Portal Mage - A Viridian Gate Serial Adventure #2

I walked into the small office set aside for the Mage of the Watch, and the kid followed. My cup of Western Brew—now cold—was still on the desk, as were the reports I’d meant to read before a raid boss tore a hole through reality.

“Have a seat,” I told my visitor, and stepped around the desk to take the opposite chair.

My body sat behind the desk and I sat into my body. I grabbed the table for support.

“Are you okay?” the kid asked, cocking his head.

“Magical depersonalization,” I said, waiting for my personal frame of space-time to line up with everyone else’s. “It happens to Clerics of Time and to Portal Mages who just used Astral Projection, and I’m both.”

“My uncle has seizures. Some people think it’s because of demons,” the kid said.

I hadn’t heard of a debuff that caused seizures, but I knew of a number of monsters that could be described as demons. “Is he a Warlock?”

“No.”

And that was that.

The kid—more of a teenager, really—had short brown hair, brown skin, and almond-shaped amber eyes. Medium nose, wide full lips… Polynesian? He was Imperial, as far as the game was concerned, but his features and skin tone marked him as a Traveler. More likely the son of a Traveler and a Citizen, I thought.

I waved my hand at the door and it swung shut. I reached for my cup of coffee and it slid into my hand.

“They teach you that at magic school?” the kid asked.

“Misuse of Arcana 101,” I answered with a wink. I swallowed some of the cold coffee.

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Buffs Added

Western Brew: Restore 150 HP over 30 seconds. Increase Health Regen by 18%; duration, 30 minutes.

Caffeinated: Base Intelligence increased by (5) points; duration, 30 minutes. Base Vitality increased by (3) points; duration, 30 minutes. Base Strength increased by (3) points; duration, 30 minutes.

Remember, with enough good coffee, all things are possible.

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The best I could say for it was that it wasn’t horrible. Cold, stale, reminded me of diner coffee before the world ended… Not quite to the level of something from Jabir’s Awful Eats, but cheaper and with the same buffs as the regular variety. It made me miss the convenience of microwaves. One of these days, I’d treat myself to one of those thermoses with a lesser fire elemental in the base, or a pyrokinesis ring. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Kaivai Taylor,” he said with his strange, clipped accent. Rather, it wasn’t that his accent was strange, it was that V.G.O.’s universal translator usually smoothed that over—except Russian, for some reason.

“How do you spell that?”

“T-A-Y-L-O-R,” Kaivai said with a smirk.

I laughed. “Okay, you got me. And it’s pronounced Kie-Vie, like pie?”

“Yes. You can just call me Kai.”

We stared at each other for a moment. He didn’t have the sullen attitude of a teenager, though. This was much more predatory, almost like he was a monster instead of a Traveler. “Where are you from?” I asked.

“Adelaide,” Kai answered. “That’s in Australia.”

“I know where it was, kid. You’re what, fourteen?”

“Yes, I think so.”

I set my coffee mug down. Kai had done us all a favor by helping fight the raid boss, but my patience was wearing thin with all the fake newbie stuff. “Your birthday’s on your account page.”

“How do I…”

I crossed my arms and waited. Even a real newb would soon find out that thinking of the account page brought it up.

“I was born in Adelaide on the fifth of April, 2044.”

“You can’t be that young and from the outside world,” I said. “Even if you’d been born before 2042, the rate of transition for infants… it’s not worth mentioning. In the last days, they wouldn’t even let people try because it meant taking the place of someone who could actually make it. They told parents they could give up their spot or leave their babies behind.”

“That is very sad,” Kai said.

“It’s history,” I said a little more coolly than I felt. “What I’m trying to tell you is, Travelers like me went through a lot back then. If you keep pretending to be one of us, someone’s going to take it the wrong way and knock you flat.”

“I will try not to anger them,” Kai said, but there was a twinkle in his eye. I got the feeling he was patronizing me, and I had half a mind to teleport the snark right off his face.

