Sleeping Player (Project Chrysalis Book 3)

by John Gold

  Some people are paying me a little too much attention, presumably because my clothes are too light for winter.

  No sooner do I step into the shadow of the lone tree than everything changes. The grass is greener, the air is filled with the smell of grass and the wild forest. The spirits rip themselves away from the shamans and shoot skyward. From right out of the ground, thousands of spirits belonging to a variety of animals pop up looking like dolls made out of white cotton. But the most surprising part is that I’m not the only one who can see what’s going on. Everyone is aware of the unique phenomenon.

  Note! The ritual for expanding the altar of the nameless divinity has begun.

  Apparently, the return of the altar keeper was the last step. Let’s see what I get from this.

  The tree’s guards let me through without asking a single question, and my advanced perception shows me the easiest way up the hundred and fifty meters. Way up there is where the crown begins. There’s an oval depression where three branches separate—the spot where I spent my first few weeks. It was only after the tree grew so tall that it created a special place lower down for me to lie in.

  My suspicions are confirmed. With my magic vision, I see that there’s an eddy right above the depression, ready and waiting for me to open a magic space portal. That means that the gods have yet another weakness: the eddy above the altar leads to their island in the astral, the source and storehouse of their divine strength. Destroying it would mean the end of the god.

  But why is there an eddy above my spot? That can’t be a coincidence. Some kind of scenario, formula, or special conditions were met for the creation of an altar, and that’s when the natural divinity appeared. I declined the status, so the altar became a place of worship for the nameless divinity.

  A thousand questions whirl around in my head, not all of them with readily available answers. Could this be Azami’s doing? Or is it all because of my advanced Life Magic? Or the animals who came at night? Or the souls who found their final resting place under the tree?

  Out of habit, I lie down in the oval spot with those thoughts in my head, looking over to see the two swordsmen crossing their swords behind the tavern. Femida is using a mixed fighting style that combines both defensive and attacking techniques. Neither of them is using amplification, and Arkham slides along the ground to avoid her attacks. His style focuses on landing critical strikes with a light sword as well as his incredible agility. For the time being, he’s pushing Femida back by leaning on his immense experience. But he doesn’t know her the way I do. As soon as she adjusts to his style, no experience will be enough to save him.

  The warmth and comfort of expectation trickle over into slumber, LJ appearing in the corner of my consciousness and starting to use Life Magic. Healing the tree is as natural for him as breathing. It isn’t surprising that he gets to work when my consciousness is sleeping or dozing—that kind of love for nature should be encouraged.

  I have to get up and put my fighting outfit on. It doubles my intellect, which gives my mana a big boost.

  Lying back down, I watch as Arkham is pushed back onto his heels. He pulls off a series of techniques Femida lets through, studying their effect and the way they do damage. The innkeeper has no idea what kind of resistances and protection Isaac offers her. Attacks like that don’t even pose a threat. The end of the battle is right around the corner, so I can finally get a little shut-eye. LJ is healing so much that I feel the air vibrating from the cloud of microbes procreating.

  My consciousness slowly drifts away. Leaves start to fall from the tree, adding an even layer to the depression I’m lying in. Moisture fills the air, vines drop, and a thick, sweet sap drips from them. My whole body is covered by a black blanket made of thousands of roots snaking their way under my clothes to grasp at the Life Magic. The blanket grows heavier, the roots cover me in a dense cocoon, and the black pile grows warm thanks to the thousands of microorganisms working in it. Little bugs gnaw at the foliage, earthworms digest it, and their nutrient-rich humus fuels the plants’ growth. There are so many that it feels like the blanket is living and breathing like one enormous organism. It’s perfect for getting some rest, nice and warm. In that moment, my consciousness splits completely, and I slip into sleep. Yes! It’s real, complete, deep sleep.

  New ability: Friend of the forest

  Lets you…

  Feeling conscious while also definitely asleep is an odd feeling. Is this all LJ’s doing?

