Post by Kyle Shane on May 1, 2012 18:15:43 GMT -5
OOC: Okay, so. Feedback's been given that one of the things holding me back is that this fed, and the character limit, make long, drawn out story arcs less appealing, especially longer running ones. And this has affected my story arc. I'd geared this towards a long-form, epic storyline that brought Kyle into conflict with his dad in an unexpected way, but rather than keep it going for another month I'm going to try and wrap it up here. Besides, this allows me to bring in the new and this way, I'm going to get to the emotional payoff and bring Kyle back to, "reality" I guess.
***
The castle spire loomed large above them as Kyle was prodded over the stone bridge. It seemed unlikely, but the natural bridge yawned over an endless chasm. So far down it stretched that the bottom was shrouded in a wispy white fog; a pebble kicked by Kyle's foot tumbled down, and down, and down. Focusing on this and not the fate that awaited him, Kyle smirked a bit to himself. How had he gotten here, into this parallel dimensional adventure inside of what, he'd assumed, was only a virtual reality game? His father, who he had last seen when he was 17 years old, and who had always been just a drunken, shiftless unemployed asshole slipping into a debilitating affair with the bottle. From the time he was old enough to talk clearly his father had been coming home, first from the bar, and then just from downing a few six packs in the parking lot of a gas station, drunk and in a rage, taking his frustrations and his failures out on his wife and, later, his son.
And, from that, he'd found that his father was actually once employed at MIT, his alma mater... and he was actually a cutting edge engineer, who's virtual reality program had actually been a portal of sorts into a different world. Here, the codes they used to write the game had a different effect. Here, magic worked.
And here, his father was mysteriously alive. Kyle shot a look back at the man. Wearing rattling, black armor like some demented knight, carrying a banner on his back with some strange sigil. This was... mindblowing to Kyle. Was this the explanation for his propensity to fantasy games like Legend of Zelda? But then Kyle decided he had other questions to ponder, as they continued their progress into the Keep.
"How are you alive, dad?"
"Silence!" barked one of the guards holding their spears on him, the gigantic hairy, foul smelling things that had tusks and snouts like boars, but the mass and size of slate gray rhinos. These things looked hewn out of rock, and his dad had called 'em the orcs. Kyle scowled, but he was bound with his hands behind his back. Not much he could do, right? The man who wore his father's face was back there, face a stoic mask, eyes conflicted. Ever since Kyle had let slip that he'd killed Eric Shane in retaliation for his years of abuse, the man had been quiet. He'd said that he had images in his head of everything that Eric had done in his past life, but didn't seem to have the emotional connection. Which begged the question, who was this?
Kyle straightened up as they stood in front of the drawbridge. A fatal, religiously awed hush fell over the grunting, snorting orcs. It was as if they were entering the house of their one true god.
But then, from what he'd heard, Wozniak had that kinda pull over here.
Yes, Wozniak, dumb name, right? Kyle scoffed. Wozniak was a peer of his father's though, at MIT in the 80's, when they were designing the game that became the portal between two worlds. This was all very Tron with a fantasy twist, he mused, but Wozniak had seen potential in this alternate, magical world. Like what, specifically? Come over here and live like gods using the power of "spells" to overwrite their reality? Kyle didn't know. None of this made sense, and yet it was all profoundly connected. And, somehow, he had made his father into his chief enforcer.
Shane had rapped his steel shod fist on the iron door, making a hollow ring. But his jaw was working, he seemed at a loss.
"You know, once we go in here, your fate is sealed. Our lord has quite plans for you. Large, grand, designs that-"
"I'll help him, or he'll kill me. Right? Probably torture me in unique and fucked up ways." Kyle turned to face Eric now. "And you'll go along with it, huh? Just turn your own son over. Remember all this mushy stuff I've been seeing, dad, that conflicts with the memory I have of you as a raging alcoholic? The tender stuff, when I was just born and you and mom lived together in our tiny little trailer? We were barely making it, but you had big plans. This discovery, this world would make you famous. And, in me, you saw a potential to - what? You said one day this would all be mine, what did you mean?"
"I don't know," the tone was flat, but the eyebrows furrowed together in torment.
"And you're fine with giving me over and letting me be used, or thrown away?"
"I don't know..."
"But I guess that's fine, isn't it dad. Turnabout, after all, you weren't a saint before. You beat mom every night when I was young, you beat me until I couldn't show up at school anymore. Every night you came home with cheap on-tap beer on your breath and something eating away at your soul, and you took it out on your wife, who had only ever loved you, until the day she was taken. And then when she did die, you took it out even harder on your son, who you'd promised the entire world to!"
"I don- I didn't..." he was saying, as the iron gate rose, and, from inside the keep, the movement of a procession marched forward to meet them. Kyle pressed on.
