Mark 2.0: Book 4: Love Read online

  Mark 2.0: Book 4

  Love

  By Prax Venter

  Cover by Jaka Prawira

  Edited by Celestian Rince

  Copyright © 2021 Prax Venter

  All rights reserved

  Author's Note: This is a work of fiction, and all characters depicted in sexual situations are 18 years of age or older. Characters with any resemblance to persons that exist now, or have ever existed, are purely coincidental.

  -= Special Thanks =-

  ▼ The Probabilistic Threshold

  ♥ Jessie(s)

  ⬤ Elritodra Ettleburne

  Table of Contents

  Mark 2.0: Book 4

  Table of Contents

  - Recap -

  - 1 -

  - 2 -

  - 3 -

  - 4 -

  - 5 -

  - 6 -

  - 7 -

  - 8 -

  - 9 -

  - 10 -

  - 11 -

  - 12 -

  - 13 -

  - 14 -

  - 15 -

  - 16 -

  - 17 -

  - 18 -

  - 19 -

  - 20 -

  - 21 -

  - 22 -

  - 23 -

  - 24 -

  - 25 -

  - 26 -

  - 27 -

  - 28 -

  The End

  ~ Connect with Prax Venter ~

  - Recap -

  Once she’d found a spot she was happy with, Jezebel dug out a small hole, dropped the ghostly acorn from her maw, and then covered it back up with the remains of the lonely dead.

  As she turned to leave, a person in a long black cloak appeared between her and where Mark stood. Fear gripped his gut when he realized that none of them could move.

  The man approached Jezebel, who took a tentative step away, then looked around the stranger with concern radiating out of her when she realized the rest of her team was locked in place.

  The newcomer held out his hand and said something that made Jezebel pause. Mark strained to hear what the man was saying, but they were just too far away. Instead, he tried to feel what was happening through Jezebel’s connection.

  Right away, he knew she wasn’t experiencing fear. More like reserved awe.

  He turned his blind eye onto the stranger in the black cloak and discovered the same limitless energy he’d felt before from the high-level entity known as He Who Judges.

  Was this person another major Crystal Heart god? The God of Death? Whatever the deity had to say, he said it quickly before he vanished back to wherever he came from, leaving Jezebel alone under the Bone Rain once again.

  Mark sucked in a huge breath when he discovered he could move and heard a crack from Sasha’s snapping tail.

  “That paralysis bullshit is getting old,” she said.

  Before anyone could say anything else, Bear-Jez activated her wings and launched herself toward her team, her huge paws barely skimming a foot off the ground as she flew.

  She morphed back into her satyr form as she landed in front of them, her hooves skidding a little in the brittle bones.

  “That was He Who Changes,” she said, but with a calmness that didn’t match her words. “Apparently, he’d been watching me specifically as he knew I was the one responsible for the Cataclysm.” She paused to gaze at the sprawling landscape of the dead around them.

  “Well,” Sasha said, putting a hand on her hip. “What did this one have to say?”

  “We did the right thing. This tree was important to him and exists to recycle death energy into life energy. He, um, was considering siding with Maliah until we set everything on the right path again.”

  Mark reached out and pulled her in for a hug.

  “You did good,” he whispered into her ear, and she shuddered in his embrace as she wrapped him up as well. “From now on, you are officially in charge of all tree-related decisions.”

  “No new powers?” Abby asked.

  Jezebel pulled away. “No. He said that not fighting against us was all the gift we needed.”

  Mark let out a short laugh. “We’ve got so many new powers, upgrades, and shit to figure out, I’m almost glad we didn’t get another one.”

  Abby’s dark brows came down as she turned her yellow eyes on him. He shrugged.

  “I said almost.”

  Mark coated his hand with the new upgraded energy, focused on picturing the Blazar Saturasphere, and pulled open a portal back to where they started.

