The New Order (8 page)

As Stan spat in fury, Corporal Emerick calmly pulled a bloodred Potion of Harming from his inventory and raised it to his lips. Realizing what he was about to do, Stan shot his fist at the corporal's mouth, shattering the potion bottle and splattering the ground crimson. Stan was so absolutely insane with rage that the force of the punch sent him stumbling forward. He spun around on his heel to find that the corporal had already drawn another red potion and raised it to his mouth.

Stan's shout had barely left his mouth when the bottle tilted back and the potion entered the Noctem officer's mouth, just as a flurry of green bottles flew from the corporal's free
hand. The effect was immediate. A ring of items burst from his navel, and Corporal Emerick fell forward onto his knees, and then onto his face. Stan bellowed in fury, distressed beyond comprehension, and in a rush he felt himself fall to the ground, vaguely aware of a cloud of green gas swirling around him before he saw black.

CHAPTER 8
TENSIONS

H
onestly, sir, you're being unreasonable!”

“Please, just go back, lie down! You've been through a lot these past few hours, and you're not thinking straight!”

Stan didn't hear them. He was completely deaf to the objections of his two aides as he marched down the corridor and away from the castle infirmary. It killed him to think that while he had been lying in a bed, being detoxed of the effects of Corporal Emerick's final poison attack, his friends had been sitting in a council room discussing what to do about the atrocities committed by the Noctem Alliance. In his desperation to get into the council room, he finally spun around to face the aides.

“Enough!” Stan bellowed, harsher than he had anticipated. The aides staggered backward with fear in their eyes as Stan's hand had instinctively glided to the axe handle by his side. He was too infuriated to give them the luxury of an apology. The Noctem Alliance had killed Archie, and the only thing he cared about at that moment was destroying the organization once and for all. The aides now did nothing to stop Stan as he jammed his fist into the button on the wall, opening the double doors and granting him access to the council room.

The depression hanging in the room was plain, and this was reflected on the faces of the seven players sitting around the table. DZ, Gobbleguy, the Mechanist, and Charlie sat next to one another in a row. Their expressions were forlorn, and seemed more weary than sad. To their left, however, was a totally different story. Jayden and G were Archie's best friends, and they did nothing to hide the fact that they had been crying over his death. Their eyes still red and puffy, they exuded an aura of grief and anger. Stan felt the terrible sensation of likening their emotions to his own when he had learned of Sally's death.

Only when Stan's eyes lingered on Kat, however, did he stop for a moment. She seemed filled with the same depressed exhaustion that Charlie and DZ were giving off, but there was a distinct note of discomfort on her face as well. As Stan pondered what it could be that was causing this, he noticed that she was shooting a stream of uneasy glances in the direction of G, who was sitting next to her. All of Stan's curiosity vanished in an instant, to be replaced with irritation. Kat merely had a problem with G. Worrying about such things at a time like this was unthinkable.

“Hey, Stan,” said DZ, his voice devoid of its usual cheery, upbeat quality. “They let you out of the hospital early?”

“I checked myself out,” Stan mumbled in reply. “They say I should still be there, but I feel fine.” Nobody was foolish
enough to disagree with him.

As Stan walked over and took his seat between Charlie and Kat, he looked up and a sob erupted from his throat without warning. Sitting directly across from his seat at the table was the chair normally occupied by Archie—empty. It was at that moment that it hit Stan like a wrecking ball: Archie was gone, and he could never again return to Elementia. Grief welled up within Stan yet again, only to be immediately replaced with more rage at the Noctem Alliance. The reason he was there flooded into Stan, and he turned to Charlie, a gleam of fire in his eye.

“Is the city secure?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied Charlie. He sounded beat. “Bill, Ben, and Bob have the city on lockdown. There are patrols on all the walls, and nobody's allowed in or out of the gates until we say so. They also have officers searching the entire city, making arrests and interrogating anybody who may be linked to the attack. So far”—Charlie let out a sigh—“they haven't found anybody. Eleven fighters were part of the attack, including Corporal Emerick. All of them died rather than be captured.”

Stan's heart sank. He hadn't really been expecting anything else, but it still infuriated him that he had no way of capturing these players and interrogating them. Stan was just about to make a remark to that effect when the door flew open behind him. He spun around to see Blackraven
marching into the room, a book in his hand and a triumphant smile on his face.

