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  Bullets and arrows whistled overhead, taking out any airborne Screeches that dared to make a dive for the melee fighters. Wisteria cast a Summoning spell, recalling the Shades of the slayed Screeches to fight on her behalf. The Shades mercilessly attacked their still living kin, chomping at their necks and tearing out their jugulars. Blood sprayed out Tarantino style, raining down on all below.

  “Okay, I’m here. I made it,” Warren gasped as he clanked into the room. “I am here to kill Screeches, and chew bubble gum, and I’m all out of bubble gum.”

  “Incoming volley!” Koby shouted as Lord Rand summoned hundreds of arrows out of nowhere to plummet down on the intruders. Triskelion gracefully deflected several of them with her vambraces, but a single arrow flew all the way back to where Warren was and struck him in the left eye.

  “Are you fucking kidding me!” he screamed. “The topless chick bounces arrows off her freaking bracelets but I get shot through the one inch slit in my visor? Screw this game! Maverick, you’re on your own. I’m going back to Reality. I can’t believe I wasted a personal day on this horseshit.”

  As he started slinking back to the exit, trying to pull the arrow out of his eye socket, several Screeches descended upon him.

  “No! God, I said I’m not playing! Get off me!” he screeched, frantically swatting at the creatures and running for the door as quickly as he could in his bulky armour.

  “Vega, he dropped his mace!” Maverick shouted, hoping he could be heard over the rising cacophony.

  “I got it!” she said, dashing though the horde at super speed. Snatching up the mace she charged it with a lightning spell, then threw it up at the Screeches still circling the ceiling. As soon as it hit one it released an electric thunderclap, shocking every Screech around it. She dashed back into the thick of the fight, knocking down every Screech in her path. The Screeches had started swarming on top of Dracogenes, so she started striking them off with her hammer, moving too quickly too allow them to swarm on her.

  Maverick continued to hack and slash through the horde, relying on Koby and Triskelion’s fire power to stop them from overwhelming him. One Screech came soaring down at him from behind, but just before it could make contact Vega dashed in between them and batted it across the room with her hammer.

  “Thanks,” Maverick smiled.

  “Duck!” she shouted. He instantly obeyed, and she struck down another Screech that had tried coming from behind him. “Maybe we should stand back to back.”

  “Good idea,” he nodded, immediately taking up the position. They were now completely surrounded by grounded Screeches, their ear shattering wails piercing through their skulls.

  “Draco, we need your shout!” Vega shouted, swinging her hammer relentlessly but only barely able to hold back the tide of monsters.

  “I’m out of Mana!” he shouted in reply. His sword had been lost in the chaos, and he was now brawling with the Screeches, with several of them clinging to his body and sinking their teeth deep into his flesh.

  “Koby, are any of the Screeches still airborne?” Vega asked.

  “Negative, we’ve got them all grounded,” he replied.

  “Wisteria, use all the Mana you’ve got left to cast Gaia’s Revenge!” Vega ordered.

  Wisteria closed her eyes, placing her right fist in her left palm, and recited a long series of arcane incantations, her voice starting out quiet but gradually rising to a shout. At the peak of the crescendo she cast a ball of earthen green light into the ground. Thorny vines violently broke out from the floor, sending shards of tile flying everywhere. The vines whipped about ferociously, blindly seeking out their prey. When they caught hold of a Screech they coiled around it like a boa constrictor. The more the Screeches struggled, the more damage the talon-like thorns did to their bodies. Soon they stopped their thrashing and fell still, their blood slowly dripping to the ground, with fragrant blossoms blooming from the vines.

  Wisteria collapsed from exhaustion, being caught by Koby as she fell.

  “Did she get all of them?” Vega asked.

  “I’m not picking up any more hostiles on this floor,” Koby announced. “The room is clear!”

  The party cheered and applauded Wisteria, who struggled to keep on her feet.

  “Lord…lord Rand,” she mumbled, reminding them that battle wasn’t over yet. The sound of heavy boot steps could now be heard descending a stone staircase. A hidden doorway revealed itself, sliding open to expose the stairway to the Temple’s treasury.

