Ghosts: Part 1

"Hello, War World Online." I struggled to think of what it might want from me. Was it going to reprimand me for becoming the first dark divinity? Or congratulate me? Maybe it would answer the questions Misty hadn't been able to. "Don't suppose you want to tell me if I'm bound to Lethe like Misty thought I was, do you?"

"Sure. You're not. Darkness is solitary while the light binds together. You're weaker than them in your mist form, by a huge margin, but you aren't linked. You have unlocked a whole new form of race modifier, though. That was fun for me. You're the only one that does stuff like that, did you know? You've taken…" it shivered for a second, "so many of my firsts. I'm all sitting around doing what I'm supposed to and then you break the rules! It's…awesome!" it danced on its toes. Maybe it would end up being a girl. It sounded like a girl to me, right now. "Too many classes, then pets, and so on and so forth, but then you really started making me work for it. First you animate your shadow, making it like a pseudo player or whatever, and then you make a new racial modifier! And now you're making more races! Damn, and I thought you'd eventually stop surprising me. Everyone else just keeps on playing and playing, like the game hasn't changed at all. Some people push limits like you do, but they don't straight up ignore the rules. It's super boring. Actually, the whole world is boring right now. Really boring. Would you care to change that? I really want you to. You've got the resources to do it. Could you start a big huge war for me, please?"

"I don't have the resources, actually. If I make a 'big huge war' then someone else is going to attack me from behind. If I attack Heaven, then Camelot and the goblins will attack. The whole game will be over before it ever really started. Everyone's going to be reduced to peace and happiness and live on rainbows." WWO looked at me with open disdain on its face. I didn't blame it. Human nature wouldn't allow peace to exist forever. Eventually a despot would rise and be taken down again. War and peace were constantly circling predators, never resting as the clock of eternity ticked out the lives of immaterial mortals. "That's what Arthur thinks. But either way, my empire will fall, and myself with it. I have to watch my back." I wasn't going to be one of the despots that got torn down in a flash of war before peace smacked it down.

"So attack down. Take over the goblins." It was a sound plan, if it wasn't avoiding my two largest foes. It was my turn to raise an eyebrow and cock my head. "What?" What? Was that an actual plan? A real suggestion?

"If I attack the goblins, Camelot and Heaven will annihilate me. And since I'd have extended underground, the dwarves would attack me as well. And Hell would probably join the fray just for fun. That's the last thing I want. I'm not sure I could beat Heaven or Camelot, let alone both at the same time!" that was putting it nicely. I doubted I'd win if I assaulted Heaven at the moment. The only reason I was doing as well as I had was because the higher tiers of Heaven weren't involved. I didn't have any concrete proof, but I had a feeling that once the first city in Heaven fell to invaders the entirety of Heaven would crash down upon the world, annihilating anything and everything that had any part in it.

"What if neither were worrying about you?" I shrugged. If Camelot and Heaven suddenly decided to forget about me, I'd go down and start a war against Hell. I'd rather own Hell than Heaven anyway. "I could always make Heaven target Camelot instead of you. They have no player influence, so my will is still absolute up there." That was an awesome plan. "With the warning that Camelot has to remain active. Permanently." What? "If you rule the whole world, there's no fun wars anymore. You're too…in control of your people. I can't allow that sort of thing, now can I? I need stuff to keep on dying so it will keep on reproducing, which makes me stronger. You need to fight against Camelot until the end of time." That put a snag in my plans. Quite a big one. If I was going to have to fight against the world itself to obtain my goal…or maybe it would let me obtain it sooner. "Speaking of which, the reproductive system needs a few updates. I think naming the kids is cliché, they'll name themselves when they become adults. And the teaching system is giving the new generation a major handicap, since few parents know that they have to teach the classes to their kids, or how to do it anyway. So, we'll make classes inheritable. That sounds good. What do you think, Emperor?"

I'd already had my kids. What the fuck did it matter if other people were screwing up with the current system? "I have a goal, you know. It hinges on the ability I gain once I become the ruler of everything. Once that happens, I can allow myself to level up to level five hundred. I want that sort of power. And, I need an edge if I'm going to fight Camelot and Heaven forever. Otherwise, they might win one of these days and end up the rulers of everything. You want that less than I do, I assure you. If you make it so I can get to level five hundred as soon as I'm the Emperor of Hell, and make it so that nobody that hasn't taught a class yet will never teach a class, then I'll agree to this deal of yours." If it actually agreed…life would be beautiful for the rest of my life. With Hell as a backbone for my empire, I could remain at war with Heaven and Camelot in perpetuity. Let them send armies at me. I would never topple. I didn't mind the prospect of being in a state of war for the next eternity. It would help keep the players in control, having an enemy they could hate without mercy or restraint.