The effect of his arrival on the rest of the room was immediate. Stan felt all those sitting nearest him on the table immediately tense up, shooting a dirty glance in Blackraven's direction. Across from them, Jayden and G also snapped upright in their seats, but their anger seemed to be more directed at their fellow councilmen around the table than at Blackraven. Stan realized with a start that he must have missed something in the days he had spent recovering. After all, this was a closed council meeting, and Blackraven was not on the council. Something serious must have happened.

“Here it is, it is right here, Charlie!” said Blackraven, barely suppressed joy in his voice, and brandishing his finger to a page in the open book. “Even you can't deny what is written in the ultimate law of the land!”

“For the last time, Blackraven, it is
not
happening,” whispered Charlie harshly, a vein twitching in his temple. Stan was alarmed to see Charlie's quiet fury. “There is absolutely no reason to do something that extreme now that the crisis is over.”

“Excuse me,” cut in Stan, “but what's going on here? Blackraven, what are you doing here? This is a private council meeting!”

“I am well aware of that, Stan,” replied Blackraven, plopping himself down squarely into Archie's vacant seat, “and so I figure that I had best be here for it, considering that I am now a part of the council.”

“Get out of his chair!” barked Charlie. Kat gave a little squeak of horror at the outburst, and Gobbleguy broke into tears. “You are not a part of this council, Blackraven, and to try to suggest it would make you a traitor!”

“You are accusing me of treachery, Charlie?” bellowed Blackraven, standing up to stare Charlie down from across the table. “I only want what is best for Elementia, and I would like to see action taken against our enemies quickly, without wandering through the political swamp of your bureaucratic elections!”

“Are you aware, Blackraven,” responded Charlie, kicking back his seat to stare the bird-man in the eye, “that those elections are the only thing keeping Elementia from turning into a dictatorship, like the one that we fought to take down just four months ago?”

“ENOUGH!” screamed Stan. Without thinking, he pulled the ceremonial golden axe from its sheath and brought it down into the table between Charlie and Blackraven. The golden blade snapped from the handle and fell onto the table with a loud clang. Stan didn't care. He wasn't even sure what they were arguing about, but he knew that if they were to
deal with the Noctem Alliance, they could not be fighting with each other. The room fell silent. All were staring at Stan with humbled looks on their faces. He was the president, and it was his turn to speak.

“No more yelling!” said Stan, speaking in such a way that he was breaking his own rule. “We are the ones in charge of running Elementia, and right now we have to deal with the fallout of this attack. Anything that we need to discuss, we can discuss it like responsible people.” Stan turned his head to Blackraven. “Now, Blackraven, why do you think that you're on the council? Council members don't just join, they're elected by the people.”

“Thank you, Stan! You see, that's what I'm—” started Charlie, but Stan raised a hand to cut him off.

“Yes, I'm well aware of that, Stan,” replied Blackraven, smirking at Charlie. “But this is a special case. It says so, right here in the Constitution.” And he held up his book so that Stan could see the words
The Constitution of the Republic of Elementia
, by Bookbinder55, on the front cover. Blackraven pointed to a spot on the open page and began to read.

“‘All members of the Council of Eight, a group of eight players whose job it is to run Element City and the rest of Elementia, shall be elected by conducting a vote among the entire population of the server, UNLESS . . . ,'” he said with emphasis, as Charlie had opened his mouth to interject,
“‘the server of Elementia is in a state of emergency. In that case, the council may appoint a temporary member until the emergency is resolved.'”

“Dude, we keep telling you, we ain't in a state of emergency anymore!” said DZ, his eyes wide with frustration. “The police've got the city secure, and the Alliance is gone for now! Why is there still an emergency?”

“I'm sorry, are you serious?” asked Jayden, speaking for the first time and with a dark note in his voice. “Do you not realize that Archie is dead?” He hesitated for a moment, trying to keep his composure. “G and I have known him since we first started playing this game. We thought that . . . when we lost Sally . . .” Jayden's jaw was trembling, and tears were slowly leaking from his eyes, but he pressed on, “that we would never have to go through that again. But . . .”

“But now Archie is gone too,” continued G as Jayden became too distraught to continue. “The Noctem Alliance took Archie from us, just like King Kev took Sally. And now you expect us to just sit here and go through an election while the people who killed our friend are still out there?”