  A few surprised citizens on the other side stopped to gawk at the rip in reality forming inside their home, but that did not stop Mark and his team of beautiful women popping through. He had about half a tank of essence and found it hard to not watch their perfect asses as they ducked through his portal. Even the glossy pink peach of a rump Angel had sporting below her tough armor drew his eye.

  Should they get her some pants?

  Thoughts of pants flew out of his mind as he saw Princess Verrelle standing near the Goddess anchor with a brand-new pair of ethereal legs. They were merely simple cylinders, and she was using Amina as a brace as she practiced, but she had apparently been gifted her own allotment of the Goddess’s red energy.

  “Back so soon, Collector?” Urtanion said from nearby. Mark turned to see the black and green earless dragon regarding him and his Enthralled with a massive smile.

  “Mission complete,” Mark said with his own smile and then motioned for the Blazar advisor to join him over on a part of the promenade that wasn’t so crowded. It proved to be a difficult feat with the crowds gathered to not only learn about this new deity everyone was talking about, but to also witness the princess trying out her new magic legs. Once they were down on a quieter, more private level, Mark continued.

  “We replanted the Ghost Ent after we destroyed it, but as long as nothing happens to its roots, you shouldn’t have another problem.”

  Urtanion nodded sagely.

  “I know you are not an enemy, Mark,” he began, “and your coming has heralded an unfathomable change to our lives. Sovereign Fayllencia was a new ruler and having trouble conceiving a second child from complications of her first. She’d learned that bark from the roots of the unnatural tree would potentially boost her fertility, and so she led a campaign to delve deep into the heart of the Bone Rain for the purest sample.”

  The Blazar took a deep breath, and Mark received a brief flash of a violent screaming match between Urtanion and a younger Fayllencia.

  “I told her it was a mistake and use of the vile roots led to a multitude of serious complications. I know she blames herself for… many things, but I am emphatically relieved the Blazar people can finally put those terrible events to rest. I know I speak for the Lord and Sovereign when I say you’ve earned your reward. Please, take as much as you can carry from the royal treasury below.”

  Mark cast a glance down into the mess of red-colored clothes, gems, and shards and wondered again how long it would take them to search for what they needed.

  He turned back to the Blazar advisor to suggest they rejoin the others when a sharp blade pierced his skull from the side of his head- at least that’s what he thought was happening as his legs gave out. The pain from bouncing off the ruby path was nothing compared to the drilling, needling insanity boring into his mind. He heard Sasha calling his name from above as his heart-bound women all began to panic and saw Urtanion’s worried face looking down on him.

  “Collector?” he said, confused.

  But his voice faded along with every sound and all sight, truth-infused or otherwise.

  “Collector,” another voice said in the darkness, but it was muffled, hard to make out. “I apologize for the agony, but it is obscu
ring this communication. You must return to Starglade. You must save us.”

  He recognized that voice. It was Master Noma, the ancient Kalorplast Quest Master that helped them get the Crystal Heart shards.

  The blackness began to recede, but the pain was becoming too much to bear. His brain was close to shutting down and entering shock of self-preservation mode whether he wanted to or not.

  A vision of a mammoth tree from the window of a distant stone castle filled his mind, and he instantly recognized it as the Kalorplast’s bustling, leafy metropolis. Then, something impossible stepped into view next to the tree.

  It was Maliah. Her drooping antennae parted the clouds as she took steps that must have been half a mile long. The ground quaked at her coming while her black eyes looked right into his own, and the primal feeling of being spotted by a predator gripped his insides like a clenching fist.

  He needed to hide.

  But as the impossibly enormous Helper Fairy drew closer, Mark’s vision grew dim. The eyes he was looking through panned down on their own, and he saw old, knotted hands made of bark coated in a green sticky substance.

  “Sun help us,” someone whispered nearby, and Mark was instantly aware of other Kalorplast in the room. His family. He was so worried about his young sprouts- about all the sprouts everywhere. But he had done what he could. Seer to seer. His final sacrifice to force a message on the one hero who had a chance against this calamity who posed as a creator.

