Chapter 26 – Story Engine

The Warlock led them calmly through the fortress.

He had tied Shaelith’s hands behind her back and was pulling her and Vyriz behind him on a leash like dogs. Vyriz’s eyes were still blindfolded, his mouth still gagged, but he was staying on his feet, and Shaelith tried to stay close enough to him that he knew where she was and didn’t accidentally stumble.

The Warlock wore a simple linen shirt, dark pants, and supple leather boots that were of good quality but had definitely seen better days. A short sword hung from his belt, but he didn’t even touch it. He looked like a wealthy human farmer on his way to market, not the fearsome tyrant who commanded hordes of goblins never seen before.

The goblins behaved extremely eerily. None of them bowed, none greeted them, none showed even a sign of conscious subservience.

They were gliding to the side, clearing the way for them, all with a stupid, empty, glassy gleam that reminded Shaelith of the mindless Mawshrooms in the depths beneath Myzelemaerlazin. Creatures that reacted only to stimuli, completely devoid of intelligence.

Whatever this rune construct on the roof is doing, it’s sure as hell interfering with their minds.

They climbed a wide spiral staircase that led to a stone elevator shaft. A black iron platform, powered by chains and counterweights, began to move when the Warlock touched a rune on the wall. The mechanism groaned, but they slowly glided upward as the pale light of the outside world fell through narrow embrasures.

“You’re not quite what I expected,” said the Warlock.

Shaelith did not reply.

“I’ve seen many come and go, you know.” He folded his arms and looked at her like a scholar examining an interesting fossil or a strange beetle. “Heroes, I mean. The ones who show up from somewhere else in this world.”

Wait… he knows about the isekai stuff?

“When a Hero appears,” he continued, “the world creates an ensemble, a supporting cast around him. The Mentor. The Comic Relief. The Rival.” A hint of amusement. “The Love Interest.”

The words hit her like a knife between the ribs. He knows about the tags, maybe even the UIs. Fuck!

“Like every role, the Love Interest follows a pattern. Beautiful enough to catch the Hero’s attention and to be a pleasant bedmate. Connected enough to the Hero’s quest that their paths are bound to cross. Powerful enough not to be boring, but in most cases vulnerable enough to need saving from time to time.” He tilted his head slightly. “You meet every single requirement. At least on the surface.”

Oh god, he knows. Does he know?

“But your behavior is just wrong, it’s strange. You’re rebellious and assertive, and you act with a strange autonomy that I’ve never seen in a Love Interest before. It’s as if the Story Engine doesn’t quite know whether to classify you as a Damsel or a Warrior Princess.” He looked at her, and there was genuine interest in his eyes. “But something like that doesn’t really happen. At least not in my experience.”

Story Engine?

Shaelith forced her face into the motionless mask that twenty years of Shaeravyn politics had taught her. She gave him no twitch, no blink, nothing.

But behind the mask, her mind was raging.

He describes it. He describes exactly this weird gravitational field that pushes me into Benderast’s orbit and how the world assigns me a role I didn’t choose.

“Nothing to say?” asked the Warlock.

“I got the impression you’re a man who prefers to hear his own voice,” Shaelith replied coolly.

He smiled thinly. “Poignant. Very Shaeravyn.”

But she could no longer remain silent. “Besides, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I don’t know what a Story Engine is.”

“That’s what I call it. That something out there that orchestrates events, assigns us these tasks, and makes us dance to its tune. It doesn’t follow a plan, at least not one that I would understand. Often, it simply reacts. It is… it is…” He searched for a word. “A thing, an entity that maximizes tension, stokes conflict, and repeats the same patterns over and over. This world is a stage, and we are the characters performing a play for the amusement of, well…” He shrugged. “I don’t know whose amusement. Maybe there is no audience. Maybe the Story Engine is its own audience.”

It made sense. It all made sense. The UI, her [Love Interest] trait, all her traits really and the strange way this contract between Benderast and her had suddenly come about.

But apparently this guy thinks I’m an NPC, or at least a strange NPC. Something’s not right here.

“You know, this whole situation right now,” the Warlock continued, chuckling softly. “Me in the tower, you in chains, the blond hotshot who’s about to Heroically storm up the stairs to rescue you, haha, it reminds me of that little plumber guy.”

What?

“Plumber Dario.” The Warlock laughed softly. “A character from my worl. From a video… oh, never mind. A story. A plumber who has to rescue the princess from the villain’s castle. And at the end, it always says, ‘Our princess is in another castle.’ And then it all starts all over again.”

Shaelith held her breath.

Plumber Dario. Not Super Mario.

This man isn’t from here either. He’s from Earth, but not Ben’s and my Earth.

