Apocalypse Tamer

Chapter 76: Man vs Wisdom

“Are you sure of yourself, handsome?”

Basil glanced at Vasi as they walked down the stairs to the UNESCO building. He and his girlfriend closed the party’s march, while the rest of the team kept an eye on their prisoner.

Benjamin Leroy hadn’t made any effort to free himself from captivity. He walked alongside the team in utter silence, his gaze hollow and his back bent like an old tree. No monsters ambushed the team during their descent, although the Pyramid was probably still crawling with them.

None of the Bohens let their captive’s passivity lull them into complacency. All of them sent glances at Leroy from time to time, none more often than Plato. The feline kept his hand on Joyeuse’s pommel at all times, ready to cut down the false god at the first sign of resistance.

“He is dangerous and unstable,” Vasi warned Basil. “Letting him live is a gamble.”

“I know,” Basil admitted. Although he hoped the reward would outweigh the risks, he understood his wager could backfire spectacularly. “But he can’t turn his life around if he’s dead.”

“Do you think that’s even possible?” his girlfriend asked with skepticism.

“I believe so, yes,” Basil confirmed. “He’s not like Tamura or Hypathia, or even Maxwell. He understands that he has done wrong. He’s damaged goods alright, but he can still pull himself together.”

Basil couldn’t quite explain it himself. He felt it in his gut. Perhaps he saw a bit of himself in Leroy, or his brief stay inside the illusory world of Naraka had given him a glimpse into the man’s soul. Or maybe, just maybe, a part of Basil wanted to believe in the man’s better nature.

“I told you at the house that when faced with unrepentant evil, fire and brimstone really are the solution. That’s Old Testament justice. But the sequel has some good words too: He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.” Basil shrugged. “When someone stumbles on the perilous path of repentance, I should help them stand back up and not trip them further.”

Vasi looked at him with a coy, enigmatic smile.

“What?” Basil asked.

“I find you more charming when you speak of forgiveness rather than punishment, my bear knight,” Vasi said with a chuckle. “Your better qualities shine through.”

“Thank you,” Basil replied, returning her smirk with one of his own. “And for being at my side. It helps, more than you know. Your deliveries saved our lives in the painted world.”

“I do not keep count, Basil,” Vasi replied. “But if you truly want to return the favor… I wouldn’t mind taking a holiday after we are done with our current Quest. Dungeon delving is exhausting. I think I need a break.”

That made two of them. “If we survive the Incursion, I’ll take you to Bulgaria,” Basil promised. “You’ll love it. It’s a beautiful place.”

“Are you planning to introduce me to your mother?” Vasi mused. “It’s a big step forward in our relationship.”

“Yeah, it is,” Basil admitted. “But I feel we’re ready for it.”

Vasi nodded slowly as they finally reached the dungeon’s neurotower, at the very center of a crumbling gallery larger than any other room Basil had yet seen. Rosemarine had been waiting there, slouching on the ground and keeping watch on a forcefield keeping Veronese’s The Wedding Feast at Cana trapped.

“Mister, Plato, you came back!” The tropidrake rose to her feet and immediately licked Basil with her elongated tongue. The contact wasn’t enjoyable at all, but Basil accepted it with a smile. Plato simply leaped away to avoid suffering the same fate. “I missed you so much!”

“Me too, Rosemarine,” Basil replied as he petted her on the head. “I’m glad to see you’re safe.”

Rosemarine noticed Leroy and promptly growled at him. “Is he a treat?” she asked. “Do you want me to eat him, Mister?”

“You already ate a god before, two would give you indigestion,” Plato mused.

Leroy finally raised his head, his gaze wandering from Rosemarine to Bugsy and Plato. “How?” he asked. “How did you…”

“Kill your colleagues?” Basil asked with a shrug. “Your ‘friend’ Ashok prevented them from teleporting away.”

“Ah, that’s how it is…” Leroy let out a dark chuckle. “Ashok… he wanted to see his god. He told me this once. Money and power were a means to him, never an end.”

“His god?” Basil repeated with a frown, before glancing at the Wedding Feast at Cana. He quickly caught Kalki’s presence in the painting, as Vasi warned him earlier. “You mean the Trimurti?”

“Yes. He wanted answers. When I asked ‘to what questions’ he simply smiled and told me I wouldn’t get it.” Leroy laughed darkly. “I heard Maxwell granted him the power of Zeus because he couldn’t get Indra the Thunderer.”

