And another.

The second was a clear representation of the tunnel. And while the hieroglyphic figures lacked detail, it was easy enough to tell who was who. Sae, retreating into the gate. Jinny immobile on the ground. Nick, depicted with a black wound on his heart, crouching over her, a crown-like aura radiating around his head. Me, my face hidden within a cowl, standing off to the side.

They took us through every subsequent major event that centered on Nick: His suffering in captivity. His temptation. Then to the current moment, where he held a broken sword aloft atop an outcropping in the center of the lake. Judging from the glinting metal in the otherwise dirt scrawling, it was a safe guess that they’d used the sword’s metal that had fallen into the lake.

“What are they—” Nick started.

“Shh.” I held a finger to my lips.

Like clockwork more clearings opened, continuing to create a circle around the rock. These were less familiar. More abstract. Meant to represent the future rather than the past. While the meaning was more shrouded, they seemed to depict Nick, climbing to the top of the tower with me at his side.

The second to last pictograph was like the one that depicted the current day. Only this time, the sword in Nick’s hand was whole. And with the luminescence from the planners, it seemed to glow with an almost radiant light.

And the last picture portrayed Nick, sitting on a throne. I stood off to the side, a silent guardian as he reigned over several individuals too detailed to be generic subjects.

“That’s the court, I think.” Nick said.

Suddenly, everything clicked. I nearly reeled at the scale of it, the unbelievable vision. Hastur’s reason for sending us here. The nature of the order. How he intended to pull one over on the pantheon, all of whom seemed to be interested in little beyond reveling in blood.

Every con starts with a story. A fiction tailored to your mark, presented so confidently that they want to buy in. If you do it right, they’ll want to believe you, no matter how unlikely the story is. I had more in common with Hastur than I realized. Because unless I was completely off base, he was in the planning stages of a con on the grandest scale imaginable.

With Nick in the starring role.

Meanwhile, Nick was still fixated on the final drawing. The figure sitting on the throne beside him. I’d missed her entirely, too focused on other parts of the mural to notice. With the basic drawing style, she had no definable characteristics. But she looked exactly like the representation of Jinny from the pictograph of the tunnel.

He turned to me, face downcast, shimmering eyes reflecting the light of the crabs below. “It’s all bullshit, right?”

“I… don’t know.” I answered honestly.

“Come on,” He wiped at his face, his mouth tight with anger. “A prophecy? Really? And not only that, a prophecy that cribs its mythos from your pseudonym, and just so happens to center around climbing the tower. A tower we’ve already established wants to be climbed.”

I still didn’t have an answer for that. The transposition was too high stress, nonstop, and as much as I tried to remember the exact thought process that led to the name, details escaped me. All I recalled was the name popping into my head and sticking there.

“Is it bullshit?” I chewed on that for a moment. “Probably. But not for us. We’re not the marks here.”

“Then who is?” Nick asked.

There was only one answer. “The pantheon.”

Nick scoffed, but I pressed on, the theory becoming more concrete the longer I spoke. “Think about it. The gods are bored. It’s impossible to say for sure, but I think they’ve been doing this a very long time. To different worlds, or realms, or whatever. Maybe making people eat each other and releasing the survivors only to move on to the next world was exciting once, but after doing that countless times, it’s rote. Which makes any deviation noteworthy and interesting, instead of a threat.”

“I’m… not following.” Nick said. But he was paying attention.

“Hastur’s not cribbing from Arthurian legend. He’s taking parts of it, but what he’s really stealing is its structure. The monomyth. Which lends itself to some of the best stories every told.” I pointed to the first pictograph that displayed the comet. “Dome comes down. You wake up in the underground, and suddenly there are goblins everywhere. That’s step one, the Call to Adventure.”

“Okay.” Nick said slowly. “But I wasn’t exactly keen on it, at first. Until we were completely backed into a wall, we were basically just running away.”

I smiled. “Step two is Refusal of the Call.”

“Bullshit.” Nick’s eyes widened.

“Read The Hero’s Journey and tell me I’m wrong. But that’s step two. Wanna guess what step three is?”

“Go back to your aunt’s house and destress in a biblical fashion?” Nick guessed.

“What—No. Gross.” I wrinkled my nose. “It’s Supernatural Aid. The hero receives help from a guide or spiritual being.”

“Which never happened.” Nick said confidently.

“Really? What did Talia call herself, when you met?”