"It continued year after year and I never knew a single thing about the positive parts of you, I never knew why you were so angry at me, or why you hated me, I just assumed you were bitter and lonely and rotten inside. But it's somehow even worse. You were young and vital and full of ideas once. You were like me, once."
The fist pounded into the wall as he tried to turn his head away, a rush of emotions taking the stoic enforcer all at once. Emotions had had not been programmed to have.
"What changed, dad? What made you into the man you are?"
All eyes were on them as this tableau played out, as he grabbed at his head, trying to will it not to explode, and Kyle watched, eyes piercing, as he saw the wheels turning. His father was starting to remember. He stood, tall and erect and, speaking as if somebody recalling a dream, began relating. "It was just after you were born. Work on the project had been going on for a few years, as Wozniak and I took sojourns into this world. We learned how to use the codes as spells over here and affect the environment, and we learned that, in a way, we could transfer some of that into magic over there. Wozniak saw potential. He saw that if we built up enough power over here, if we had enough sorcerors inputting the right codes, it would affect our homeworld. He theorized it could make us rich men. He wanted more, though."
His voice was dreamlike, faraway. "The white wizard, the one he just put to death, warned us. He told Wozniak that continued use of the magic would drain us, eat away at our bodies and minds and fill us with darkness."
"But it's just inputting codes into a computer."
"On our side, yes," he explained, somewhat wearily, "but in this world it's a unique form of power. Over time, what Wozniak was doing became apparent, he wanted to build an army here and conquer."
"Megalomaniacal for a college computer professor, much?" Kyle raised an eyebrow, but felt the unease. Because none of this felt natural, and anything could happen. Even, he supposed, that.
And Eric continued, seeing more and more of these past images fit together, like puzzle pieces falling into place, and becoming tinged with emotion for the first time. "And I... I fell apart. This was supposed to be a good thing. The discovery of other worlds out there, even this one that had different physical properties. Aging was retarded in this world, so was injury. This went beyond a game, this had ramifications to save our world! But the magic grew darker, and my partner conjured these... beasts on this world. Magic beasts, like these big uglies."
One of them snorted like a pig, almost as if in retort. Eric continued, "My dream fell apart, the world I wanted to share with you was becoming darker. And you were showing an inclination towards worlds like these in your primitive console. I was afraid. Afraid that Wozniak would take you, that he would bring you here and use the gifts you possess to complete his connection, use the reserves of willpower in you to shape any dark magic he desires."
And now, the pieces fell into place. The emails, calling for him "the son of the creator", summoning him here. He was being called here, and it was a trap. "So... you fell apart and you began drinking, and you took your failure out on me and mom."
With a voice that was becoming infinitely ancient, he nodded wistfully, "I'm so sorry, Kyle. The darkness of our using the magic in this world took hold of me, made me angry, made me paranoid. I ruined this world, the most beautiful place I had ever been, and I destroyed you and your mother, the two most beautiful things in my life."
Kyle's hard eyes and stonily set jaw softened as he saw this man falling apart around him. Some instinct wanted to console him, to pat his shoulder and tell him it was okay. Even if he could (still tied up) he wouldn't, because it was just a bit hard to forget some things. But now, he understood.
"ISN'T THIS TOUCHING," boomed a slimy, weaselly voice. Kyle snuck a look over. And recoiled. Kyle wasn't sure if it was due to the transfer between worlds, or the fact that the dark magic in this place was eating away at him physically, but the professor who had greeted him at MIT in the lab, oh, so long ago and had shown him archived footage of his father when he was young. In his place stood a grinning, black robed skeleton. A corsetted black tunic was strapped like a form of armor over swishing black robes that hung down his feet. Metal arm guards and bracers ran up his arms with spikes. Totally unacademic look, except for his face. It was sunken and sallow, dark bags under his eyes and a slackening jaw. And the hair had receded to a sickly looking black and gray widow's peak.
"Just reminiscing old times with dear old daddy, eh Kyle? Want us to leave you two in the courtyard so you can play catch?" He cackled, and it sounded reedy and sick. He was not well. Contradictory to his words, too, he nodded, and those big grunting idiots had Kyle on the march again, a procession of orc soldiers leading them through a courtyard and to a small, side doorway cut into the stone, leading them to a set of steps. Wozniak inputted what looked like punching a keyboard in the air motion, and glowing gold 1's and 0's floated there in a binary code, making the darkness light up and then explode in a floating flame that illuminated the darkness.
"Fancy," Kyle remarked.
"You won't be able to keep that sarcastic tongue in your head for long, Kyle. You're going to be in far too much pain," Wozniak said, and Kyle looked back to find his father following the procession, right behind his erstwhile lab partner. His head was down, and the emotion was gone. He was, once more, taking the role of lackey.