The truth was, this whole thing about being a pretend Traveler was upsetting me more than I thought it would. Asteroid Astraea had wiped out life on Earth, except for a few bunkers that had probably failed by now and the millions of people who’d managed to transition their consciousness into Viridian Gate Online. I’d been sixteen. My parents gave up their chance so I could have one. And the odds of a successful transition were only five out of six under perfect circumstances. I’d had friends die in the attempt.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Come in!” I said, relieved.

“Hey, JJ,” Omniburn said. “We traced that unregistered transit to the north quarter, outer ring.”

“Great. I’ll go check it out. You mind taking care of Kai?”

“Nuh uh,” Omniburn said, crossing his arms. “Sorry, man. Darkside said he was your responsibility and that the kid was supposed to stick to you like glue.”

I looked at Kai and sighed. “Well, come on, Kaivai just like pie. Maybe we can figure out where you really come from while we’re at it.”

                                                                                          #

We stepped out of the stone-and-mortar tunnel into the passing crowd. People stepped around us but didn’t notice us, just like they didn’t notice the entrance to the Mystica Ordo’s Harrowick Portal Command Center. It looked like a blank wall if you didn’t know it was there. I didn’t like Illusionists most of the time, but there were some things they were good for.

“Where are we headed?” Kai asked.

“Follow me,” I said, cutting across the flow. Most people made way at the sight of my black robes, but I had to pull Kai back by the collar when a seven-foot-tall Risi with olive-green skin and a platinum nose ring almost trampled him.

“Watch where you’re going, vagrant,” the Risi said with a sneer.

“Step on him and I step on you,” I fired back, standing between them.

The Risi’s upper lip curled, exposing his tusks and crooked teeth. Then I felt the faint brush of him using some kind of threat-assessment or merchant skill, and his eyes widened. “Apologies, senior mage. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

“See that you are.”

His eyes flashed with annoyance, tempered by caution. He dipped his head and walked away.

“Thanks,” Kai said.

“Don’t mention it.”

Things had changed since I first logged in, sixteen years ago. This used to be an Imperial-only sector reserved for the upper class. The Inquisition still had their chapter house up here, and most of the nobility was Imperial, but the influx of wealthy Travelers of every race, both solo adventurers and veterans of the Crimson Rebellion, had changed the New Viridian Empire, mostly for the better when it came to racial equality.

Socioeconomic equality was still a work in progress.

We made our way down side alleys between the fortress-like manors that cluttered Harrowick’s upper city. A few minutes later, we reached a small, rounded bastion that looked down at the rest of the city, several hundred feet below.

“There,” I said, pointing to a tower over a mile away, near the outer wall. “That’s where we fought Bellicosa this morning.”

Kai walked up to the parapet and leaned on it. It was a clear, sunny morning, somewhat unusual for Harrowick, and the Bastion of Saint Liviana had a commanding view of the city’s slate and plaster houses and its million or so inhabitants. “How do we get down? It looks like a long walk.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Walk?” I fixed our current location and our destination in my mind, and my hands snapped through the arcane sequence of gestures required to open a portal between two places I could see. Plain old vanilla.

The portal opened beneath Kai’s feet. He yelped and fell through feet first, arms last.

I chuckled, not even feeling bad about it, and hopped in after him.

                                                                                           #

I landed on my feet. Kai hadn’t been so lucky. He glared at me from the cobbles. “You did that on purpose.”

“Yep,” I said, grinning. “You’re an Apprentice Portal Mage, kid. Life’s going to get strange for you quick. If you can’t use your awesome powers to avoid walking and prank colleagues, life isn’t worth living.” I offered him my hand.

He clasped my arm and I pulled him up.

“We’re looking for a Templar and his page,” I told him. “They’ll be wearing silver plate or chainmail with blue tabards. Shouldn’t be too hard to spot them.”

We’d come through just west of the fish market. It was far enough that we couldn’t see the damage the raid boss had done to the square and the surrounding buildings, but the faint smell of barbecue and burnt hair lingered in the stagnant air.

As a Cleric, I might have sent up a quick prayer for a breeze, but my deity and Gaia didn’t get along.