“Jayden, G, I understand what you're saying,” said Stan evenly, trying to hide his alarm that the two of them were taking Blackraven's side. “But you know, you're not the only ones who're upset that Archie's gone, and the fact that he is doesn't mean . . .”

“Oh, please, don't even try, Stan!” cried Jayden, whose red face was now knitted in anger. “You don't care that he's dead as much as we do, don't even pretend that you do! If you did, you'd agree with us without even thinking about it!”

“That's out of line, Jayden!” seethed the Mechanist, jumping to Stan's defense. “Stan is devastated, as we all are, that Archie is dead! He's just keeping a level head and trying to preserve the values of our country instead of acting out of rash hatred!”

“But we deserve the right to act out of rash hatred!” bellowed Jayden, his face contorted. “The Noctem Alliance killed Archie, and we want justice to be served!”

“What you're speaking of is not justice, Jayden!” the Mechanist countered. “You are thinking of nothing but revenge! Justice is keeping a level head and determining the best course of action to ensure that no further tragedies occur. The revenge you speak of, however, is taking action blindly, without sight of future consequences, thinking only of what is best for you!”

“Do you even hear yourselves?” shouted Blackraven. “It's not like I'm asking for anything crazy or over the top! All that I ask is that, in recognition of the fact that the Alliance is dangerous and must be disposed of, I am appointed to the council . . . temporarily, of course . . . so that we can take immediate action against them, instead of having to wait for
days as we organize elections.”

Charlie, Jayden, and the Mechanist all opened their mouths to respond to this, but Stan cut in first. “Enough talk,” he said firmly. “Let's put it to a vote. We'll go around the table, and each take a vote as to whether we should allow Blackraven to become an unelected councilman for the time being, or to abide by the constitution and set up an election tomorrow for a new council member to replace Archie. A majority of five votes will decide.”

In his mind, Stan knew that he would never be comfortable with Blackraven joining the council unelected. As he looked around the table, though, he was quite confident that, out of the nine of them, only Blackraven, G, and Jayden would vote in favor of it.

“Let me start off by casting my vote,” began Stan, “which is for Pro-Constitution. The country of Elementia was founded on our constitution, and the present situation is not bad enough that we should start ignoring it.” Stan turned to the person sitting to his right, Charlie.

“I also vote for Pro-Constitution,” said Charlie, his voice steely as he shot a quick dirty glance at Blackraven. Thankfully, it went unnoticed.

“My vote is for Pro-Constitution as well,” added the Mechanist, glancing at Stan and giving him a warm smile, which Stan returned. As tired, depressed, and angry as he was,
Stan couldn't help but take a moment to notice how very wise and kind a person the old Mechanist was.

“I vote for Pro-Emergency Powers.”

That voice caught Stan off guard. He tore his glance away from the Mechanist and looked, to his horror, to see Gobbleguy, sitting in his chair, looking timid and afraid.

“What?” Stan couldn't help bursting out. “Why? Why would you support emergency powers?”

“Shut up, Stan!” yelled G. “He doesn't have to justify anything to you, it's his vote, not yours!”

Stan closed his eyes and took a deep breath, furious with himself for his outburst, but he now felt incredibly uneasy. He had completely forgotten about Gobbleguy, the former mayor of Blackstone, who had remained completely silent throughout the debate. Why would he of all people want to support the emergency powers?

“Well, I, for one, am all in favor of keeping Elementia true to what the country was founded on. Pro-Constitution all the way, man!” yelled DZ, a little louder than he ought to, but it made Stan feel a little better. Just one more vote and they would have a majority, and the entire issue would be resolved.

The feeling did not last, however, as one by one, Blackraven, Jayden, and G all cast their votes for the Pro-Emergency Powers. The votes were now tied, four to four, and the final
vote would decide. All eyes at the table were now fixed on the last council member.

In his entire life, from the minute he had first met her, Stan had never seen Kat look as uncomfortable as she did at that moment. Her reluctance to enter the NPC village during their trek through the desert months ago seemed like nothing compared to the girl that Stan saw now. Kat was squirming in her seat, trying to shake the feeling that all the power was now in her hands.

“What's your vote, Kat?” asked Stan carefully, after the silence and staring had gone on for well over a minute.