"One thing nobody's explained is, why me. How do I have any sort of magic power over here when over in my world I've got nothing?" Kyle posed to his back. The "dark lord' just chuckled. "Your father spoke truer than you know. You have a power imbued in you that's got nothing to do with simple magic, you have a unique mind and the strongest will I've ever known. Your mind can call forth the calculations that form spells faster and with more force than anybody, any mage in this world or your father and I ever could. With your power at my disposal I could literally make a world in my image." Down and down they were going, around a curving spiral staircase in a stone hallway.
Kyle mused, "So what's the plan then? Turn me to the dark side and use my power for evil?"
And then, they came to a big, open room. This was an arcane mix of science and magic in the air, giant computer banks filled the walls, Tesla coils arced with power. In the center of the room was a huge glass bottle, fifteen feet in diameter, with a glowing blue flame at it's core. "Actually, we're going to use you like a battery. I'm sure the old whitebeard told you of the princess kept hostage in this tower?"
He nodded at a desiccated human body wearing the scraps of a dress. "She was like you, Kyle, her power fueled my own and created these legions of stone orcs. But I wanted more."
Kyle was aghast at the chained, slumped, twisted form, the girl had obviously died in agony. Wozniak laughed, "Oh, what, you thought this was some tried and true fantasy where you saved the princess? Wake up, Kyle! This is not some fantasy game quest. Here, you will be used, and here, you'll die. But not before I put you to use."
"Wait!" Kyle protested, as he was dragged towards the bottle, round and tall and crackling with power. His hair stood on end. He resisted but the power of the big stone dummies was too much. "At least tell me this, how is he alive?"
That brought Wozniak pause, "Who?"
"Eric Shane."
"You underestimate the reach of my power. He is, in broad strokes, a simulacrum. Unique to this world, I created him from the template of who your father was and everything he is now."
"He is nothing. My father's dead. I know he's dead."
"Do you now? How do you know?"
"You people," Kyle laughed, and the orcs stopped dragging him now. "You think that you've got me figured out. You're right, I do have more willpower than you, and what's more, I'm not weak like he is. I wouldn't be corrupted or eaten away by this place, I'd rule it. But he fell apart and you, you're living out some pathetic powerplay fantasy. Let me guess, Wozniak, you were a nothing as a kid. From elementary school all the way up you were just a skinny little geek who nobody ever paid attention to unless they were slapping you out of the way. You went home, invisible, ignored. You tried to get girls into you, but they laughed you off. You felt weak and powerless all the way up until you went to college, got a degree, found a job in the workplace and found something of a niche. But still, you were ignored by the world."
He holds a finger up in the understood 'and then what' gesture, "THEN what? My father discovers another world connected to this one, and a world without our advances, where a little nothing like you can make himself into anything he wants. Where he can be a big shot. And you go overboard, man. You find a way to build an army and amass soldiers so you can take them home and make everybody who ignored you pay, find a way to finally, finally make people notice you."
"You insolent--!!" he sputters, and the stone orcs step forward, spears at the ready. Kyle just smiles wolfishly.
Kyle shakes his head, "You're pathetic. Want to know about me, Wozniak? When I was 12 years old, my mother died, leaving me alone with this weak man beside me. My mother, who had said I could be anything I wanted, that I had a great destiny ahead of me if I went to school and made my mark. Nobody ever ignored me, they couldn't, because I kept on finding a way to make it to the top of my class, to the highest level I could. I had to, so I could escape from what this man had become."
He turned to Eric, who hung his head in shame, "And now I see my father for who he was entirely, and I can't fault him for everything. He was a good man, and he had good intentions for me, but he paved a road to hell with those intentions. He gave in to his darkness and became twisted. Dad, you were a good man once, but you lost it. But I know you wanted something big from me, and I could never have gotten there with you. You, holding me back. You, belittling me and trying to smash my dreams, because as I see now, you didn't want them to turn black and foul like your dream had. Better to have no dreams than broken dreams, am I right?"
"So, whatever, dude. Strap me up to that, drain me dry. You still aren't going to get anyone's notice. You haven't done anything new." Kyle sat back, a satisfied grin on his face.
"Nothing ne- I have raised armies! I have had dragons raze the countryside! I have ravaged and pillaged towns! I have unleashed flocks of-"
"You're still that stupid kid trying to get the hot girls to like you, Wozniak. Even after everything you've done. Trust me. Nobody cares."
He roared at Kyle, and Kyle had a second to glance around to see everybody was stepping back when, in a whirlwind of air-keyboard code inputting, the spell was in motion and lightning blasted out from Wozniak's hands, throwing Kyle back against the wall. A scream was torn from Kyle's lips.
"You insolent... stupid... BOY! You think you're not expendable?!" the dark lord/computer nerd spat at Kyle, who was trying to rise against the ongoing cavalcade of excruciating pain. The lightning kept coming and it forced him down.