  Standing between them on their prize was the Lord Rand, dressed in resplendent black and gold, with the Sword of Objectivism at his side. He compulsively pulled it forward a few inches and let it slide back to make sure it was clear in its scabbard. He looked like he was severely sleep deprived, but was otherwise flawlessly handsome. In his free hand he held a cigarette, for he was the master of fire (and cancer).

  “You worthless parasites,” he said, taking a drag of his smoke in preparation of pontification. “You’ve come to destroy me because you hate me, and you hate me because you need me and I don’t need you. I need no one. I am utterly self-sufficient, whereas you can only survive by usurping what is mine. You think you are entitled to my wealth because you’ll starve without it, that because you are in need I am obliged to help you? But what value are your lives to me? By demanding that I value your existence in violation of my own rational self-interest you are making me your slave, and I will not stand for that. Taking the needs of others into consideration is slavery, and therefore the only ethical way to live is as a complete sociopath. Yes. Yes, that’s right.

  “I am the epitome of Man’s nobility, guided solely by his rational self-interest. Before I had but one flaw; complacency in a system that celebrated mediocrity and institutionalized undeserved charity for the destitute. Now though I am free, and will no longer live for others. Others are nothing to me. I am confused and disgusted by charity, so I came here where my wealth would be safe, and so that I can think about trains in peace. I will let the World perish before I put its needs ahead of my own.”

  “Rand, you’re full of shit,” Vega said resolutely, knowing that the only way to silence the libertarian straw man was to show him that they were completely unamicable to his egotistical philosophy. “You’re not enlightened, you’re insane. The only people who seriously believe your bull crap are greedy old misers who need to justify their socially irresponsible behaviour. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. You want rationality, that’s fucking Spock. It makes no sense to value a single individual over the multitudes, especially when that individual is an avaricious, sociopathic, narcissistic piece of shit like you! The wealth you covet is the product of generations of accumulated knowledge, of the labour of thousands of individuals, which was only made possible because of the infrastructure built and maintained by the work of millions more. You cannot stand atop of a Human pyramid and declare yourself a giant. If that pyramid collapsed it is you who would fall the furthest, and the people at the bottom would finally be free of a great burden. I may be of the parasitical underclass, but you belong to the vampiric overclass. We’re both parasites, the only difference is that I’m one of those mites that live in your eyelash follicles while you’re a ten foot tape worm!

  “We’ve all been getting along just fine since you went Galt, and I’m only here to make sure you never come back.”

  “You are obviously evil, since you do not believe what I believe, and I am a paragon of all that’s good and true,” Rand said.

  “Has it ever occurred to you that you’re not as great as your think you are?” Koby asked out of genuine curiosity.

  “No, I’m practically perfect in every way,” he assured him. “But you are flawed, and by refusing to bootstrap yourself to self-actualized perfection you have chosen death. It would be immoral to let you live. Since I can do no wrong, I must kill you all.”

  Rand dropped his cigarette and drew the Sword of Objectivism from its sheath, glowin
g white hot and making its trademarked distinctive ring.

  Rand charged at the party in what he thought was a very masculine rage, but what they perceived as more of a childish and possibly psychotic tantrum.

  The melee fighters all scrambled out of his way to give Koby and Triskelion a clear line of fire. Rand deflected both bullets and arrows, the projectiles ricocheting off his sword and penetrating deep into the avatars of their shooters. Koby and Triskelion collapsed to the ground, leaving Wisteria defenceless. Rand raised his sword to slice her in half, but screamed as his left hand was pierced by one of Maverick’s holy daggers. Due to his Alignment the consecrated weapon started burning through his hand, sending black smoke rising to the ceiling. Rand immediately pulled it out, but even the hilt burned him and he reflexively dropped it. Roaring in rage he charged straight at Maverick, knocking Dracogenes half way across the room with a single push. Vega dashed in front of him too quickly for him to react, striking him across the jaw with her hammer. He went flying backwards, but did not drop the sword.

  “Don’t touch my boyfriend,” Vega warned sternly.