She couldn’t react. She couldn’t let him see the slightest flicker in her eyes, not the slightest twitch.

He has also been isekai’d, just like Benderast and me. But from a parallel world or whatever, and he has obviously been here much longer.

The Warlock watched her face closely when he mentioned Plumber Dario, like a poker player looking for a tell. And Shaelith’s confusion seemed to reassure him, because she really was confused, just not about what he had said, but because he hadn’t said the name she had expected.

The elevator stopped.

He pulled her and Vyriz behind him up the last few steps of a narrow stone staircase.

“I had thought,” he said, more quietly now, as if talking to himself, “that this would change something. All of this.” A gesture that seemed to encompass the entire fortress, the army, the prisoners, the atrocities, this whole villain business he was engaged in here.

“Enough storylines disrupted, enough violence generated, a Hero is provoked until the invisible hand is forced to reveal itself. But instead…” He paused, his hand on the doorframe, and for a moment he just looked exhausted. “Instead, I stand in my tower and wait for the Hero. Right where it wants me to be as the villain. Even my attempt at rebellion is scripted. I can’t even suppress these damn villain monologues.”

“Yet again the cage proves bigger than I thought,” he muttered, barely audibly. “Maybe Maenwallon was right.”

He pushed open the door. The room that formed the upper end of the tower was a mixture of throne room, penthouse, and study.

Maps covered the walls, some of them yellowed and brittle, others freshly drawn. Tables stood everywhere, laden with books, journals, loose sheets of paper covered in the same tight, precise handwriting.

Crystals, rune stones, half a dozen alchemical instruments of various designs. At the north end, a balcony opened onto the twilight, and above it, a narrow staircase led to the roof, where through the open hatch, the crimson pulsing of the rune construct on the roof beat against the sky like a sick heartbeat.

The Warlock chained them to the east wall, side by side, so that they would be clearly visible from the door. He removed Vyriz’s blindfold but left the gag where it was. Then he stepped back and surveyed his arrangement like a director setting up the stage for the big show.

Bait.

Shaelith turned to Vyriz.

Without the large blindfold covering half his face, he looked even worse. His cheeks were sunken and he had deep dark circles under his eyes, which suddenly seemed much too large for his emaciated face. The stump of his little finger was swollen and the dirty bandages were encrusted with brown and yellowish pus.

But his eyes were alive.

As he looked at her, his face went through a rapid succession of relief, sadness, anger, and relief again. His throat worked behind the gag, but whatever he wanted to say remained trapped in his mouth.

I’m here. I’m here, and I’m getting you out.

She didn’t want to say it out loud, not with the Warlock five feet away. So she just looked him firmly in the eyes and hoped that twenty years of friendship would be enough to convey the message without words.

Then she noticed his hair.

It was a disaster, completely matted, dirty, and unkempt for weeks. But amid the chaos, faint, clumsy attempts to braid individual strands into messages were visible. Probably with his hands tied, in the dark, while wearing a blindfold. Shaelith deciphered fragments. There was a small knot that could have meant eight thousand or many thousands, perhaps an estimate of the goblin numbers. A sequence that she interpreted as roof and red.

You are in chains and blind, missing a finger and half-starved, and you are gathering intelligence. You crazy, wonderful, absolutely insane man.

The Warlock had sat down on a simple wooden chair and taken a piece of bread and some cheese from a provisions box. He ate slowly, chewing each bite thoroughly, and poured himself a cup of wine, which he drank in small sips.

And he hummed softly, a simple melody that Shaelith did not recognize. Perhaps it was the theme song from Plumber Dario.

From somewhere below them came a muffled crash through the stone, the clang of metal against metal, the splintering of wood, and a distant roar that sounded unmistakably like Benderast.

The Warlock smiled slightly and took a bite of his bread.

The sounds of battle grew closer. A curse in Dwarvish, followed by the bright whistle of an arrow ricocheting off something hard.

Shaelith screamed to warn them, but the collar around her neck came to life with a jolt, and heat ate into her throat, turning her scream into a hoarse gasp as every nerve in her throat seemed to burn at once.

The Warlock hadn’t even looked up. He had only raised a hand as if to shoo away an annoying fly.

You miserable little breeding accident, I’ll-

The door burst open and the Warlock’s crimson armor sprinted in with heavy, echoing footsteps.

Shaelith hadn’t forgotten the sight in the tunnels. The massive plates, the glowing runes, the silhouette that had emerged from the darkness in the tunnels beneath the goblin fuffurk like a nightmare straight out of a smelting furnace. The armor was exactly as she remembered it, with one exception. There was no one inside it.