"You think... you're... original... 'Emperor Palpatine'?!" Kyle gasped, as the attack abated, "Seriously you couldn't be more of a loser nerd. You give even nerds like me a bad name because everything's a ripoff of D&D and Star Wars with youuuARRRRGH!!!" Again, the lightning flared bright white, shocking through Kyle and turning his every nerve ending on fire. Kyle screamed again and again, writhing in pain, rolling on the stone floor.
"DAAAAAAD-aaarrrrh" Kyle howled, as he reached out for his impassive looking father-simulacrum. The orcs elbowed each other, grunting piggy laughter. The thing that Wozniak had created, the simulacrum that bore his father's face but was really no more than an aggregate collection of memory, watched.
Suddenly, in a blur of massive armor, his father tackled Wozniak. Lightning crackled all around them crazily, washing over both of them as Eric hurled them both back, into the bottle of stored magic battery.
Everything exploded in a rush of blue flame. Kyle pulled himself up, despite the agony, and saw his father and Wozniak burning alive, and swirls of numbers in the air. The codes. The magic energy was a surging, all-consuming flame that was burning them both alive. Then the orcs started burning as their stored magic that was, apparently keeping them coherent and created came unravelled. The whole building began to shake as pools of blue flame were shooting everywhere. Kyle reached down, digging past the pain, digging deep, and he felt that surge of energy within him. He stood. He'd used his powers in this world to free himself. Now, to find a way out of there.
Before he could go, though, he took one last look at the slumped forms lying there. Wozniak was a blackened husk, but...
No.
He had expected him to be exploding, if not fading away. He was, after all, only a creation. But the charred remains of his father were still writhing, even though over half of him was horribly burned away. "Kyle..." was all he heard, the whisper of dead leaves.
Blue flames on either side of him, the stone walls shaking. But he couldn't leave his father.
He lifted him up, shocked to see his legs were mostly gone, ruined and burnt away, as was his hair and mustache. All that was left was a rapidly shrinking husk. Kyle ran up the stairs as best he could while holding his dad's remains. "Kyyyuhl.." he slurred, "puhh me downn." Kyle refused, choking back emotion, "No time, dad, we gotta get out of here." And the chamber behind them exploded with blue flame. Kyle had gotten out just in time.
Kyle stumbled and fell as soon as they were out in the courtyard, rolling, and tumbling both of them end over end through the grass. They came to a stop and he looked down on his father.
"I thought you would be gone from existence, but you're still here, you're still alive. I can use a spell to undo this, I can -"
"Nooot... aliiiive.... Kyyyle." His voice was the roaring train engine of someone working very hard to keep himself going, just for a little longer, "Neverrr... wasss. Should have.... stayeeed.... gone... should have.... gone... with Kareeeen..."
"Don't say that, dad! I lost you once because of me."
"Youuuu... diiiid good... son. I'm... sorryyy. I hurt youuu."
For the first time since mom died, Kyle felt himself become overcome with emotion, choking back tears. "I'm sorry I hurt you, dad. But I can fix this! You and Wozniak said I had more power here than-"
"No. Better this way. Youuu. Fixed. What I helped break. This worrrld.... can... heal."
Kyle was at a loss. A tear rolled down his cheek. His father swallowed with effort, gathering strength to say what he needed to as clearly as he could. "You.... have a great many things ahead of you.... but... many. Trials.... this... was a test too. Yyou... did your mother... proud. And I... was always... proud."
Kyle caressed his father's ruined cheek. "Dad."
"What I am... should not be. But you can go back... and honor the man I was... nottt. What I... became. And if there's somebody... in your life... that you love... like I loved your mother... don't push her awayy. Like. I. Did. Tell herr. how specciall she is... Every day."
Kyle nodded, blinking tears away. "I will, dad."
"I...... love... yu-"
And then, he faded away into nothingness, as if he was never there. Kyle stood. Instinctively, he knew what he had to do now.
SOME TIME LATER...
Kyle stood on a grassy hill, overlooking the keep in the distance on it's craggy stone cliff. A twinge of sadness rose in his gut. He looked back at the three piled cairns of stone, marking three monuments. To Carock and Solo, who he'd pulled into his quest only to have sacrificed... and to his father. He felt it more appropriate that he be memorialized here, in his world he had dumped the body in a swamp. But this place, this world he had uncovered, that had consumed so much of his mind and grew into his obsession, his passion, and his curse, became a part of him.
Kyle focused on what they had taught him, vizualizing home, as he felt that power rise within him. He saw, very clearly, his penthouse apartment awaiting him, his bong and game system, and Array there.
Hopefully, she would be there.
"And if there's somebody in your life that you love like I loved your mother... don't push her away, like I did. Tell her how special she is... every day."
Kyle shook his head, looking back at the cairn for his father. And a blink of energy surged through his eyes, but he didn't notice it. Kyle shut his eyes, and turned back to the sunset. He held up his hands, input the codes... and then, he was gone. Gone home.