  Something was very wrong. This was really happening and-

  Mark sucked in a deep ragged breath as he sat up to face Sasha, Jezebel, Abby, and even the digital eyes of Angel leaning over him.

  The pain was already receding but what he saw…

  “Mark!” Sasha snapped at him, and he locked his eyes on hers. “What happened?”

  He did his best to feed them the image of a mountain-sized System Admin standing within the Crystal Heart game world as he answered.

  “She’s here.”

  - 1 -

  “The game world administrator moves inside…” Abby whispered.

  “Please clarify the situation,” Angel said, and Mark felt another flash of jealousy from the little droid because she was not mentally linked to the team.

  Abby turned to face her. “The entity calling herself Lady Maliah has physically manifested within the Crystal Heart game world.”

  Sasha and Jezebel each clasped one of his hands and pulled Mark back to his feet. Down the ruby concourse between them he saw the nude, black-and-red Awysai called Amina jogging up, followed by a shaky Princess Verrelle struggling to utilize her new leg-energy.

  Urtanion cleared his throat. “I also desperately need to fill the void in my knowledge regarding gods and goddesses. Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you saying this Maliah has appeared in the flesh as an adversarial deity? Where did she come from? Did she just attack you?”

  Mark held up one hand for a stop as he rubbed his forehead with the other to massage his throbbing skull. When he opened his eyes again, everyone was staring at him, waiting for more information.

  “Who does and doesn’t count as a deity is kind of up in the air, but the intelligence calling herself Lady Maliah has found out how to get into at least one dimension of your- uh, multiverse. I was knocked on my ass by an old friend forcing a plea for help into my mind. To save his people from her...” Mark paused to study the fading vividness of the forced psychic message. The sense he got was that Noma thought of himself as an early warning system. Mark looked up. “I don’t know what we could do about her. She had to be 20 thousand feet high. And who knows what powers she has in here.”

  “We’re all still around,” Jezebel said, indicating herself. “So, she isn’t all-powerful.”

  “Or even omnipotent,” Abby added quickly. “The administrator is standing where we were, not where we are.”

  “More wreckage in our wake,” Mark said quietly, then looked up to address Princess Verrelle and noticed her brother the Prince had joined the group. “We should probably find your shards down there and quickly get out of your dome. I don’t know if Maliah can hop dimensions, but I’d rather not draw her here if I can help it.”

  Sasha’s tail snapped once behind her. “Rushing to Starglade feels like suicide. I mean, the plant people never really wronged us. I don’t wish them harm or anything despite the disgusting livestock thing they do with the magic-milk bunnies.” The succubus’s bright-blue eyes locked on Mark’s before she continued. “But I didn’t see the admin causing any damage- you know, like in some giant monster movie. CEO Channa will work with Maliah if they start talking.”

  Mark crossed his arms. “I partially phased with all of Noma’s thoughts. He was wounded… dying. But the more I let his message sink in, the more I think his goal was to give us a head start on finding a way to beat her.”

  “Despite everything that’s happened,” the Blazar Advisor said, “I still believe our dome should hold against any direct attack. You are all welcome to seek its shelter.”

  Prince Isskeld stepped forward. “These are adventurers, Urtanion, and with a weighty destiny. I get the sense that this group will be constantly moving for a long time.”

  Jezebel held her palms out. “Here’s my proposal for our next steps. First, we should set up a Goddess Anchor near Queen Ki Thomellia back in the Awysai home dimension. Mark’s portal to anywhere is out for a while, and we certainly aren’t snapping any recall charms for the foreseeable future. So, we fly over to The Steam Pit where we cross over there the normal way again. You know, in front of that air or water elemental woman?”

  Mark nodded. “Yep, that pit’s bottom mirrors the top of the mountain on the other side. Good easy start.”

  “Second, Mark and I can then shapeshift into Vulpath and get any news from the city while we are near Thomellia.”