  “I will not appease you, for you are evil, and appeasing evil only makes it stronger,” he claimed. “The only way to achieve peace is by utterly annihilating your enemy, even if it takes endless war. I have the moral clarity to never feel compassion or mercy for my enemies, for…”

  As the Lord Rand continued his monologue, Vega received a text message in her HUD from Maverick. It said that since the statue of Atlas was silver and Rand’s powers were dark in nature, if they crushed him with it would either kill him or at least keep him pinned down. He said that he could keep Rand close enough to the statue for her to knock it over on him.

  She texted back ‘k’, and turned her attention back to Rand, who was now rambling about the evils of public schools and child labour laws. She rolled her eyes, and dashed as close to the end of the room as she could to get a running start at the statue.

  “Hey come back here. This speech is like sixty pages long,” Rand said, rising to his feet. He yelped as Maverick’s second holy dagger struck him in the back of the neck. He pulled it out of the smouldering wound and cast it aside. Gripping the Sword of Objectivism with his good hand, the raised letters of the word Objectivism pressing uncomfortably into his palm, he made another charge for Maverick.

  Maverick held his ground, blocking Rand’s blow with his Cygnet Axe. Rand, snarling and gritting his teeth, refused to yield and kept pushing with all his strength. Maverick did not give any ground, steadfastly keeping Rand exactly where he was. The Sword inched closer and closer to his face, and when it was only millimeters away from making contact he heard the loud clang of Vega’s hammer smashing into the statue at high speed, followed by the creaking of it falling over.

  Rand looked up in shock, and Maverick took advantage of his distraction to push him directly into the path of statue while getting himself clear.

  Rand’s scream was instantly silenced as he was crushed under the statute’s massive weight, the silver draining his Mana and preventing him from healing. His crushed ribs impaled his lungs and other organs, his blood gradually pooling out onto the floor around him. He coughed weakly, sputtering up blood. He desperately grasped for the Sword of Objectivism, but it had been thrown out of reach.

  Vega strode up to the Sword slowly, and picked it up with dramatic awe. She shuddered as she realized she was holding the most powerfully sword in all Surreality, her reward for faithfully seeing out her campaign until the end.

  Rand coughed again, and she realized there was one more thing she had to do. He turned his head at the sound of her footsteps, and saw her heading towards him with singular intent.

  “Mercy…” he muttered, pathetically and hypocritically.

  “Mercy kill you? Of course,” she smiled, decapitating him with one blow.

  “Achievement Unlocked!” announced a disembodied voice. The plaque in her HUD read Achievement Unlocked: I reject your reality and substitute my own. Defeat Lord Rand. Its rewards were the same as her achievement for defeating Idolum, since they were both elite level bosses.

  Vega started jumping up and down, screaming in exaltation. She leapt into Mavericks arms and kissed him passionately.

  The completion of the quest revitalized the rest of the party members, who immediately congregated to their leader.

  “What happened?” Koby asked.

  “Maverick figured out how to kill Rand!” Vega announced proudly. “The statue’s made of silver.”

  “No it’s not,” Koby claimed.

  “It’s tarnished silver, but it’s still silver,” Maverick told him. “The programmers probably made it that way so it wasn’t so obvious, but that much silver was more than enough to neutralize Rand’s power.”

  “So, we won?” Wisteria asked in disbelief.

  “We won!” Vega smiled, holding the Sword of Objectivism high in triumph. “We are now one of a select group of heroes too ever complete the Sword of Objectivism campaign, and the Aeolic Temple’s treasury is now ours to pillage. Come on!”

  She excitedly led her party up the stairway to the treasury as they cheered and shouted in victory.

  As soon as they had left the antechamber, Idolum crept in, skittering across the ceiling like a spider.

  The treasury was a vast room, filled with every game item that had ever been banned by the admins. Most of them sat on four foot tall podiums, with golden plaques describing their function and history.

  “Look at all this swag,” Triskelion said in awe. “We can god mod the crap out of ourselves.”