He was gone too early to notice the stirring in the cairn he had laid down, the pile of stone shifting, little by little at first, tiny pebbles trickling down from the top... and then, the pile of stones collapsed as the dug up earth beneath it quaked and split and parted, and the hand reached up from under it, seeking purchase and finally breaking through, into the dying sunset.
The... End?
***
The castle spire loomed large above them as Kyle was prodded over the stone bridge. It seemed unlikely, but the natural bridge yawned over an endless chasm. So far down it stretched that the bottom was shrouded in a wispy white fog; a pebble kicked by Kyle's foot tumbled down, and down, and down. Focusing on this and not the fate that awaited him, Kyle smirked a bit to himself. How had he gotten here, into this parallel dimensional adventure inside of what, he'd assumed, was only a virtual reality game? His father, who he had last seen when he was 17 years old, and who had always been just a drunken, shiftless unemployed asshole slipping into a debilitating affair with the bottle. From the time he was old enough to talk clearly his father had been coming home, first from the bar, and then just from downing a few six packs in the parking lot of a gas station, drunk and in a rage, taking his frustrations and his failures out on his wife and, later, his son.
And, from that, he'd found that his father was actually once employed at MIT, his alma mater... and he was actually a cutting edge engineer, who's virtual reality program had actually been a portal of sorts into a different world. Here, the codes they used to write the game had a different effect. Here, magic worked.
And here, his father was mysteriously alive. Kyle shot a look back at the man. Wearing rattling, black armor like some demented knight, carrying a banner on his back with some strange sigil. This was... mindblowing to Kyle. Was this the explanation for his propensity to fantasy games like Legend of Zelda? But then Kyle decided he had other questions to ponder, as they continued their progress into the Keep.
"How are you alive, dad?"
"Silence!" barked one of the guards holding their spears on him, the gigantic hairy, foul smelling things that had tusks and snouts like boars, but the mass and size of slate gray rhinos. These things looked hewn out of rock, and his dad had called 'em the orcs. Kyle scowled, but he was bound with his hands behind his back. Not much he could do, right? The man who wore his father's face was back there, face a stoic mask, eyes conflicted. Ever since Kyle had let slip that he'd killed Eric Shane in retaliation for his years of abuse, the man had been quiet. He'd said that he had images in his head of everything that Eric had done in his past life, but didn't seem to have the emotional connection. Which begged the question, who was this?
Kyle straightened up as they stood in front of the drawbridge. A fatal, religiously awed hush fell over the grunting, snorting orcs. It was as if they were entering the house of their one true god.
But then, from what he'd heard, Wozniak had that kinda pull over here.
Yes, Wozniak, dumb name, right? Kyle scoffed. Wozniak was a peer of his father's though, at MIT in the 80's, when they were designing the game that became the portal between two worlds. This was all very Tron with a fantasy twist, he mused, but Wozniak had seen potential in this alternate, magical world. Like what, specifically? Come over here and live like gods using the power of "spells" to overwrite their reality? Kyle didn't know. None of this made sense, and yet it was all profoundly connected. And, somehow, he had made his father into his chief enforcer.
Shane had rapped his steel shod fist on the iron door, making a hollow ring. But his jaw was working, he seemed at a loss.
"You know, once we go in here, your fate is sealed. Our lord has quite plans for you. Large, grand, designs that-"
"I'll help him, or he'll kill me. Right? Probably torture me in unique and fucked up ways." Kyle turned to face Eric now. "And you'll go along with it, huh? Just turn your own son over. Remember all this mushy stuff I've been seeing, dad, that conflicts with the memory I have of you as a raging alcoholic? The tender stuff, when I was just born and you and mom lived together in our tiny little trailer? We were barely making it, but you had big plans. This discovery, this world would make you famous. And, in me, you saw a potential to - what? You said one day this would all be mine, what did you mean?"
"I don't know," the tone was flat, but the eyebrows furrowed together in torment.
"And you're fine with giving me over and letting me be used, or thrown away?"
"I don't know..."
"But I guess that's fine, isn't it dad. Turnabout, after all, you weren't a saint before. You beat mom every night when I was young, you beat me until I couldn't show up at school anymore. Every night you came home with cheap on-tap beer on your breath and something eating away at your soul, and you took it out on your wife, who had only ever loved you, until the day she was taken. And then when she did die, you took it out even harder on your son, who you'd promised the entire world to!"
"I don- I didn't..." he was saying, as the iron gate rose, and, from inside the keep, the movement of a procession marched forward to meet them. Kyle pressed on.
"It continued year after year and I never knew a single thing about the positive parts of you, I never knew why you were so angry at me, or why you hated me, I just assumed you were bitter and lonely and rotten inside. But it's somehow even worse. You were young and vital and full of ideas once. You were like me, once."
The fist pounded into the wall as he tried to turn his head away, a rush of emotions taking the stoic enforcer all at once. Emotions had had not been programmed to have.