“Tamura wanted Susano-o too, if I remember right,” Basil pointed out.

“Yes, he did.” Leroy sighed. “But summoning gods and binding them is an extraordinarily difficult task in itself. Each of them demands specialized resources, god-data. It was simply easier to capture essences from a single pantheon.”

Basil filed away this information in his mind for later, but changed the subject. Ashok was a long-term problem and they had more pressing troubles to deal with for the moment.

“Release Kalki,” Basil ordered Leroy.

“Yes… yes.” The programmer waved his hand at the forcefield protecting his neurotower, disabling it. The swirling energies protecting the dungeon’s core vanished, revealing a colossal tower of steel hidden behind it. Basil had never seen a server so large as this one. It crossed multiple floors and probably rivaled the greatest Egyptian obelisks in size. Red circuitry pulsated on its surface, thrumming with the power of harvested souls.

The Wedding Feast at Cana floated before the server before shining with magic. Its surface undulated like disturbed waters and vomited three shapes: a golden, three-headed cobra of magnificent beauty; a horse-sized hawk with a crimson, feline mane; and a handsome man of Indian descent with light brown skin, raven hair, and humble clothes. He looked up at Basil with eyes full of wisdom and innocence. Oh, and the Fire Seed that tested the pain before slithered out a short while afterwards, much to Rosemarine's joy.

“My friends,” Kalki said with a kind smile. The mere sight of it warmed Basil’s heart. “We meet again at last.”

“It wasn’t easy finding you,” Basil said as he offered a hand and helped him get back on his feet. The young man’s grip was weak… for a god. “You made us work for it.”

“Do you know how much we’ve suffered to reach you?” Plato complained. “We had to walk through snow and sand alike!”

“I see your travels changed you all,” Kalki mused as he glanced at the team. Almost every member of the Bohens party had undergone a metamorphosis since they had last crossed paths. “You are all greater and wiser.”

Kalki froze upon noticing Leroy, and his beastly companions instantly moved to protect him.

“What is he doing here?” Kalki’s bird companion, Garud, threatened Leroy with his talons. The cobra simply hissed ferociously. “He’s the one who trapped us!”

“He’s beaten,” Basil reassured them. “And on parole.”

“You are making a mistake,” the bird replied. “This man has usurped a god’s power and tainted it with evil! This is sacrilege, a blasphemy–”

Kalki put his hand on his pet’s back, the bird falling silent immediately. Vishnu’s avatar took a step toward Leroy, without fear or contempt. He observed the programmer for a moment, the false god matching his gaze.

“I thought your heart was clouded by evil, but I was wrong.” Kalki’s eyes brimmed with sympathy, as if his gaze could pierce through the false god’s soul and see the man inside. “Beneath the skin, it’s all pain.”

Leroy looked away without a word.

“The god inside you does not fight back,” Kalki said. “I sense his thoughts in your heart. He understands your grief, as a fellow who has committed crimes in the name of love. He does not hate you.”

Leroy scoffed. “Lies.”

“Close your eyes and listen. The truth will appear to you.” Kalki smiled kindly. “You are not alone.”

Basil doubted a single therapy session would straighten out Leroy—the man had enough issues for a lifetime—but Kalki’s words seemed to affect him. The false god folded his wings, like a bat trying to keep itself warm on a dark, frozen night.

“I am glad to see you all again, and I am thankful for your help,” Kalki told Basil’s party. “But, if I might ask… what are you doing here? This place is a long way from your home.”

“Oh, it burned,” Rosemarine said almost absentmindedly as she petted her Fire Seed. “Bugs blew it up and we swore vengeance on their children’s children.”

“Oh.” Kalki winced. “I’m… I’m sorry to hear that.”

“What matters is that we survived,” Basil replied with a shrug. He would forever miss the house for what the place represented, but in the end, his party mattered more to him than his old home now. “We’ll rebuild it once the world is a safer place. And you’ll help with that.”

Basil opened his inventory and summoned a book he had stored in preparation for this moment.

“A Short Introduction to the Veda and Hindu Religions,” Kalki asked with a frown as he read the cover.

“Yes,” Basil confirmed. The original book had burned months ago, but General Leblanc was kind enough to provide a copy. “You came to this place searching for answers about your true identity. This book holds them.”