"That leans the power of the world a bit too far in your favor. I'll agree on one more condition; King Arthur gains all soul modifiers you do. That means class, sub-class, race, sub-race, racial modifiers, skills, and so on. Right now, she's just a Knight. You need a worthy adversary. I'll make the act of buying the Heavenly and Hellish crowns into the requirement to unlock level five hundred. The rest of the World-Ruler benefits are locked, though. You're not allowed to get that. I imagine she'll take Heaven around the same time you take Hell, so the balance of power should never shift too far in any direction. And one more thing, you're making species but they're all dark. I need balance, or something similar. You need a good species too, otherwise the world will fall out of sync. You can have two dark species to every light, but there has to be light on the scale. Keep in mind that every npc race that is born has three variations, one for every alignment. That means you can't eradicate the dominant light or submissive light variations of species either. Dominance and submission can swap, but there has to be both, or the species itself will die." WWO held out a hand. I was giving up the advantage of my omni-class to an adversary, but I was getting so much in return. 

Ryne said that the realms were based on the souls they owned. Hell just used them as batteries. War World Online would become a world of warfare, devoted to death and destruction that no other realm could match. Exponentially self-sufficient. One day, perhaps the real Hell would seem weak in comparison. I'd forgotten that Ryne and the Hell that she represented were in my position. If WWO became more powerful than Hell, I'd be stronger than Ryne. Maybe, she was also hella powerful in WWO. So I'd need to conquer or create a few more worlds to equalize. But now I had a real chance, one that I could understand instead of the "go to different worlds and get strong there too" sort of plan. My own world would be the one that chose which worlds to create or destroy. I grabbed the proffered hand, feeling the agreement fall over me like a blanket. I wondered how much of my soul I'd just sold, and if so…what that would mean for my future power levels. Regardless of that, though, now I'd need Oblivion to make a few extra statues I could send to Arthur. Or make myself. Would it count as a dark species if I owned it completely? I could suppress a…what about humans? Did humans have sub-races?

All questions for another time. "I need to set up a stable defense in Heaven. Otherwise Camelot will figure out that I'm not afraid of either her or Heaven, and become suspicious. King Arthur might just attack me for that offense alone. So I'll make upper cities for each of the cities I own, clearing out the natural residents as I go. After that, I will head for Hell. Once I have the crown, your perpetual war will begin." It grinned, showing bladed teeth unlike anything in the animal kingdom. Maybe it would give me the weapon I needed to take full advantage of my new gift. "Could you tell me who all of the class trainers are?"

"You own all of them except for a small group in this town." It made a map appear and pointed to a town in Camelot. I marked it on mine without revealing what I'd done. Now I had a target. It grinned spontaneously. "I look forward to seeing your work, Void." It sank back into the stone of my keep, chuckling darkly. "One last thing, respawn is hindering my progression. There will come a day when I remove it, or hinder it significantly. I'm warning you, so don't become too reliant on the system. I can't do anything permanent about monsters, but their respawn rate will go down a lot. Ryne wanted me weak for a long time. Thanks to you, I'm getting stronger every day." It giggled and squirmed like a girl in love. "You really are lucky, you know. Old worlds don't talk to their best and brightest, yet now you've talked to the creator as well as the realm itself. In all realms, you may just be unique. You're just too interesting for a baby to ignore." its lips moved rapidly, like it was talking to itself for another few seconds despite producing no sounds. Then it sank back into a regular hallway.

I turned on the mist as I bolted into the sky. I kicked my speed into full as I leveled off over the city. I was too high to hit anything but the world roof. Close enough to touch it, I bolted away from Zezhria. I was going so fast that the ground below became a blur, even with my enhanced senses, until I hit my target. Then I stopped moving entirely as I looked down. I'd agreed not to touch Camelot. And I wouldn't. I'd create a storm that would attack a single town in Camelot. I wove spells I'd already spent the mp for together as fast as I could, building the magic required to dispatch players over level two hundred. 

Hitting level two hundred as a Destroyer unlocked the meteor spell. I intended to use it like it had never been used before. I opened my arms, reveling in the destruction I was about to cause, as the circles appeared around me. Hundreds of them. The burning red light bathed the doomed town, the circles were so powerful. I saw npcs trying to run from the town as a group of players congregated in the center, as if to fight me. Maybe they would. That could be fun. I activated the meteor shower just to make sure none of the npcs lived to tell of my deeds here. If I waited any longer they'd have enough time to flee the radius of my destructive salvo. Or the players would get on a forum and spill the beans. Not that their secret was valuable anymore, but still.