The hollow armor strode through the room with sweeping, mechanical steps, the mace in its armored fist, and the three fighters chased it as it headed straight toward the Warlock, who had risen from his chair and was brushing the last crumbs from his trousers.

Right behind the armor followed Benderast. His sword glowed, his clothes were torn, and blood from a laceration above his left eye ran down his cheek, but his eyes had that feverish glow of excitement he got when he was in the thick of battle.

Behind him came Grimbart, breathing heavily and holding his chronosteel arm defensively in front of him. His beard was completely disheveled, and he held his other arm stiffer than usual.

Thaelon brought up the rear, his bow drawn, his amber eyes darting about. He was bleeding from a long cut on his thigh that had soaked through his pant leg. When he spotted Shaelith and Vyriz and saw that they were bound, he immediately let an arrow fly from his drawn bowstring, aimed precisely at the man he did not yet even know was the Warlock.

But the armor opened like an iron flower. Chest plate, shoulder plates, and greaves folded apart, and the Warlock stepped inside. The metal closed around him, segment by segment, the runes flared, the mace locked into his right hand, and in three seconds, the inconspicuous man in linen became the horrific armored figure that Benderast, Grimbart, and Thaelon thought they had just chased halfway through the tower.

The arrow bounced off the Warlock’s back.

“That thing was…” Grimbart didn’t finish the sentence.

“Empty,” said Thaelon with surprised bitterness. “The whole time.”

Benderast’s gaze shifted from the armor to the prisoners on the wall, to Shaelith, to Vyriz, and back to the Warlock, and she saw in his eyes the realization dawning that he had been tricked. That his quest system had led him exactly where the Warlock wanted him to be.

“Welcome,” said the Warlock. His voice sounded a little different through the helmet, deeper, more resonant, but the weary politeness was the same. “I’ve been expecting you. Obviously.”

“You lousy, filthy…” Benderast gritted his teeth.

“Like I said.” The Warlock lifted the mace and slung it over his shoulder. “The Hero comes to the tower. The villain waits.” He turned his head toward Benderast. “But tell me, Hero, how have you enjoyed the fight so far? Has it been educational? I hope my armor has provided you with at least some entertainment in my absence.”

Benderast attacked without a word and fought with everything he had, and he was good, he was better than good, but the Warlock was ridiculously superior to him, always one step ahead. He read Benderast like Shaelith read hair messages.

The other two joined the fight as well. A blow from the mace struck Thaelon in the side and hurled him onto a map table, sending papers and crystals flying in all directions. The Sylvyn lay groaning but was obviously still conscious, even though he had taken a heavy blow. The Warlock followed up immediately.

Grimbart threw himself between Thaelon and the Warlock and blocked the next blow with his chronosteel arm. The crunch of magical metal on magical metal screeched through the room. Grimbart was pushed back a few feet, but he held his ground, even though his arm vibrated loudly.

“Not bad,” said the Warlock. “For a dwarf.”

Benderast took advantage of the opening to launch a desperate attack, and his sword actually found a gap between two plates of armor, but the runes glowed, and the blade bounced off as if it had struck granite.

Shaelith tugged at her chains, and beside her, Vyriz made choking sounds behind his gag as his emaciated arms strained against their bonds.

Think, Shaelith, think, damn it. There must be something, anything-

But the collar around her neck killed every glyph. She was as powerless as she had been in the cage, only this time, people she cared about were being beaten to a pulp right before her eyes.

Grimbart went down when a powerful swing of the mace hit him in the side. The dwarf fell over coughing, one hand pressed to his ribs. Thaelon had picked himself up and was firing arrow after arrow, but they simply bounced off the armor.

Benderast continued to fight like a berserker, but he had slowed down as exhaustion began to take its toll on him too. His parries were a split second too late, and the Warlock punished every mistake with a painful blow that Benderast had to take. He was systematically dismantling him.

He’s losing. We’re losing.

A mace blow crashed into Benderast’s shoulder, and the sound of the impact sounded terribly wrong, much too wet. Benderast cried out, staggered, his sword arm dropped, and he fell to one knee.

No. No, no, no-

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Wait, what was that noise? Where did it come from?

It came from outside.

Through the balcony door, through the open hatch to the roof, through the narrow embrasures, the wind carried a sound that was quiet at first but then quickly swelled. A buzzing, a vibration traveling to them through the air. And then she saw them, darkening the horizon.

The armored giant locusts of the Shaeravyn cavalry.

Then the drawn-out signal of Tulvian war trumpets cut through the din of their battle like a beacon through the dark of night, before a thousand-throated war cry rang out.

The allied offensive had arrived.