Kalki observed the grimoire with apprehension. Basil lent it to him, opening the book on the page mattering to Vishnu.

“I believe you’re Vishnu, one of the Trimurti,” Basil explained. “One of the three gods administering this system. Vishnu is usually depicted as sleeping on the back of the serpent Ananta Shesha or riding the great bird Garuda in battle.”

Kalki’s companions exchanged a glance. Neither looked surprised, nor in denial.

They knew. On some level, they already knew the truth. Perhaps not in these words… but they understood who they were on an instinctual level.

“Whenever evil and chaos threaten the world, Vishnu reincarnates as a human avatar to restore order,” Basil read the book out loud. Kalki checked the text, his expression indecipherable. “The tenth avatar is the one yet to come. Lord Kalki will descend upon the world at the onset of its darkest age, the Kali Yuga; an era of strife, corruption, and unrighteousness. Helped by his consort Padmavati, Lakshimi’s avatar, he will rescue the pure of heart from danger, banish evil, and usher in the universe’s regeneration.”

“As it happened before, so will it happen again,” Kalki whispered as he closed the book. The hippie stored it in his own inventory, perhaps to examine it later. “I see…”

“You already knew,” Shellgirl guessed. “I can see it written on your face.”

“I… I already suspected it. I did research, and our captor called me the Avatar of Preservation before he trapped me in this painting.” Kalki summoned a silver flute to his hands. The instrument brightened with power as the musician’s thoughtful smile faded into one full of sadness. “I had time to meditate inside this painting. I heard the souls flowing into this tower of steel. They called me to this place, praying for salvation. I was meant to guide these troubled minds to a better place. My song soothes their pain, but it can’t free them.”

Basil glanced at the floating Wedding Feast of Cana. Did it work like René and Aya’s prison? Had Kalki been dancing with tormented ghosts for the duration of his imprisonment?

“But hearing you tell this tale, Basil… it clears out the fog of my memory somewhat.” Kalki held his forehead with one hand. “I remember a place… a floating void full of shining eggs, each of them the color of a world. I… I think my duty was to take care of them. To make sure that the life within them would hatch safely.”

“Worlds.” All gazes turned to Leroy. His voice was a whisper, barely audible. “The Trimurti… oversees the destiny of countless worlds.”

“But I shouldn’t be here,” Kalki replied, shaking his head. “I am in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

He waved his hand at the neurotower, at this prison for souls.

“None of this is natural,” Kalki declared. “None of this should have happened.”

“It would have,” Leroy replied, exhaling as if letting a weight off his chest. “More than four hundred thousand years in the future, once the cycle of souls was meant to end and begin again.”

“The Trimurti System is a natural phenomenon?” Vasi guessed, reading between the lines.

“Once the universe ends, a single enlightened soul is allowed to transcend the cycle and recreate the world,” Leroy explained slowly. “Souls are purged and reborn, until the next iteration.”

“But the dead aren’t meant to suffer in coffins of steel,” Garud—or rather, Garuda—said with a glare. “You and your kindred have corrupted the cycle of nature and tainted this universe with foulness.”josei

“That’s why I was summoned to this world,” Kalki guessed. “To correct fate’s proper course.”

“Can you?” Basil asked, praying for a yes.

“I… I don’t know.” Kalki shook his head in sorrow. “I… I’m not whole yet. I can tell. I’m missing something entirely.”

“We summoned you in an improper form, so you wouldn’t be a threat to us,” Leroy whispered. “You and your female counterpart, the goddess Lakshmi.”

“You’re talking of Padma.” Kalki frowned at the false god, his innocence turning to quiet anger for the first time since Basil met him. “Where is she?”

“In Athens, under Ashok’s supervision,” Leroy replied. “We prepared a special dungeon to hold her.”

“Athens?” Kalki asked with a frown. “I know nothing about such a place.”

“It is Greece’s capital,” Basil explained. “And located halfway across Europe.”

“What will happen once they meet?” Vasi asked Leroy. “Will it disrupt the System?”

“I’m not sure,” the former programmer admitted with a cough. “But Maxwell didn’t want the two to meet. We needed them alive and separated, or so he said.”