His confidence flagged as he turned to look at my wolf summon, still resting at the edge of a lake. “A spirit guide. Holy fuck.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You make her call herself that?”

I shook my head. She’d come up with it on her own. “Next, the hero crosses the threshold, leaving their known world behind as they enter a new and dangerous realm.”

“The trial.”

“Immediately followed by the belly of the whale. Where the hero undergoes a transformative experience, usually a brush with death.” I softened my voice. It still hit him like a brick wall, and I waited for him to recover before I continued. “Not saying it was meant to happen. Or that it was anything more than a tragedy. I’ve never believed in predestination, and I don’t intend to start. He’s using it as framing. Hastur likely has multiple paths to his perfect future, potentially including one where you killed Keith and went entirely off the deep end.”

“Then what’s the point of going along?” Nick asked. Shame flashed across his face at the mention of Keith. “If it’s all bullshit?”

“Because Hastur is using us to tell the sort of story that doesn’t happen in reality. Something that will give the gods pause, make them curious to how it will all play out. If he sends one of his more powerful Users into the ripple to get the planners and scram, it’s less interesting than if he plays it this way. It’s a misdirect—for what, I don’t know. But what’s important is that he’s conning them, not us. And you’re his protagonist.”

Nick looked unsteady as he sat down, legs hanging over the rock’s edge. “What if I can’t? I’m fucked up, man. Have been for a while.”

I wanted to encourage him. The Nick that had risen to Gawain’s challenge and nearly beaten him wasn’t a man trying to be a hero. He simply was one. But it had to be his choice. “Then we run, and Hastur can go fuck himself.”

“You’d do that?” Nick raised an eyebrow. “Just throw all this away, knowing what we know?”

I hesitated. “The monomyth structure doesn’t lend itself to a comfy story, Nick. Depending on how closely Hastur sticks to it, you’d go through a lot of shit. You’d win eventually, but you’d… suffer. Worse, it can be cyclical. So you might get through all of it only to start it over again. Your friends and family would be in an elevated amount of danger, just looking at the most common examples. And every victory would come with a cost. Your choice, whether you want any part of it.”

He looked down at the roving crabs below. “What step are we at now, if you had to guess?”

“This is probably the Meeting With the Goddess.” I said. Then snorted as Nick balefully panned the area. “It’s not always literal. It just refers to a moment of sudden inspiration tied to either the divine or the hero’s higher self.”

“So Hastur’s the goddess.” Nick looked disappointed.

“Kind of a letdown.”

“No shit.” He was quiet for a long time before he spoke again. “I get it. Having a god in our pocket would give us a lot more backing than we have right now. We’d need to figure out what his endgame is, but if he commits to me as his leading man, my survival is in his best interest. It’d give us time.”

“Leverage,” I agreed.

“Jinny’s gone, Sae’s disfigured, you’re public enemy number one, and as far as everyone else goes, and tenth of the city’s population died in the first transposition. Everyone I care about is dead or already in danger. Stopping the second transposition event is the best chance I have to protect everyone, even if it puts them in more danger in the short term.”

I nodded. “And it’s not like we’d be sitting on our hands. We’ll take steps to protect any potential targets. Get ahead of the game. Split our time between handling things in the city and climbing the tower.” I surveyed the lake, and the opening to the throne room beyond. “And I’m betting the authentic version of this floor is towards the top, if not the highest. They want people to find it, but no one’s made it yet. Guessing that’s why they check everyone’s gear coming out of the tower. Everyone wants the mythical sword.”

He looked up. “You’ll be there? To help?”

I nodded slowly, thinking back to what he’d said earlier. “Every step of the way. I go low, you go high. We play it smart.”

Slowly, the resolve from the duel filtered back into his face. “Okay. We’re doing this.”

It felt monumental. A moment we would look back on. I held out a fist and Nick bumped it, then pushed off the rock, splashing back into the water below and headed towards the throne room.

I landed behind him a few moments later, water splattering my clothes. I took off my mask and wiped it. Up ahead, directly in my path a section of planners cleared, revealing another pictograph below. I nearly called out to Nick before I realized what it was depicting.

A chill radiated through me as I stared downward. It was the throne room from before, but the figures meant to represent Nick and Jinny were gone, along with the rest of the court.. In their place, the cowled figure that represented me stood alone at the apex of the stairs, hundreds of figures at the base of the throne forming a faceless army.