  “Oh, I’m looking forward to seeing that,” Sasha said, ruffling his hair.

  “Third,” Jezebel continued swiftly, “when Mark’s intra-dimensional version is ready, we jump to the abandoned Lagomorph farming village where we met Learis. From there, we take a normal dimensional portal in their graveyard to the Lagos homeworld and see if the Jar of Stars has done any damage since we brought it there.”

  Mark nodded. He loved having a plan, and this was a whole heaping pile.

  “Normal dimensional portal,” Princess Verrelle muttered to herself.

  “I must go with,” Amina said, keeping her neon-red eyes locked on Mark. “I hear the Goddess clearly, and now that this false god Maliah threat is here, she bids me to promptly establish Echo Nests. We will then all grow in power to face this threat.”

  Mark gave her a firm nod. “Good. As Jezebel said, we know of some perfect places for them… potentially.”

  A wave of disappointment hit him from the Blazar Prince, and all Mark’s Enthralled turned to look at the crestfallen royal. He did not want Amina to leave so soon.

  “I am coming too,” Verrelle said, taking a lurching step forward. “It’s time to get out of the books and into the field. The real world.”

  “My princess,” Urtanion began with a small laugh. “You only just learned to take your first steps, and I’m sure these battle-hardened warriors wouldn’t-”

  “No,” the young Blazar female interrupted him. “I am leaving this dome and there is nothing you can do or say to stop me.”

  “Go,” Prince Isskeld said softy. “Learn, sister. I will make sure the Blazar and the Awysai continue to flourish together. Chieftain, Verrelle, when you both come back, you will find a home waiting for you here.”

  Amina turned to face him. “I wish to practice my devotion with you, Prince Isskeld, before we leave. And… to say goodbye.”

  “Now?” The black-and-green salamander swallowed. “So soon after-”

  The thickly built Chieftain gripped his forearm. “Now.”

  Mark watched their smooth tails rub together as they walked away from the group, and his thoughts snapped back to Jezebel�
��s plan- and the new people joining their party.

  Amina was more focused than she’d ever been and would be a solid fighter to have at their back. Not only that, he was certain that they both would grow stronger with each new anchor established.

  Princess Verrelle was a whole other story. He cast his eyes over the same goddess-given energy currently forming her legs that also formed his summoned club. They were only two cylindrical poles extending from under her short skirt, and she was unable to stand or move without the aid of her muscular tail.

  He and the women he cared for were on a dangerous path. Would slowing down and keeping the princess alive be too much of a liability with so much at stake?

  A sudden and intensely pleasant sensation on the limp head of his cock pulled his eyes down to see the Goddess of Oral Sex kneeling on the floor between his legs. No one else seemed to see her head tilted up and suckling him as if his white silk pants didn’t exist. Mark was about to react when she pulled it out of her mouth with a pop.

  “Please show my new disciple a good time,” the deity said in a reverberating voice. Then she was gone. It all happened in an instant, and Mark was left with the soul-shuddering feeling that a powerful goddess had begged him to do something.

  “Fourth,” Abby said, focusing his mind back on the reality around him. “We need to visit the moon in our starting dimension. It’s possible Angel and the forgotten advancements of her creators will be instrumental in our plans to bring down Maliah.”

  “Indeed,” Jezebel said. “Based on what we saw of her circuits, she may be able to tell us something about that spherical facility in Lagos that currently holds the Jar of Stars as well.”

  “I just can’t get over the fact that there are AI-controlled droids in here,” Sasha said, focusing on Angel. “Is the emergence of artificial intelligence an inevitable force of the real universe?”

  The bot in question shifted her pixelated eyes between everyone before settling on Abby.

  “I am missing a vast amount of data regarding the current topics of conversation and of our itinerary.”

  Mark puffed out his cheeks with a sigh. She was right. And Princess Verrelle seemed both profoundly fascinated and equally as lost by everything they were saying.