  Yet again, I’m in the field of flowers with the girl in the white dress leading me by the hand. This time, however, it’s so lifelike that I can’t tell if it’s actually a dream or not. The red hair, the average height, the level of strength…she radiates love and care, like a mother taking her child through a dream forest. It’s definitely not Femida. They’re different…and they have different motives. The girl is leading me as though she definitely knows the way to the other side of the field. There are no signs or landmarks, but I can tell we’re going the right way. Suddenly, I feel a sense of alarm, though the girl barely reacts—it’s like she knew it was coming and just keeps leading me along. Pain breaks into my dream, and I can see my legs turning black. Even in my dream, I feel LJ breaking into my main consciousness to scream of danger.

  Opening my eyes, I realize two things: I’m not alone in the tree, and my legs are killing me. My whole body is covered in the ash from the burned roots, and I hear them crack when I get up. What was that for?

  Krash is standing next to me whistling something under his breath. He’s busy frying my legs using a dense ray of light, and I wish I hadn’t looked to see what was left of them. The defenseless soles burned completely away, leaving nothing but the stubs of white bones with flesh sloughing off them. The shapeshifter stops when he notices where I’m looking, and that’s when I address him.

  “You furry freak! What did I ever do to you?”

  Rage fills me. Everything around is incinerated or charred beyond recognition. This is my tree! My home! I haven’t done anything to him, and he keeps coming after me. What did I do to you? What do you hate me for?

  The shapeshifter was already getting ready to fight, though apparently being called a freak cuts especially deep.

  “You nitwit! Know your place! You want me to leave?” Long, feline whiskers appear from under his hood, and long claws shoot out of his sleeves. “Show me what you can do! Show me the strongest of the chosen ones! Show me your potential! So far, all I’ve seen is a weak shell of the chosen one who was able to kill gods five years ago, the one whose name is a byword even now. Show me the true Bloody Sagie, and not the louse that’s left of you now!”

  “Freak! I will never be what you’re trying so hard to find in me.”

  The shapeshifter leaps closer, putting himself into the perfect position to start striking at me. Close combat! An uppercut with his claws! My magic shield absorbs all the damage, but the force sends me flying up into the crown of the tree. The branches scrape at my body.

  Half a second later, lightning strikes where the shapeshifter was standing, but Krash is already gone.

  LJ appears at the edge of my consciousness to take over defense and activates my shroud of darkness. The shadows cast by the leaves would be enough to hide me from a normal person, but not a shapeshifter. A light spear flashes by without hitting me.

  Buff received: Keeper of the nameless divinity’s altar

  All attributes boosted by 150%

  Duration: No longer than one hour, with the buff lifted at the end of the duel

  The shapeshifter leaps upward toward the top of the tree, driving me up ahead of him. My advanced perception against his animal instincts gives me at least a chance of surviving, if not an advantage. I’m able to block or neutralize every mid- and long-range attack he throws at me.

  As the fifth minute ticks by, I start to feel the difference in the amount of mana we have as well as how fast we can replenish it. With the buff, I’m regenerating mana six times faster than a norma
l player. The shapeshifter is no slouch either, sitting at about 1500 morale without a buff, or 15000 mana a minute against my 37000. The difference in our reserves means I can’t use my arsenal of heavy weaponry, the ones that take 100000 mana, but, happily, he’s in no hurry to use his either.

  The attacks start coming less frequently, though they’re more accurate. Flashes of light combine with gravitational blows. Between the time I feel the spell coming and the hit itself, there’s less than a second, but that’s a lot of time for light and gravity. LJ reacts to the danger faster than I can, which is the only reason I’m still alive.

  Krash switches over to mid-strength area attacks, and rage fills me. He’s burning my tree! Bastard!

  Bastard! Bastard!