“Coming?” Nick called back to me. “There’s too many to fit in the bag. They can gather up the planners once we open the portal.”

“Yeah. You’re probably right.” I scraped my foot along, erasing the mural with more force than was strictly necessary.

It wouldn’t end that way. I’d make sure of it.

/////

Getting out took some effort. Basic compared to what we’d gone through in the tower itself, but it wasn’t nothing. Nick wore my mask, renewing its effect on the many members of the adventurer’s guild milling about, waiting for “Myrddin,” to emerge. I donned a horrifically heavy suit of armor including a helmet, borrowed from one of the fallen knights. Azure replaced an attendant and escorted me behind a curtain, and I made a show of taking the armor off and putting it back on, making it appear as if he’d done his due diligence.

From there, I sold the Waystone to Kinsley for a single selve, and Nick and I took the long walk to the bus stop where we’d first met Sybil. As I’d hoped, she—or one of her facades, I wasn’t entirely sure how her power worked—was waiting.

“Greetings, Ordinator.” She said, directly to me.

“Can you take us straight to Hastur?” I asked, keeping my tone clipped. Theoretically, and would notify me of any danger or potential traps, but the lack of visibility through the helmet slit was bothering me.

“Something wrong with the front door?” It sounded like a joke, but considering the predicament she put me in last time, it got my hackles up, regardless. I nearly snapped at her before Nick stepped in.

“We have something.” Nick leaned in to whisper in her ear. “For Hastur. It’s sensitive.”

For the first time since I’d known her, Sybil tensed up. “Is it really so urgent? He is… indisposed.”

“Pretty sure he’ll be more angry if you make him wait.” Nick pressed.

“Very well.” Sybil waved her hand, and the rollercoaster feeling from before roiled through me as I snapped back into consciousness in the expanse of the underground excavation area, and an overwhelming force bore down on my shoulders. It was all I could do not to fall to my knees. Nick, beside me, didn’t seem to have any such problem.

Hastur was in the middle of something. His desiccated body was submerged in the water of a porcelain bath, the tentacle-like mycelium that covered his body extending out from the tub, giving him the appearance of an overgrown potted plant. He hadn’t bothered opening his eyes and appeared serene, despite the pressure on my body.

Nick looked between me and Hastur, worriedly. “Is there a problem?”

“The problem…” Hastur’s natural voice was guttural, harsh. “Is I told this one to clean house. Which he seems to have misinterpreted as a directive to douse it in gasoline and light a match. The casualties were expected, but short of brute forcing things, it will be nigh impossible to access the tower now.”

This was always going to be the hard part. Justifying why I’d made it harder for the Order to access the tower. I’d intended to place blame on the feds, use them as a scapegoat. It wasn’t my fault they’d tracked me down, after all. But with our new bargaining chits, I didn’t have to.

And despite the overwhelming pressure, I couldn’t help but smile. We were right. Hastur didn’t know everything.

“Let him go.” The booming voice was so powerful, so authoritative, for a moment I thought someone else had entered the room. Nick took a menacing step forward, hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

Hastur opened a single eye, looking over him with interest. “Someone found their courage.”

All at once, the pressure that weighed me down released.

“A less charitable deity might find your directness rude. Or worse, a threat.” Hastur said, both eyes open now, completely focused on Nick.

Nick didn’t falter. “Not a demand. A request. The first of several.”

“Fascinating.” Hastur stroked his chin. “You barge into my chambers unannounced on the tailcoat of failure with… requests. Or perhaps your failure wasn’t such a failure after all.”

Nick didn’t take the bait, his expression easygoing now that Hastur wasn’t trying to grind me into the concrete. It was like somewhere between here and the tower he’d flipped a switch. All things considered, he was doing exceptionally well.

“Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain.” Nick announced.

I facepalmed. “Jesus Christ.”

“Not your best.” Hastur frowned. “But elaborate on this bargain, and why I should be interested.”

Nick counted off on his fingers, undeterred. “You’ll remove my geas. If you want Matt to clean house, I can’t be beholden to the current leaders. There’s a good chance they’ll try to use me against him, once they figure out we’re working together, and potentially compromise his identity. We’ll also need resources, people who aren’t amateur’s assigned to us. A permanent position in the court.”

“And why would I do that?” Hastur countered.

“Because you want a backdoor into the tower. A discrete way for the Order of Parcae’s Users to come and go.” I said.

“A metric fuck-ton of planners.” Nick added.