"What changed, dad? What made you into the man you are?"
All eyes were on them as this tableau played out, as he grabbed at his head, trying to will it not to explode, and Kyle watched, eyes piercing, as he saw the wheels turning. His father was starting to remember. He stood, tall and erect and, speaking as if somebody recalling a dream, began relating. "It was just after you were born. Work on the project had been going on for a few years, as Wozniak and I took sojourns into this world. We learned how to use the codes as spells over here and affect the environment, and we learned that, in a way, we could transfer some of that into magic over there. Wozniak saw potential. He saw that if we built up enough power over here, if we had enough sorcerors inputting the right codes, it would affect our homeworld. He theorized it could make us rich men. He wanted more, though."
His voice was dreamlike, faraway. "The white wizard, the one he just put to death, warned us. He told Wozniak that continued use of the magic would drain us, eat away at our bodies and minds and fill us with darkness."
"But it's just inputting codes into a computer."
"On our side, yes," he explained, somewhat wearily, "but in this world it's a unique form of power. Over time, what Wozniak was doing became apparent, he wanted to build an army here and conquer."
"Megalomaniacal for a college computer professor, much?" Kyle raised an eyebrow, but felt the unease. Because none of this felt natural, and anything could happen. Even, he supposed, that.
And Eric continued, seeing more and more of these past images fit together, like puzzle pieces falling into place, and becoming tinged with emotion for the first time. "And I... I fell apart. This was supposed to be a good thing. The discovery of other worlds out there, even this one that had different physical properties. Aging was retarded in this world, so was injury. This went beyond a game, this had ramifications to save our world! But the magic grew darker, and my partner conjured these... beasts on this world. Magic beasts, like these big uglies."
One of them snorted like a pig, almost as if in retort. Eric continued, "My dream fell apart, the world I wanted to share with you was becoming darker. And you were showing an inclination towards worlds like these in your primitive console. I was afraid. Afraid that Wozniak would take you, that he would bring you here and use the gifts you possess to complete his connection, use the reserves of willpower in you to shape any dark magic he desires."
And now, the pieces fell into place. The emails, calling for him "the son of the creator", summoning him here. He was being called here, and it was a trap. "So... you fell apart and you began drinking, and you took your failure out on me and mom."
With a voice that was becoming infinitely ancient, he nodded wistfully, "I'm so sorry, Kyle. The darkness of our using the magic in this world took hold of me, made me angry, made me paranoid. I ruined this world, the most beautiful place I had ever been, and I destroyed you and your mother, the two most beautiful things in my life."
Kyle's hard eyes and stonily set jaw softened as he saw this man falling apart around him. Some instinct wanted to console him, to pat his shoulder and tell him it was okay. Even if he could (still tied up) he wouldn't, because it was just a bit hard to forget some things. But now, he understood.
"ISN'T THIS TOUCHING," boomed a slimy, weaselly voice. Kyle snuck a look over. And recoiled. Kyle wasn't sure if it was due to the transfer between worlds, or the fact that the dark magic in this place was eating away at him physically, but the professor who had greeted him at MIT in the lab, oh, so long ago and had shown him archived footage of his father when he was young. In his place stood a grinning, black robed skeleton. A corsetted black tunic was strapped like a form of armor over swishing black robes that hung down his feet. Metal arm guards and bracers ran up his arms with spikes. Totally unacademic look, except for his face. It was sunken and sallow, dark bags under his eyes and a slackening jaw. And the hair had receded to a sickly looking black and gray widow's peak.
"Just reminiscing old times with dear old daddy, eh Kyle? Want us to leave you two in the courtyard so you can play catch?" He cackled, and it sounded reedy and sick. He was not well. Contradictory to his words, too, he nodded, and those big grunting idiots had Kyle on the march again, a procession of orc soldiers leading them through a courtyard and to a small, side doorway cut into the stone, leading them to a set of steps. Wozniak inputted what looked like punching a keyboard in the air motion, and glowing gold 1's and 0's floated there in a binary code, making the darkness light up and then explode in a floating flame that illuminated the darkness.
"Fancy," Kyle remarked.
"You won't be able to keep that sarcastic tongue in your head for long, Kyle. You're going to be in far too much pain," Wozniak said, and Kyle looked back to find his father following the procession, right behind his erstwhile lab partner. His head was down, and the emotion was gone. He was, once more, taking the role of lackey.
"One thing nobody's explained is, why me. How do I have any sort of magic power over here when over in my world I've got nothing?" Kyle posed to his back. The "dark lord' just chuckled. "Your father spoke truer than you know. You have a power imbued in you that's got nothing to do with simple magic, you have a unique mind and the strongest will I've ever known. Your mind can call forth the calculations that form spells faster and with more force than anybody, any mage in this world or your father and I ever could. With your power at my disposal I could literally make a world in my image." Down and down they were going, around a curving spiral staircase in a stone hallway.