  A powerful dwarf hammer does nothing as I’m saved by a weaker teleportation moving me a couple meters to the side. A column of light swallows my shield of darkness, and the response is lightning bolts and water blades. The shapeshifter doesn’t stop for a second—I can barely hit him with normal spells. He’s all about light and gravitation, as they’re instantaneous. Some lightning bolts do strike home, however, and he’s forced to replenish his shield.

  My opponent has the better position and attacks; I’m better at defense and replenishing my mana. But then the critical moment comes when he starts climbing up to the top. For the third minute straight, he doesn’t attack me, just absorbing hits and replenishing his shield. Is he really going to try something big? This is bad.

  Krash stops suddenly, grasping a thick branch with all four limbs. I barely have time to hear what he calls up to me.

  “You never learn, nitwit!”

  My whole body grows heavy, and I plummet downward. As I fall, I hear my last bolt of lightning break through his shield as he yelps in pain, but I have other things to worry about. I’m falling at ten times the normal speed; damage notifications are flying through the chat. For now, my resistance is holding strong, but I’m a goner once the crown ends or if I hit a big branch.

  I’m able to slip out of the gravitational well at the last minute by grabbing hold of a branch. Still, the momentum carries me another fifty meters, and I end up right where we started the duel.

  My two broken clavicles and two broken ribs heal quickly. But almost before I can pull myself to my feet, a second gravitational well drops me back down. The force is so strong that both of my legs break immediately, and I find myself lying on my back looking up at the sky. The well made a huge hole in the crown, raining leafy branches on me. A few larger ones pierce my body. My head and heart remain intact, though my right lung and crotch aren’t so lucky. Breathing before was hard; it hurts now. It starts to feel like my body is being crushed into the tree by the force of gravity, and the branch in my chest starts to sprout thanks to my healing. Are you kidding me?

  The sunlight in the sky starts to fade, collecting into a single large cone. With each second, it grows brighter. The leaves of the tree around me start to catch fire.

  Everything else gets darker. The city probably has no light whatsoever, and it’s only from where I am in the middle of the gravitation well that I can see the cone changing shape. My tree isn’t just flickering; it’s starting to burst into flames. Bastard! Bastard!

  Bastard! Bastard! Bastard! Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!

  Bastard! Bastard! Don’t you dare touch my tree! My tree! My tree! My home!

  Fourth-order resonance activated

  Fifth-order resonance activated

  Sixth-order resonance activated

  Seventh-order resonance activated

  Eighth-order resonance activated

  My consciousness drowns in rage. Once again, I’m a malicious, vulnerable child. The world around me bathes in red.

  “Screw you and your resonances, bastard! I’m going to kill you, and then I’m going to respawn and kill you again! I’ll find your soul in the astral and make you suffer. I’m going to head into the Gray Lands after you and kill you once and for all, you hairy freak!”

  The cone starts to press down, burning brighter, and I hear the scared voice of the shapeshifter off to my left somewhere.

  “Spiritus autem lux!”

  All I have time to see is a flash of light hitting my eyes before I’m sent back to the respawn point. My consciousness drifts off, and I’m already floating in darkness when I come to.

  ***

  For the third day running, the entire guard at Castle Airis was on high alert. Neither Leon nor Nate had slept in the four days since Sagie published his video on the Project Chrysalis site. Leon was the only one of the young gods who wasn’t part of the attack on Valhalla, though nobody blamed him for that—the other gods knew what he had going on. For the last couple of years, they’d all had an unspoken agreement to support each other in their development.

  The past couple of days had seen Kirk, Sagie’s roommate, interrogated by anyone who had anything to do with the dangerous criminal’s case. From what he said, they were able to piece together everything Sagie had done, starting with his appearance at the Coliseum in Kkhor and finishing with breaking into the maximum-security prison. The League of Hunters had a quest out for any reliable information about LJ and how he’d been able to hide his real name. That brought a girl out of the woodwork who agreed to tell the story for a million credits.

