by John Gold
Azami’s voice could be heard clearly on the edge of reason. Each word was pronounced with wisdom and strength.
“Prayers are gestures of the heart. In the heart, feelings take form. In the heart, feelings bear fruit.”
Azami disappeared, and LJ no longer felt his presence. What he said, however, had penetrated deep inside.
Achievement received: Divine refusal
You refused to be reborn as a god of your own free will.
Reward: +100 to all attributes
LJ didn’t pay any attention to the achievement, as he’d seen messages like this one before. What Azami had said was ten times more interesting. Even after turning him down, Azami still believed in LJ and what he was doing.
Prayers are gestures of the heart—that was his gratefulness to the tree. In the heart, feelings take form—that was the tree and its growth. In the heart, feelings bear fruit—that was helping the tree in its time of need.
LJ continued to think about what Azami had said as he watched the tavern. He continued thanking the tree for its shelter and aid, not one iota changing in his sincerity.
***
Kasami was an extra-class warrior, one of the thousand best fighters on the continent. But for the second month running, he couldn’t get his hands on what he was looking for.
Once a month, the Darin Empire organized a great tournament, the top ten finalists of which received a unique combat ability. The top three even got a unique weapon. Only three participants were permitted from each city in the empire, and city mayors selected them based on their accomplishments over the previous month.
The first time, Kasami couldn’t get his name on the list for personal reasons. The second time, he couldn’t because some stronger players had appeared and helped the city for the whole month. After that, Kasami took his services to the very edge of the empire. Off in the wilderness, where strong players rarely showed up, there was a barely populated city named Kurg on the edge of the troll lands. Demand for the ore they mined had begun to increase over the previous few months, so the city’s population was starting to grow.
On his very first day in the city, Kasami happened across the battle with the demons near the lone tree. He was the one who organized the defense and was able to fight back the attack using the combined strength of the players. Everyone who participated received a reward, and Kasami got…the second-highest number of reputation points. The top player didn’t show up to the award ceremony. The mayor said he didn’t care about rewards, that he did what he did for his own reasons without asking for anything in return. He had, in fact, earned ten times as many points as Kasami. Despite all the turmoil, everybody who’d been at the defense knew who the hero was—only the nameless keeper of the lone tree had been able to kill two raid bosses on his own, take on all the demons, and survive two deadly attacks.
Fire mages prayed to him, saying that they’d never seen or even heard of such a monster. Even the ground under his feet had been ablaze to the point that the demons couldn’t get close. When his mana had run out, he’d started killing demons with a sword, never once staying in place. Most people had only seen explosions. Only the archers with the eagle eye ability, the ones standing on the roofs of houses, had been able to record the whole battle.
People started looking for information about the nameless hero. Impossible theories were floated, some even saying it was the same Sagie who had disappeared five years before in the battle for Airis Castle. But not one single player remained with that name. The small pantheon had gone after them hard, not even giving them the chance to play, so it couldn’t have been him. The keeper himself didn’t talk with anyone—he just helped animals and sat in the tree all day long. The pushiest among them used perception spells, though the keeper had incredible resistance to mental attacks. He didn’t pay them the least bit of attention. The buzz around the player grew, and shamans started summoning perception spirits. It took two weeks to get an answer. The local spirits who knew his name declined to answer, the tracker spirits went around in circles, widening their search, and it was only when the shamans threw up their hands that they got an answer back. The keeper’s name was LJ.
Two weeks of work went down the tube—nobody had heard of a player that strong with that name. They didn’t even know what kind of name LJ was, anyway.
Most people decided that the tree keeper had a set of unique items and the max level. That wasn’t important to Kasami, however—he wanted to find a way to get the moping cat out of the tree. Three weeks after the attack on the city, the bastard was still up there. The first day after everyone figured out that the keeper was a player, lots of people tried to get him to join their clans. The city administration set up a guard around the tree to keep them away. For the first week, the guards patrolled the border of the formerly-vacant lot, letting nobody in but the animals and the owner of the tavern.
The previous two weeks, something incredible happened, and the number of guards around the tree doubled.
Project Chrysalis had a problem with pets and mounts. They didn’t respawn after dying, even though there were rare quests and events to resurrect them. For most people, going through them was just too expensive. Really, it was an effort on the part of Project Chrysalis to teach the players to be responsible for their pets. But with the field and its lone tree, it was easy to resurrect pets. All players had to do was get there, receive an offer to resurrect their pet, and bury an equivalent offering. They could even speak with the soul of their pet, burying just some trinket. Stray animals showed up for help and buried their gifts, too. Shamans came in droves to practice their ability to speak with the spirits, while druids gaped as the tree grew even stronger over the three-week period. It was growing taller, not wider. The guards stood there in two rings, day and night. Nobody had a chance to speak with the keeper.
Kasami found a simple way to talk with LJ. He bought a puppy at the zoo and crawled out onto the roof of the tavern, making sure LJ could see him.
Then, he held a knife to the puppy’s throat and looked over at LJ in the tree.