“Their love will conquer the stars,” Bugsy whispered with dreamy eyes. “So beautiful…”

“So close, yet so far away…” Kalki whispered to himself, before glancing at Basil. “My friend, if I may ask–”

“We’ll help you find your Juliet, Romeo,” Basil interrupted him. Anything that disrupted Anton Maxwell’s plans for the world was good for mankind, and Kalki kept walking from one mess to another. “Do you even need to ask?”

“I’m…” Kalki cleared his throat. “I do not wish to bother you, my friend. You have already suffered enough to find me today.”

“Even if you weren’t a comrade, your death would literally spell the world’s demise,” Basil pointed out with a shrug. “Can’t let you travel without an escort.”

“Can we at least take a plane this time?” Plato asked with a sigh. “I’m sick of wheels and roads.”

“When I evolve, I will gain wings,” Rosemarine chirped. “I will blind the sun and cast the land in eternal darkness!”

“Isn’t Bulgaria close to Greece?” Shellgirl asked with a grin, ignoring the tropidrake. “I think I saw them close to each other on maps.”

“They are,” Basil confirmed. He didn’t miss Vasi’s smile. “We could make a pit stop there on the way to Athens.”

Kalki bowed deeply, as did his companion. “I am forever thankful,” he said. “How glad I am to meet someone like you.”

It felt strange to have an amnesiac god bow before Basil. At least he wouldn’t have to kill this one like the last two.

The Quest reward materialized in a flash of light, floating before Basil’s eyes: a lotus as white as the purest snow. Basil seized it. The flower felt as light as a feather in his palm, yet warmer than morning light.

Basil could only choke in surprise as he read. “I can respec my build?” he asked the System, struggling to believe his own eyes. “Change my classes?”

No pressure.

Like every good game storyline, the conclusion of one main question heralded the start of another.

“Looks like we need a GPS now,” Basil said as he stored the lotus in his Inventory. “But we can’t leave yet.”

“You are worried about the Incursion,” Kalki guessed, his expression twisting into a scowl of concern. “I have seen the message. Hard days await us.”

“Can you help?” Vasi asked Leroy. “I understand that you cannot disable the Trimurti System, but we were told destroying dungeons would slow down or weaken Incursions.”

Leroy listened with a short, reluctant nod. “That is correct.”

“Now, Benjamin, you’re a programmer, a smart programmer,” Basil said, squinting at the false god. “Someone like you can’t possibly take a person like Maxwell at his word. Not without insurance. What’s your ace in the hole?”

“I… I put a killswitch program in the neurotower network,” Leroy admitted. “A… a remote detonator, if you will.”

Basil had guessed correctly. “How many of them can you destroy?”

“Not as much as you think,” the programmer admitted. “I am a moderator, not an administrator. My influence is limited. Dungeons claimed by Guilds or Factions belong to them now. The System will recognize their authority over mine.”

“So your programming spell can only affect unclaimed dungeons,” Vasi summarized. “And if you destroy too many, the world will collapse.”

“Can’t we find a balance?” Shellgirl suggested. “Destroy just enough of them to disrupt the competition, but not enough to blow up the world?”

“I… perhaps.” Leroy crossed his arms, his expression thoughtful. “If I destroy a third of them all… it will close most portals without condemning the network. Less strain on the bandwidth means less power is needed, fewer souls to the slaughter.”

“You would cancel this party?” a familiar voice asked. “After all the invitations we’ve sent to all corners of the multiverse?”

Basil froze and immediately summoned his halberd to his hand. Leroy’s eyes widened in abject terror, as he recognized the voice too. The group turned in at the source; a small, blurred shade at the very end of the gallery.

The girl.

The phantom girl the Bohens had crossed paths with in the Pyramid had appeared at the end of the gallery, so silently that none of them had noticed her. Although her features remained blurred, she looked unmistakable like a human child…

But her voice didn’t fit her appearance at all.

“You disappoint me, Benjamin,” ‘she’ said. “Of all my pawns, you were my favorite. The most clever, the most desperate. It was fun toying with you… always appearing at the edge of his vision, familiar yet unrecognizable. A constant reminder of what you had lost.”

The shade grew, its features sharpening. An adult male stood where a lowly girl had been, clad in expensive clothes, his eyes hidden behind shiny sunglasses. His smirk widened, cold and cruel.

“But alas, this game has overstayed its welcome.”

That sicko…

“Stay tuned, everyone,” Anton Maxwell said with a small bow. “You won’t believe your eyes.”