“And, just spitballing here, but I’m guessing you might want the legendary sword at the top of the tower that the people who run it are looking for. And a hero to wield it.” I smirked.

That it took Hastur a moment to connect the dots was disquieting. Highlighted the reality that the way forward that Nick and I had found, was truly one of many. When he finally got it, however, his smile was full.

“I see. This is the path you’ve chosen. If you were aware of how astronomically unlikely this outcome was, you’d understand my reticence,” Hastur said. I could almost see the calculation in his expression as he focused on Nick. “You were so angry, so lost. While I’m glad to see you back from the brink, I can’t help but wonder. Will you regret it?”

There was an audible scrape as Nick ground his teeth together. I put my hand on his back, and it stopped.

“Maybe.” Nick finally admitted. “But looking at it from both sides, I’d regret the alternative more. No matter what’s fair, or just, or whatever. Keith’s brother was the one who pulled the trigger. And if I start taking everyone who wrongs me to task, it’ll be impossible to focus on the big picture.”

“Inspiring.” Hastur nodded thoughtfully. “Surprising, but inspiring. I’m not terribly fond of moral victories, but it would have been a travesty to lose a disciple with so much potential.”

“Then why offer him up like a lamb to slaughter?” Nick growled. “It would have never crossed my mind if you didn’t put it there.”

“Yes. It would have.” Hastur retorted, imparting a certainty to his words that was undeniable. Nick looked away as he continued. “Eventually. To answer your question, it was a matter of triage. The order is on the verge of fracture, to say nothing of the court. Losing him cost me less than losing you. And while this might sound monstrous, I have lived too long to allow naivety to blunt the blade of reality. An uneven trade is always preferable to an outright loss.”

His frigid eyes snapped to me, and I felt a fraction of the weight from before. “And you. You are certain you wish to remain as you are?”

I shifted under the weight, keeping my expression stoic. “Yes.”

He pointed at my gauntlet. “That recent acquisition of yours will prove a challenge. A boon, to be certain, but a challenge. And while—as you’ve both guessed—my current state limits the extent of my gaze, and the tower itself is well protected, I witnessed your encounter with a certain caster. One in Mr. Fields Camp.”

Maria.

Her surprised expression popped into my mind, as she looked down at the knife in her chest.

“From a technical standpoint, it was brilliantly handled. Outmatched, worn down, and you still emerged victorious. But in the aftermath, your soul… trembled. You’ve killed before, but not like that. And if you remain on this path, serving as the Ceaseless Knight’s dark vanguard, she will not be the last.” Hastur’s voice was forlorn, almost sympathetic. “He doesn’t know what he’s asking of you. But I do.”

Did I want to be normal? To walk into a room without immediately looking for an exit route, meet someone without the automatic mental calculation of what they could do for me and how I could best use them, and the most efficient way to kill them if they turned on me?

Of course I did.

But…

Nick grabbed my shoulder. There was nothing but concern and understanding in his expression, a silent question in his eyes. He’d support me no matter what I decided. And somehow, knowing that made it easier.

Our world was about as far from normal as you could get.

Maybe it always has been.

The things that made me different also kept the people I cared about healthy and alive.

It was time to stop fighting that. No more hand wringing. If we made it through, there’d be time to work through my issues. Maybe go back to therapy. Find a kinder way to live. But the best chance of that happening—returning to a semi-normal, semi-functional world—was ending this before the next transposition event wiped out another massive swath of the population. I needed to keep in check. Everything else was fair game.

“I’m sure you’ll find a more lucrative way to compensate me.” I finally said.

Hastur blinked, then laughed. “Opportunistic as always. How fitting. Make no mistake my young friend. When I reach my zenith, you and yours will want for nothing. I will respect your decision.” He smirked. “But if you ever wish to know the truth of your nature, you need only ask.”

It was clear bait, placed before me with no effort to disguise it. He was still working an angle. The question was why.

Before I could think on that further, Nick stepped forward. “So?”

Hastur raised his arm and drew a lazy circle with his finger. Nick grunted. When he unfastened his gauntlet, the Order’s mark was gone, and presumably, the geas with it.

The desiccated god closed his eyes and relaxed, sinking deeper into the bath until his shriveled face was the only visible part of him. “The Ordinator and the Pendragon. Old and new, joined as one. Yes. It’ll be different this time. Mark my words, and mark them well. We’re going to do great things together.”