“Hey, cat, we need to talk! Come on down here or I’ll cut this little mongrel wide open!” Kasami was yelling at the top of his lungs, well-aware that he was getting himself in trouble. Still, the reward for the tournament was worth every minute of a week in jail.
Two minutes later, LJ flew onto the roof. He covered the distance faster than any pet, not to mention any ordinary player. Kasami let the puppy go as soon as LJ got there—he wasn’t sure how the cat would react.
“I know I shouldn’t have done that, but I didn’t have a choice. Two days ago, the three most outstanding players in the city were sent invitations to participate in the monthly tournament held in the capital of the empire. There’s one important condition. All three have to show up together, otherwise the invitations are annulled. Basically, I need you to come with me to the tournament, and then you can do whatever you want.”
LJ turned around and was about to leave when Kasami continued.
“I’m going to start killing animals until you agree.” LJ turned around and looked him in the eye. Kasami was an experienced fighter who always trusted his experience and intuition, and he knew he couldn’t take on the opponent in front of him. It was improvisation and blackmail, but what else was he supposed to do?
A voice called from behind Kasami’s back.
“Go ahead. If she shows up, I’ll make sure she waits for you.”
Kasami hadn’t noticed the tavern owner coming up behind him, sword drawn. A swordsman himself, the player knew the innkeeper had picked the ideal position from which to attack. He could have killed him at any moment.
LJ thought for a second before nodding, and Kasami relaxed. It hadn’t gone the way he’d planned, but he was going to be able to participate in the tournament.
***
LJ was worried about the tournament. He was leaving, and Milisandra could show up at any time. She could think that he gave up on her, and that would h
ave left LJ completely alone in the world. He felt sick to his stomach, but he believed Arkham. The innkeeper would tell Milisandra to wait if she arrived. For his part, LJ would do his best to make short work of the tournament. He didn’t need to win; he just needed to fight in the first battle.
The next morning, the day after his conversation with Kasami, they met up with the third player and set out for Kkhor, the capital of the Darin Empire. Kasami created a group and invited LJ before stepping into the portal.
“LJ, why is your chat blocked? And why doesn’t your level show up? That’s no good—we all have our levels available, and that’s standard, so just go ahead and do it.” LJ just shrugged. He was there against his will, and he didn’t care what anyone else wanted. Two minutes of shouting and arguing later, LJ turned and decided to walk away from the fighting pair. They quickly calmed down and agreed to his terms.
In reality, there was somebody out there willing to pay fifty thousand credits just for information about LJ’s level. He would have paid anything in fact, just to know what his strength was, even if the people weren’t that interested in him.
The portal took the trio to the main square at the center of the capital. Kkhor was one of the world’s oldest cities, and the buildings in the center had been built two eras previously. The best banks had offices there, the master craftsmen dreamed of opening shops there… It was the cultural, business, and trading hub of all of Radaam.
There were still six hours left before the tournament, but Kasami said it was better to head straight to the administration desk and let them know they’d arrived. They could spend the rest of the time at the coliseum to make sure nothing happened.
At the desk stood a group of players collecting data about the tournament’s participants. They were information traders—the better their ability to predict the winner, the more they were paid.
***
Kilaya wasn’t your ordinary information trader. She was a shaman who specialized in conversing with animals. In fact, she was there to work on her empathy skills. The shaman class was a tough one, and empathy only appeared after a specialty was picked. It could be used to see what a person or animal’s mood was—the higher the shaman’s perception, the wider the range of emotions it could diagnose. And the higher their empathy, the easier it was to sense hidden emotions and really pick out regular ones. Less than one percent of all shamans made something of their empathy. Players like that, however, were worth their weight in gold—they could tell how strong opponents were without looking at their level or clothes. The magic vision shamans enjoyed changed depending on the way they developed as players as well as their personal qualities. Kilaya was one of those shamans, and she’d been learning quickly how to contact spirits to offer faster and more detailed analysis of their opponents.
A group of three players walked up. One of them was dressed like a clown, in a cat costume with a face drawn on. But of all the information traders there, only three didn’t run up to the players. They just stood there watching the walking marvel.
He didn’t behave like a leader or hero. But the strength they could sense was beyond anything they could imagine—in the shaman girl’s magic vision, he shone so brightly that she wanted to close her eyes. The spirits couldn’t find anything out about him, and he ignored all attempts to cast perception spells. There was just one way left to find out how strong he was and what he thought of his own strength.
You could always touch the player you had in mind to get contact empathy to work, establishing a baseline for their strength and emotional mood. Kilaya’s empathy skill was highly developed—she’d been working on it for six months already. That was why she’d left her clan. She sensed more than what people said, so she spent all her free time in public, evaluating other players.
After waiting until the trio walked away, Kilaya tried to push her way through the crowd of information traders looking for interviews. None of them paid any attention to the cat. Other players, understanding what was going on, took care not to stand next to him. The cat’s aura shone brighter than a saint’s, and that was an anomaly.
