A Jaded Life

The question of how things could have gone so wrong in just a few short days was one that Lorgar pondered incessantly. He and his boys, as he liked to call the rest of his group in the privacy of his mind, regardless of the fact that he was the youngest by almost a decade, had been out, hunting monsters and trying to understand the insanity of this changed world a little better, letting their home, the recently established town of New Dawn, to the defended by the other Legacies. Nothing bad should have happened, not while six people who had experienced Mundus and regained some of their powers from before kept watch over the town. Even without those six, there were multiple groups who had taken to exploring and levelling without the guidance of a Legacy and while those groups were generally weaker than one led by somebody with experience, that didn’t mean they were actually weak. No, they could face most things out in the wild, especially after the Legacies holding a connection to the divine had begun to convert people. Talking about their Gods, leading the people in prayer as they had learned on Mundus, condensing the faith of the community into pendants that could create miracles in times of dire need, acting as a conduit between the mortal realm and the divine was not an easy task. It was far easier to just go out with his boys and hunt monsters, where nothing was important but his spear, his shield, his faith and the comrades at his side. Sure, it was dangerous but it was also straight-forward and simple.

It was strange, to have faith and trust in something he couldn’t explain, something he doubted anyone could explain. At first, back on Mundus, he had considered Sunna to be just another part of Road to Purgatory, some incredibly clever trick of programming and story-telling but as he had travelled through Mundus and seen more and more of the land and its people something had shifted, leaving him confused. Did people have to be composed of carbon and be born of human parents? Were humans to only ones deserving to be considered people or should anything smart enough be considered a person and treated with the respect that label deserved? There had never been a good answer, neither within his own mind nor in the talks within the Crusade of Light or anywhere else, and the topic had been discussed. With the benefit of hindsight, there were many points at which people could have realised that Road to Purgatory had been more than a game, but at the time, it had been a lot easier to believe that it was just clever programming and story-telling, not that they literally visited a different world. One with monsters in it.

Just like their own world now had monsters in it and, when he and the boys had returned to New Dawn, he had noticed a strange sensation in the air, almost like a static charge or that strange, tingling feeling one might get right before a thunderstorm hit. There was something strange going on, and he needed to find out what, so he had given the boys the usual signal to prepare for combat and started to investigate. There had been a moment of hesitation, the town was supposed to be safe, but after months of regular combat and a variety of strange situations, there was an automatic trust, accompanied by the knowledge that it was better to err on the side of caution. If they went in prepared to defend themself and there was no attack, nobody would be hurt. If they went in trusting that nothing bad would happen and something did? Well, then they’d be in serious trouble.

Looking around the village, nothing stood out, there was no obvious source for the strange sensation he was feeling until he noticed something near the river, something new. It was a simple building, the waterwheel indicated a mill, but the construction was completely different from the simple, sturdy buildings that dominated the rest of the village. This building looked like it was made from singular, large pieces of stone, stacked together like something he had built years ago from legos, only that these legos were far larger than they realistically should be. It looked completely impossible but here the building was, defying his sense of realism.

However, while the building was strange it wasn’t the source of his strange feeling. But it was new, so it might be connected and he approached, immediately recognising Hauke who was doing something inside. What he learned from the man managed to fill him with trepidation. A newly arrived legacy, some sort of blue-skinned elf, able to shape stone with her magic and trade enchanted goods for food, that didn’t sound too bad on its face but connecting the strange, unpleasant sensation he was feeling with that new arrival? That spoke of bad news and bad news in town was seriously bad news. Who knew what this new arrival might have already done to the town, without them here to ward things off?

Sure, Kelrig, or Joshua as the guy had been called before things had changed, was here as were a few of the others, but if they had allowed this situation to occur, they might already be compromised. Couldn’t they feel the wrongness in the air?

With a new avenue to investigate, Lorgar continued, his search focused on the other Legacies, trying to find out what they knew. And the more he learned, the worse the clenching sensation in his gut became, this wasn’t just bad news, this might well be catastrophic. Morgana, the name had been bandied around the chat servers used by the Crusade of Light on a regular basis, mainly because Morgana had been a regular topic on the forum and in trailers, teasers and similar promotional material released by Pantheon Entertainment, making the face and name a recognisable one. A target, a foe, somebody they could define themself against, as every hero needed their villain and Morgana was an excellent one, visible, powerful, but also singular and unlikely to ever be met in a direct confrontation until the beta ended. Afterwards, they could have looked for another foe, but during the beta, Morgana had been the one.

At least until Morgana and her actions started to turn insane. Life dissections? Cursing people in some strange way that lingered even after they had been sent to respawn? Destroying small villages and raising the inhabitants as undead? Wiping out entire towns?

There was an obvious escalation in Morgana’s actions and those were only the ones that had been publicised, nobody knew what horrors the diseased mind guiding the avatar came up with when nobody was watching. And now, that mind was here, in their town, doing something that made him feel like disaster was about to happen.

By the time he came across Kelrig, Lorgar was almost beyond rationality, his worry had pushed him to the point that he was sweating, his tail, still a slightly foreign concept to him, lashing about in agitation and his mind focused on a single, fairly simple, concept. He had to protect New Dawn, the light of their town couldn’t be extinguished like so many lights on Mundus had been. So many lights, so many lives.

Even as Kelrig tried to reason with him, he pushed on, especially once he was told where to find Morgana, or whatever she called herself now. Some distance outside of their town but still within the valley they were occupying, he saw another of these strange, impossible lego-like buildings and immediately knew that it was his destination, maybe his destiny. There was something that drove him to push harder as they marched towards the building, even as he tried to reason with Kelrig and Hauke, neither of whom seemed to understand the danger.

This wasn’t just somebody who had played a game, this was somebody who had taken delight in the pain and suffering she had caused, somebody who had slaughtered numerous people and incredibly caused the death of countless more. How could they be so blind? Was it that they lacked the light, that they just couldn’t see the darkness around Morgana?

When the wretched woman started to talk to them in that mocking voice, as if nothing was wrong, while her influence lingered all over the town, something within Lorgar started to snap. This mockery just couldn’t be borne, he couldn’t allow her to destroy New Dawn. He felt righteous fury fill up his entire body as he bellowed out, only to find himself standing against something entirely different. A weight that pushed him down, forcing his anger to flee and leave him panting, almost on his knees.

But this was merely a setback, he and his boys would make sure that Morgana wouldn’t destroy this world, as she had destroyed the World of Mundus. They had a duty to accomplish and he would not falter.