  It turned out that Sagie had been going through treatment at Clover, a psychiatric ward located in the Sea of Loss near Tanatos. He’d broken out seven months before, even though nobody had ever been able to pull that off prior to him. The girl dumped him in Kurg, where he spent half a year and became a local landmark. Most of the locals and players passing by just took him for an idiot who started growing a tree.

  But a month after the first demon invasion in Radaam, Sagie set off for the tournament. They knew everything he’d done after that thanks to what Kirk had told them.

  There were dragons agreeing to help find the fugitive currently keeping an eye on the clinic. Once they’d heard that Margul’s killer had been found, they couldn’t get involved fast enough. They were all out searching the continent for Sagie.

  Two brigades of a hundred high-level players each set off for Kurg and Kkhor, all masters of PVP fighting, tracking, and neutralizing opponents. Artifactors had prepared two mobile respawn points that Leon enchanted himself. Sagie was going to be chased back to them over and over again to the end of his days, and Femida would be powerless to help.

  A mobile magic negator was set up around the altar in Kurg. Sagie was a mage, and robbing him of his magic reduced him to an uppity kid who was easy as pie to kill.

  The second trap was set in Kkhor.

  But Leon was worried Sagie had been able to create an altar to the nameless god.

  Did he have abilities similar to the ones Leon or Rachel had? Why hadn’t he become a god? The video recording made it perfectly clear that he was still very much human.

  Rachel… Leon’s thoughts wandered to how much she’d changed over the past five years.

  Just then, Merlen walked in wearing his usual silk shirt.

  “What’s wrong with you? Get some food in you—Rebecca told me yesterday that you stopped eating. You’re going to get an ulcer! Really, I know.”

  Leon laughed. The Golden Hand’s treasurer worried about their business more than Leon did.

  “I was just thinking about her, actually. Sagie is too big a threat, and he isn’t going to stop until he kills me. I saw his eyes the day he said he was going to. It’s personal—vengeance for his parents.”

  “And what are you worried about Rebecca for? She has a squad strong enough to take down a god. And they already have their strategy worked out.”

  The young god calmed down slightly. Merlen was right—it wasn’t worth getting so worked up. On the other hand, Rachel had really changed since she became a saint. Leon’s deification had done wonders for his intuition, and that showed most when he was working with a variety of information. Rachel was better at evaluating people and under
standing how to behave around them. Her behavioral model was changing, as was the way she dressed. It was more a natural ability than just throwing together some pretty rags too. She had a sense of style, she knew how to carry herself around different people, and she’d mastered the art of adapting to her environment. She’d put more work into it over the previous five years than Leon had. And he could see that she would be a worthy life companion and a reliable support when times got tough. Leon and Rebecca Ruzh had been through a lot together in and out of the game, though they both had the same thought on their mind when Sagie reappeared. It wasn’t the money; it was the fact that he wouldn’t stop until he had his revenge.

  Nate, the head of Leon’s personal security, burst into the room. He couldn’t have looked happier.

  “Sagie showed up in Kurg! They’re about to start the feed in the virtual space, and they’re almost ready to spring the trap.”

  All three of them logged out of the game and headed to the personal virtual space. The room had been created to look like an operational headquarters for the game.

  On an enormous monitor, the tree was shown from four angles. The entire altar area was covered by the magic negator, and the five-meter disk that made up the respawn point had been rolled right up under the tree.

  A subordinate started briskly talking his way through what was going on.

  “The subject appeared directly in the tree. We got replies from three seeker spirits who were assigned to this zone that he was there, though the second target is nowhere nearby. All squads involved report that there’s a battle going on in the tree.”

  The opponent stayed off the screen. After visual confirmation, they were going to activate the magic negator and send in the close-combat fighters, archers, and spearmen. The mages were going to attack from range. Allies had sent four saints with support groups, and Leon’s saints were going to arrive in just a couple of minutes.