At the last moment, right before the trio got to the gladiator quarters, Kilaya was able to grab the cat by the forearm. He just turned and smiled. Then, the guards brushed her arm away and closed the door.
The girl just stood there, tears welling up in her eyes. Without understanding what was going on, she stood there staring at the door. Contact empathy made a connection between the shaman and their “victim” for eight hours, which is why most people tried to avoid using it. Sometimes, living other people’s emotions is just too difficult.
Her old friend Anderson brought her back to reality. Next to him stood Marapet, and they both knew the cat was no normal gladiator.
“Hey, Kilaya, what’s wrong? You saw him killing kids?”
The girl wiped away a few tears before covering her face with her hands for a few seconds.
“There’s nothing in him except loneliness and grief. All that clowning around is just a thin shell keeping the harsh world out,” the girl replied with a sniff. “I can’t imagine what he must have gone through to gain that kind of power and that kind of pain—you’d have to descend into lunacy for five years, maybe more. No, death is better than that kind of life.”
Among the shamans, her empathy skill was the best thanks to her natural predisposition. The guys had different classes, so they used different criteria to evaluate players. But they couldn’t have had any idea how strong the cat was or how lonely his heart was. It was absolute emptiness, a tiny soul crying out for help in an ocean of pain and suffering. Kilaya didn’t just feel obvious emotions; she sensed the hidden ones, too. The same went for player strength.
***
Each group of fighters had a room assigned to them. Once the tournament started, they were summoned one by one. Chiafredo was first to go, six hours later, then Kasami, and finally LJ. The waiting was long, so LJ just listened in to what was going on outside. He heard the shouts from the stands and the clash of blades, he smelled the burning torches and the room in the next room over. He sensed the many magic crystals protecting the stands from getting caught in the crossfire. The transparent creatures flying through the ear were much easier to see. Sometimes, the smaller ones tried to fly through LJ’s body, though they weren’t able to. LJ was starting to sense them even with his eyes open. Magic soaked into the walls, keeping new creatures from getting in, but there was nothing to block sound. LJ enjoyed listening to the battles from his room.
By the time he was led to the arena, he’d already decided that he was going to lose and head back. His opponent was a paladin in heavy plate armor colored red and covered in magic runes.
Dwarf, Patrick, Level 1381
The steward started speaking.
“Ladies and gentlemen, what a treat! We have a high-level paladin of Giral, the patron of traders and craftsmen, against an unknown young man. For some reason, nobody knows his level or class. Just the fact that he was invited to the tournament, however, speaks to the fact that he isn’t as simple as he seems. Do we have a dark horse on our hands?”
The gong sounded.
“Giral, give me the strength to punish sinners!” A bright light bathed the paladin.
LJ knew exactly what was going on—a god! There was no way he was losing to one of those.
The paladin got into his stance, covered up with his shield, and was about to try a direct jab when LJ dashed around and shoved him in the shoulder to break up his attack. But the cat’s advantage was his speed, not his strength. The paladin quickly picked up his shield and caught LJ’s attack.
“Holy Taran!” The paladin swung away, and all LJ could do was block.
The blow sent him flying, though he didn’t take any damage. On the other hand, the attack enraged him. Spears are for killers!
When his enemy closed, the cat grabbed him by the shield and jabbed tightly clenched fingers into his visor to score a critical hit that completely bypassed
the paladin’s resistance.
A step and a throw later, LJ tried to plunge his opponent into the ground head-first. It was his armor that saved him from certain death. But while his head was stuck, his plate armor didn’t bend enough for him to try and free himself. The paladin worked his arms in an attempt to get free.
LJ grabbed the paladin’s sword and thrust it deep into his opponent’s crotch. That was where all armor was weakest, as it was covered by a chainmail mesh rather than thick plates of armor. The paladin stopped kicking. The crowds in the stands fell silent, too—the battle had become vile, cruel, and uninteresting.
As the steward tried to get everyone going again, LJ quietly stepped through the open door. He had the strange feeling that there were dozens of beings watching him. On the winners’ side, where LJ was going, there was another powerful being sitting in one of the gladiator rooms.
Happily, the sensation disappeared when he walked into his room. That calmed him down, and LJ decided to snooze until the next battle. The attention and the battle with the paladin had made him lose his temper. There was that thing in the next room over, too… Everything was strange.
Time passed, and the warriors in the neighboring rooms were called on by one. Finally, LJ was summoned, too, with his future opponent right there in the corridor with him. It was a nasty creature with a rude smirk and undisguised strength. Disgusting!
The steward started talking.
“In this duel, we have two dirty fighters. You probably remember how shocking it was to watch them—in the first, master thief Tullius tormented his victim, jabbing her with an obsidian dagger, not even letting her die in peace. Kicks to the groin, feints, smoke, mirages, blows to the knees—Tullius demonstrated for us all his mastery of the dirty arts. Against him will be LJ, our dark horse and one who laughs at logic and the rules. He killed the paladin by impaling him on his own sword in the most embarrassing way possible. Just like his opponent, he didn’t receive so much as a scratch.