Kyle mused, "So what's the plan then? Turn me to the dark side and use my power for evil?"
And then, they came to a big, open room. This was an arcane mix of science and magic in the air, giant computer banks filled the walls, Tesla coils arced with power. In the center of the room was a huge glass bottle, fifteen feet in diameter, with a glowing blue flame at it's core. "Actually, we're going to use you like a battery. I'm sure the old whitebeard told you of the princess kept hostage in this tower?"
He nodded at a desiccated human body wearing the scraps of a dress. "She was like you, Kyle, her power fueled my own and created these legions of stone orcs. But I wanted more."
Kyle was aghast at the chained, slumped, twisted form, the girl had obviously died in agony. Wozniak laughed, "Oh, what, you thought this was some tried and true fantasy where you saved the princess? Wake up, Kyle! This is not some fantasy game quest. Here, you will be used, and here, you'll die. But not before I put you to use."
"Wait!" Kyle protested, as he was dragged towards the bottle, round and tall and crackling with power. His hair stood on end. He resisted but the power of the big stone dummies was too much. "At least tell me this, how is he alive?"
That brought Wozniak pause, "Who?"
"Eric Shane."
"You underestimate the reach of my power. He is, in broad strokes, a simulacrum. Unique to this world, I created him from the template of who your father was and everything he is now."
"He is nothing. My father's dead. I know he's dead."
"Do you now? How do you know?"
"You people," Kyle laughed, and the orcs stopped dragging him now. "You think that you've got me figured out. You're right, I do have more willpower than you, and what's more, I'm not weak like he is. I wouldn't be corrupted or eaten away by this place, I'd rule it. But he fell apart and you, you're living out some pathetic powerplay fantasy. Let me guess, Wozniak, you were a nothing as a kid. From elementary school all the way up you were just a skinny little geek who nobody ever paid attention to unless they were slapping you out of the way. You went home, invisible, ignored. You tried to get girls into you, but they laughed you off. You felt weak and powerless all the way up until you went to college, got a degree, found a job in the workplace and found something of a niche. But still, you were ignored by the world."
He holds a finger up in the understood 'and then what' gesture, "THEN what? My father discovers another world connected to this one, and a world without our advances, where a little nothing like you can make himself into anything he wants. Where he can be a big shot. And you go overboard, man. You find a way to build an army and amass soldiers so you can take them home and make everybody who ignored you pay, find a way to finally, finally make people notice you."
"You insolent--!!" he sputters, and the stone orcs step forward, spears at the ready. Kyle just smiles wolfishly.
Kyle shakes his head, "You're pathetic. Want to know about me, Wozniak? When I was 12 years old, my mother died, leaving me alone with this weak man beside me. My mother, who had said I could be anything I wanted, that I had a great destiny ahead of me if I went to school and made my mark. Nobody ever ignored me, they couldn't, because I kept on finding a way to make it to the top of my class, to the highest level I could. I had to, so I could escape from what this man had become."
He turned to Eric, who hung his head in shame, "And now I see my father for who he was entirely, and I can't fault him for everything. He was a good man, and he had good intentions for me, but he paved a road to hell with those intentions. He gave in to his darkness and became twisted. Dad, you were a good man once, but you lost it. But I know you wanted something big from me, and I could never have gotten there with you. You, holding me back. You, belittling me and trying to smash my dreams, because as I see now, you didn't want them to turn black and foul like your dream had. Better to have no dreams than broken dreams, am I right?"
"So, whatever, dude. Strap me up to that, drain me dry. You still aren't going to get anyone's notice. You haven't done anything new." Kyle sat back, a satisfied grin on his face.
"Nothing ne- I have raised armies! I have had dragons raze the countryside! I have ravaged and pillaged towns! I have unleashed flocks of-"
"You're still that stupid kid trying to get the hot girls to like you, Wozniak. Even after everything you've done. Trust me. Nobody cares."
He roared at Kyle, and Kyle had a second to glance around to see everybody was stepping back when, in a whirlwind of air-keyboard code inputting, the spell was in motion and lightning blasted out from Wozniak's hands, throwing Kyle back against the wall. A scream was torn from Kyle's lips.
"You insolent... stupid... BOY! You think you're not expendable?!" the dark lord/computer nerd spat at Kyle, who was trying to rise against the ongoing cavalcade of excruciating pain. The lightning kept coming and it forced him down.
"You think... you're... original... 'Emperor Palpatine'?!" Kyle gasped, as the attack abated, "Seriously you couldn't be more of a loser nerd. You give even nerds like me a bad name because everything's a ripoff of D&D and Star Wars with youuuARRRRGH!!!" Again, the lightning flared bright white, shocking through Kyle and turning his every nerve ending on fire. Kyle screamed again and again, writhing in pain, rolling on the stone floor.