I caught a flash of silver through the crowd. “There they are,” I said, pointing.

“I see them.”

We made our way down the busy street to a three-story house. The Templar saw us coming and raised his gauntleted hand to wave. “Hey, JJ! Didn’t think they’d send you.”

“Hey, Gnaeus,” I said, bumping his fist with a clank. “Didn’t think you worked cities.”

“I don’t,” he said, hooking his thumbs on his sword belt. “I was just passing through to file some paperwork with the Chapter House when that thing broke through. We did what we could to help,” he said, nodding to the page beside him.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” I said, extending my hand. “Senior Mage Jumpin’ Juniper, of the Mystica Ordo.”

“Senator-Page Zara Massih ibnat-Fatin,” she said, shaking my hand firmly.

My eyes flicked to her golden-brown wings and hawk-like head feathers. “You’re Prince Fatin’s daughter?”

“You know him?” she said, surprised.

“Friend of a friend. I didn’t realize he’d left Ankara to become an Imperial Senator.”

“He didn’t,” she said, lifting her chin.

I laughed and looked at Gnaeus. “Are you sure you’re not her page?”

He grinned, and the cream feathers around Zara’s eyes colored pink. “We’re still working that bit out, aren’t we, Zara?”

“Yes, Templar,” she said, respectful but not cowed.

“In any case,” Gnaeus continued, “we were helping get people away from the fighting when we noticed there was something strange in the neighborhood.” He tossed his head toward the house behind him. The door’s lock—handle, keyhole, and all—had been melted through, and green slime had dried on the wooden surface.

“Who you gonna call, am I right?” I said with a grin.

Gnaeus and Zara, both what we used to call NPCs, didn’t get the joke, but Kai laughed.

I looked at him, surprised.

“My mother loves that movie! It is the one with the dumb blond man and the four scientists who hunt ghosts, yes?”

“That’s the one,” I said, trying to figure out how the kid’s mother got her hands on a copy of Ghostbusters. The V.G.O. servers mostly survived the cataclysm, but the rest of the network of computers people thought of as the internet went down in flames with the biosphere.

                                                                                        #

Gnaeus nudged the door open with his boot, and I followed him in, ready to unleash five figures’ worth of damage on anything that showed its face. Zara was next, twin short swords drawn and held low in the style of the Ankaran sword-dancers, and Kai came last with his bare hands and a surly disposition.

The house was wrecked. Rugs and tapestries were fouled, furniture had been thrown about and smashed to splinters, there was broken glass everywhere… It was like someone had let an air elemental loose in the living room. On top of that, more of that green slime had been splashed everywhere, melting metal and scorching wood before crusting over.

“I need to go,” Kai said.

“You’ll be fine, kid,” I assured him. “Zara will keep you safe.”

“I will. On my honor,” she answered.

“I’m not scared, I just need to log out. It’s not safe to stay in the pod too long,” Kai said.

It was too much. I turned to tell him now wasn’t the time for his delusions about the real world, only to find his avatar was frozen with its mouth half-open, eyes unfocused like he was looking at his player interface. “Kai?” I asked, waving my hand in front of his eyes.

He disappeared.

No portal, no illusion magic, no glowing disintegration to respawn. I don’t know if you remember that skill tree I half-showed you earlier, but my ESP skill is maxed out. This wasn’t magic. He was just gone.

“What just happened?” Gnaeus asked.

“Something impossible.” I pulled up my messaging system and searched for him.

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Contact List

[…]

Gnaeus Gessia: Online

Gork Halfkin: Online

Jennifer H: Online - Do Not Disturb

Jojo Badmojo: Online

Kaivai Taylor: Offline

[…]

                                                                                 <<<>>>

“I’ll be damned,” I said. “Either I’m hallucinating, or the kid was telling the truth. There are new Travelers in the game.”

Before Gnaeus or Zara could ask questions I didn’t know how to answer, there was a loud thump from the floor above us. Gnaeus and I looked at each other.

“Let’s go,” he said, drawing his sword.

“Right behind you,” I said.