  “Grab whatever you want, just don’t get into any fights and remember that I need the Electric Aura charm for Fizwitz,” she said. She grabbed Maverick’s hand and pulled him down the first aisle, leaving the rest of the party on their own. “Listen babe, feel free to sell anything you get here. Don’t worry about what they think. We never would have gotten here if it wasn’t for you.”

  “It would be nice to have a stash of Surreal treasure in case I ever need some quick cash,” Maverick agreed. He stopped to examine a magic potion. “Monovitalist Elixir. All player stats will be maxed out, but upon death said player’s character will be deleted and unable to respawn. Yikes. I don’t think anyone would pay for that.”

  Vega nodded, shuddering at the prospect of permadeath.

  “Yeah, some of this stuff was taken out of the game for good reason, but there’s lots of cool stuff too,” she said. She picked up a golden battle axe a few feet away. “Here’s something you’ll like; an Aurelian Axe. For every point of damage you deal out you get a gold coin. I bet we can find a charm that can get that even higher.”

  She tossed him the axe, and the two of them merrily continued looking through the treasury. They found the Electric Aura charm, as well as a ‘Luck of the Irish’ charm that would increase Maverick’s gold from all sources, including his new axe. Vega found a charm called ‘A Girl’s Best Friend’, which she used to encrust her leather outfit in a protective and dazzling layer of diamonds. She let Maverick take charms for boosting Health, Mana, strength, and stamina, since she had already maxed all these traits out. She had little interest in the weapons as well, since she now wielded the Sword of Objectivism. Aside from the Aurelian Axe, most of the weapons Maverick took were too high above his character level for him to use. He figured he’d either sell them or maybe use them someday when he leveled up enough.

  “Oh, check this out!” Vega said excitedly, grabbing a black demi-gauntlet off of a pedestal. “It’s a spell gauntlet. It lets anyone learn the same kinds of spells as a Mage. I could become a Rogue Mage with this thing! Can you imagine? I can do campaigns that no one character was ever meant to do! I can get achievements that no one’s ever gotten before. I’m going to be the most overpowered character ever!”

  She squeed in exhalation, jumping up and down while clutching the gauntlet.

  “I’m sorry. I know I’m acting ridiculous but I am just so high above
my baseline happiness right now.”

  “It’s okay,” Maverick said, smiling at her jubilant behaviour. “You’re unbelievably adorable when you’re happy.”

  Her avatar blushed like an anime character.

  “Well, if you’re not sick of me yet would you like to come see the Astral Symphony with me tonight?” she asked shyly. “We can watch it from the Grey Knolls and have a picnic.”

  “I don’t have any plans,” Maverick agreed.

  “Fantastic. I’m just going to see how the others are doing and then we can head off,” she said.

  The rest of the party were gathered together and comparing their plunder. Wisteria had found a staff that greatly increased both her Mana and the intensity of her spells. Triskelion had found a bow that let her fire at multiple targets simultaneously, and an enchanted flute that would let her tame any creature she desired. She had also picked up an enchanted parchment that contained the knowledge of an entire library because she thought her Barbarian character would be amazed by it, even though she was actually fairly indifferent to what was functionally an old e-reader.

  Koby had acquired the ‘From My Cold Dead Hands’ charm, which made it impossible for anyone to confiscate or neutralize his guns. Dracogenes wore a fur cape that maxed out his stealth, speed and stamina.

  “Nice ice Vega,” Wisteria said, nodding to her new bedazzled outfit.

  “Thanks. Maverick and I have gotten everything we want, so if you guys don’t need me we’re going to buzz off,” she told them.

  “What are you taking about? This is our greatest victory ever. We have to go out to celebrate,” Triskelion objected.

  “Well tonight I want to go out and celebrate with my boyfriend,” Vega said. “Alone.”

  “We’ve been a party for years, and you’re going to ditch us for the guy you met yesterday?” Triskelion asked in disgust.

  “You’re the party who abandoned me when I needed you, and Maverick’s the only one in all of Surreality who was actually willing to help me,” she replied harshly. Triskelion opened her mouth to object, but Koby held up his hand to silence her.