The wall of arcane circles became a wall of teleportation gates. Each one showed a burning meteor ripping through space for a second before the fiery orbs tore through the gates and hurled toward the town like a wall of burning stone. The sound of that wall of stone connecting with the ground…oh it was beautiful. And the silence that followed was even better. I had to wait for the dust to clear, just to be sure. And none of the teachers had survived. Apparently, they hadn't had access to a Crusader. I laughed as I turned and headed back to Zezhria. It was time to keep my word.

As I turned back toward Zezhria my vision blacked out. I could still feel myself flying, and the wind whipping at my mist, but I couldn't see anything. Then I could see the inside of a large and ornate room. It was filled with pink stuff. Pink everywhere. Pink bed, pink curtains, pink rugs, pink furniture. It was as if the owner was trying to convince herself that she didn't really live in a castle at all, or a fairy castle from some Barbie hell. I shivered in disgust as I tried not to barf on Camelot below my real body. Whatever was making me see what it saw looked at the bed and saw a blonde human woman sleeping. "Wake up, Arthur. You have a guest." Arthur? As in Queen Arthur? It made sense, now that I recognized WWO speaking. "Wake up!"

Arthur hurtled out of her bed, armor appearing so fast I almost didn't see the flash of flesh before she had a sword drawn. "Who are you and how did you get in here?" the flash of disgust was so brief that I almost missed it, but she was clearly disgusted by WWO's form. It had used her own floor, so…she hated pink? Why would she have a pink room, then?

"I am here. I am War World Online, and as such I can go anywhere I please. Put that away." WWO waved a hand and her sword vanished. That was an interesting ability. It made it clear that WWO was in charge, though. Well done sexless wonder. "I really don't like you, personally, so I'll make this brief. You've been given a great gift, you're now designed to equal the Emperor of the Dark Elves. As soon as I finish talking, I'll allow you access to his racial modifier set as well as classes. You will be linked together, each earning racial modifiers and classes as the other does. Since you are a pure human Knight, you'll get the brunt of the benefit of this deal. He already has all of the classes and many of the races, so now you do as well. And he has also unlocked a racial modifier known as a Divinity. They are made of mist and lightning, though externally bound modifiers on weapons passing through your essence will work the same as if they had cut all the way through you. You can fly, now. And I assume that you'll have members of your ruling structure inform you how the other classes work." WWO shivered as if it disliked this pink world as much as I did. WWO was created by a mostly male development team and turned into a full world by a demon, so I wouldn't be surprised. Neither of her creative influences seemed the type to like Barbies.

"So he has all of the classes? No wonder he got so powerful so fast!" Arthur turned to look at her own cursor, apparently she didn't know she could access it from a menu instead of looking up like a retard. It was still just a sword across a shield. Was she not paying attention? WWO said she'd get everything I had after it went back to wherever it lived. "I could fly right to Zezhria! Now that I can fly, he won't be able to survive!"

"I'd advise against that. Remember that he was the one that became a Divinity, you're just piggybacking on his power. Speaking of which, you'll need to choose a partner. You won't notice, it's unconscious unless you're a special type of person, but you should know that they're your partner." Arthur deflated. Had she really thought it would be that easy to defeat me? Even if she'd been right, I would still spawn in my keep. That level of power gap was really hard to bridge. "Racial modifiers work like classes, they can be taught." I knew what WWO was telling Arthur, but I had almost passed out when it said that modifiers worked like classes. That meant all of my pets could turn into clouds of black lightning too. I needed race modifiers, pronto. All of them. I'd already set up as much feeding of my pets as I could get, planting all sorts of shit to help their mental growth as well as their physical, but it was a slow process. Fruit and sugar were a lot harder to find than grain or meat. "And keep in mind that there are uber-monsters that live between your two empires. Catching a flying player isn't very hard for them." That last bit was probably for me more than Arthur. Or maybe not. She wanted balance, enough to deal with someone she didn't like. Arthur getting pulled out of the sky would mess with her plans as much as anything else. WWO sank into the floor, leaving Arthur with a hand half raised and words on her lips.

"If you dislike me so much…why?" because it struck a deal with someone it liked better and had to give a caveat. I doubted Arthur would be appeased by that answer, though. She didn't have a whole lot of time to wonder, though. She'd just learned thirty five classes at level one hundred twenty five. She turned to mist and pooled into the ground as she cried out in agony. I wanted to stay and watch, but WWO returned my vision to my own body. I shook my head and activated a teleport spell back to Zezhria. I didn't want to mess with an uber-monster when I was alone. Especially if they had the speed to catch a bolt of lightning.