"DAAAAAAD-aaarrrrh" Kyle howled, as he reached out for his impassive looking father-simulacrum. The orcs elbowed each other, grunting piggy laughter. The thing that Wozniak had created, the simulacrum that bore his father's face but was really no more than an aggregate collection of memory, watched.
Suddenly, in a blur of massive armor, his father tackled Wozniak. Lightning crackled all around them crazily, washing over both of them as Eric hurled them both back, into the bottle of stored magic battery.
Everything exploded in a rush of blue flame. Kyle pulled himself up, despite the agony, and saw his father and Wozniak burning alive, and swirls of numbers in the air. The codes. The magic energy was a surging, all-consuming flame that was burning them both alive. Then the orcs started burning as their stored magic that was, apparently keeping them coherent and created came unravelled. The whole building began to shake as pools of blue flame were shooting everywhere. Kyle reached down, digging past the pain, digging deep, and he felt that surge of energy within him. He stood. He'd used his powers in this world to free himself. Now, to find a way out of there.
Before he could go, though, he took one last look at the slumped forms lying there. Wozniak was a blackened husk, but...
No.
He had expected him to be exploding, if not fading away. He was, after all, only a creation. But the charred remains of his father were still writhing, even though over half of him was horribly burned away. "Kyle..." was all he heard, the whisper of dead leaves.
Blue flames on either side of him, the stone walls shaking. But he couldn't leave his father.
He lifted him up, shocked to see his legs were mostly gone, ruined and burnt away, as was his hair and mustache. All that was left was a rapidly shrinking husk. Kyle ran up the stairs as best he could while holding his dad's remains. "Kyyyuhl.." he slurred, "puhh me downn." Kyle refused, choking back emotion, "No time, dad, we gotta get out of here." And the chamber behind them exploded with blue flame. Kyle had gotten out just in time.
Kyle stumbled and fell as soon as they were out in the courtyard, rolling, and tumbling both of them end over end through the grass. They came to a stop and he looked down on his father.
"I thought you would be gone from existence, but you're still here, you're still alive. I can use a spell to undo this, I can -"
"Nooot... aliiiive.... Kyyyle." His voice was the roaring train engine of someone working very hard to keep himself going, just for a little longer, "Neverrr... wasss. Should have.... stayeeed.... gone... should have.... gone... with Kareeeen..."
"Don't say that, dad! I lost you once because of me."
"Youuuu... diiiid good... son. I'm... sorryyy. I hurt youuu."
For the first time since mom died, Kyle felt himself become overcome with emotion, choking back tears. "I'm sorry I hurt you, dad. But I can fix this! You and Wozniak said I had more power here than-"
"No. Better this way. Youuu. Fixed. What I helped break. This worrrld.... can... heal."
Kyle was at a loss. A tear rolled down his cheek. His father swallowed with effort, gathering strength to say what he needed to as clearly as he could. "You.... have a great many things ahead of you.... but... many. Trials.... this... was a test too. Yyou... did your mother... proud. And I... was always... proud."
Kyle caressed his father's ruined cheek. "Dad."
"What I am... should not be. But you can go back... and honor the man I was... nottt. What I... became. And if there's somebody... in your life... that you love... like I loved your mother... don't push her awayy. Like. I. Did. Tell herr. how specciall she is... Every day."
Kyle nodded, blinking tears away. "I will, dad."
"I...... love... yu-"
And then, he faded away into nothingness, as if he was never there. Kyle stood. Instinctively, he knew what he had to do now.
SOME TIME LATER...
Kyle stood on a grassy hill, overlooking the keep in the distance on it's craggy stone cliff. A twinge of sadness rose in his gut. He looked back at the three piled cairns of stone, marking three monuments. To Carock and Solo, who he'd pulled into his quest only to have sacrificed... and to his father. He felt it more appropriate that he be memorialized here, in his world he had dumped the body in a swamp. But this place, this world he had uncovered, that had consumed so much of his mind and grew into his obsession, his passion, and his curse, became a part of him.
Kyle focused on what they had taught him, vizualizing home, as he felt that power rise within him. He saw, very clearly, his penthouse apartment awaiting him, his bong and game system, and Array there.
Hopefully, she would be there.
"And if there's somebody in your life that you love like I loved your mother... don't push her away, like I did. Tell her how special she is... every day."
Kyle shook his head, looking back at the cairn for his father. And a blink of energy surged through his eyes, but he didn't notice it. Kyle shut his eyes, and turned back to the sunset. He held up his hands, input the codes... and then, he was gone. Gone home.
He was gone too early to notice the stirring in the cairn he had laid down, the pile of stone shifting, little by little at first, tiny pebbles trickling down from the top... and then, the pile of stones collapsed as the dug up earth beneath it quaked and split and parted, and the hand reached up from under it, seeking purchase and finally breaking through, into the dying sunset.
The... End?