We ran up the stairs, with Zara bringing up the rear.

What we found was so much worse than what I’d expected.

Gnaeus almost tripped on the staircase and then skidded three feet across the landing. Everything—the floor, the walls, the furniture—was coated in a thin layer of slime. And we weren’t alone.

“Take that!” a woman said, smashing a chair down on something green and squishy. She was at the end of a hallway visible through an open door, silhouetted by the open window behind her.

“Stop right there!” Gnaeus shouted.

The woman’s head snapped toward us, then she scrambled for the window.

“I’ve got her!” Gnaeus said, taking two steps before he slipped in the slime and fell on his face with a clank.

“I’ve got her,” I said, pushing up my sleeve. My forearm was inlaid with silver lines, like a circuit board.

I’ll take one second here to talk about the Portal Mage skill tree. Don’t worry, I’m not going to bash you with ten pages of stat sheets and a description of my boots. I’m a level 52 dual-classed Traveler. My gear is awesome, and so many high-level crafters want me to try their stuff, I could probably make a fortune in sponsorships.

But there are some basics you should know.

                                                                                   <<<>>>

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For example, my skill tree has four types of spells, active-passives, targeted skills, self-targeted skills, and AOEs.

Self-targeted and AOE skills require preparation. I swiped my thumb over a line next to my wrist, and it burned away, ’porting me across the second floor at the same time the woman tried to climb out the window. I grabbed her by her quilted skirt and heaved, throwing her down to the slime-slick floor.

“Oof!” she said. Then she rolled up onto her shoulders, twisting and kicking as she sprang back to her feet.

I groaned. I hate fighting monks.

She let loose with a fast pair of straight punches, making me backpedal and almost slip, and then she dropped her weight and swept my legs from under me. I grabbed my arm as I went down, casting Jump, and blipped two feet above her, dropping my elbow onto her back instead of crashing to the floor. Portal Mages can bring the hurt if we do our homework.

“JJ!” Gnaeus called out.

“Little busy!” I shouted back.

The woman pushed up, pitching me off, and caught me with a rising side kick that knocked me onto my back. I grabbed my right wrist and twisted, hitting her with Slow as she transitioned to a flying kick.

I love people’s expressions in slow motion. As I got to my feet, I took a split second to enjoy the look of intense concentration on her face. Then, I stuck my arm out, she sped back up, and I clotheslined her.

“JJ, damn it, we need you!” Gnaeus shouted.

I looked up and squinted as the Templar’s armor shone like the sun. He’d pulled a shield from his inventory and was backing toward me, with Zara at his back and stabbing around him with a short javelin.

Beyond them was madness. The floors, walls, and ceiling were crawling with football-sized stinkbugs with too many eyes, scythes for front arms, and pustules all over their fat bodies.

The female monk and I looked at each other. Her eyes darted to the window.

“Stay!” I said, clapping my hands together and twisting. A Stasis bubble formed around her before she could answer. “I’m coming!” I said, leaving her frozen there. I ran and slipped down the hallway, scratched my thumbnail the length of my inner arm, and phased through Gnaeus and his page. I slid to a halt, cool and collected like the surfer I’d been in another life, and activated twin lines on both my forearms, buffing myself with Haste.

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Current effects

Haste (Level 3): The world moves 75% slower; duration, 15 seconds.

Viral Load (Level 1): You have been exposed to a virulent plague. When its incubation period finishes, you will start to experience increasingly debilitating symptoms over time.

Effect 1: ??????

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I frowned at the Viral Load debuff, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. There were two many of the bugs for me to handle without getting Gnaeus and Zara hurt.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, I reminded myself. I activated both Multi-Tasking and Split Personality and started casting with both hands. I used Warp on clusters of the [Virulent Stinkbugs], not waiting for the rift to form before choosing my next target. Dozens of bugs started exploding into rancid geysers of slime and filmy wings, but there were hundreds more tumbling out of side rooms and coming down the stairs.

With half my Spirit gone, I phased back through Gnaeus and Zara, materialized just as my Haste spell ran out, and grabbed them both by the armor. “Out the window, both of you!” I said as bug guts spattered everywhere.

Gnaeus activated a shield skill, sending a shock wave rippling down the hall, then turned to run. “What about you?”

“I’m right behind you!”

I used the lull to knock back a Spirit regen potion, casting a one-handed variant of the Portal spell with my left hand. As the chittering, squelching horde recovered, I cast a portal between the doorway and the far side of the house that would have them going in an infinite loop.

Zara was gone, and Gnaeus was climbing out the window.

The stasis spell ended, and the unknown woman broke for the window, unaware any time had passed.

“You!” I said, snapping my fingers and pointing. “Did you do this? The bugs?”

“No,” she said with a surprisingly raspy voice. “I was trying to stop it.”

“Wait for me outside,” I commanded. “We need to talk.”

“Fine.” She climbed up into the window frame.

I wasn’t sure if she’d actually wait, but something about her made me believe she wasn’t responsible.

The plaster wall to the left of the door exploded into dust as a much, much larger bug tore through the wall with quad-scythes the length of my arms. It forced its chitin-plated head through the largest of the rents and roared, baring its razor-sharp teeth and exhaling thick, choking spores into the room.

[Rogue Plaguebringer] appeared in red over its head.

I coughed. I could feel my lungs seizing up from the spores even as the thrashing monster continued to tear through the wall. Plaguebringers were way up there in the list of things I didn’t want to tangle with. Things had just gotten V.G.O. biblical.

I turned and sprinted for the window at the same time my door-blocking portal ran out and the plaguebringer burst through the wall.

I hiked up my robes, put a foot on the windowsill, and jumped, clasping my hands together in prayer.

Did I mention me and the Overmind of Time are tight?

I felt a rush of divine power as time didn’t just slow, it almost stopped. I could see golden rays of sunlight inching through the air. The world was silent. I was suspended above the cobblestone street, with Gnaeus, Zara, the woman, and several onlookers looking up at me.

“Anytime you’re ready, JJ,” a sarcastic voice said from the heavens. “It’s not like this is costing me the faith and offerings of thousands of followers.”

“Right! Sorry!” I shouted, and twisted around like I was swimming through the air.

The plaguebringer was closer than I’d expected. Its outstretched scythe was just a few inches from my right leg, and its toothy maw only a foot from snapping me back into the house. The window frame was bulging and cracked from the massive thing slamming into it.

I got to work.

I dumped half my Spirit pool into placing four portals under the corners of the house. Demolition wasn’t a regular pastime for me, but I’d done it often enough I knew how to undermine the structure. I opened a Realm Portal right under the plaguebringer’s hind legs, bringing my Spirit down another five hundred points. And as a finishing touch, I flipped it the double bird.

Time accelerated back into motion. I started to fall back. The plaguebringer started to fall back. The building cracked and started to fall inward. It suddenly occurred to me that I was going to land on my back on the cobbles, and that was going to hurt. A lot.

I panicked and twisted.

The plaguebringer’s scythe grazed my leg.

The woman caught me in her strong arms just as sound, screams, and dust exploded back into the world.

“JJ, are you okay?” Gnaeus asked.

“I’m fine,” I said, coughing. My lungs hurt, and my leg felt like it was on fire, but I was alive. The wind from the building’s implosion tousled the woman’s hair, and she opened her mouth to smile at me.

She had the triangular teeth of a shark.

“Hey there, gorgeous. Nice of you to drop in.”

“Nil?” I groaned. “What are you doing in the city? The Compact forbids it.”

Nil pouted. “Next time, I’ll let you crack your pretty head on the cobbles. I’m here enforcing the Compact. Thanks for helping with that rogue.”

I turned to look at the building. The walls had collapsed inward, crushing the smaller bugs, and with any luck I’d dumped that Rogue Plaguebringer into a lake of lava somewhere in the Shattered Realm. “Not a bad piece of work,” I said to anyone who’d listen.

“Yes,” Nil said, the words hissing faintly through its pointed teeth. “One down, two more to go.”