The sword fragment crunched through the barbarian’s Adam’s apple and wiped out his remaining Life points.
The Dark one’s legs collapsed under him. He tried to say something but choked on his own blood, fell to the side, twitched and lay still.
I was shaking from the adrenaline rush.
…
You have defeated an enemy.
You have saved Sir_Lans from death.
The quest Secret of Forest Hill has been updated. Find out who the Guardians are. Unlimited time to complete. The reward varies.
You have reached a new Level.
…
The world around me faded to black again. The last thing I noticed before disappearing was the shocked face of the young knight. “I thought the Guardians were just a legend!” came his words and then the dark claimed me and the stench of refuse returned.
Jeb was backing away from me as if he was seeing a ghost.
“What?”
“You disappeared! You were gone for several minutes.” He was completely taken aback, unsure of how to react.
“I don’t know what’s happening myself. Calm down and I’ll tell you what I saw.”
Chapter Nine
THE FARMING had to be postponed. Jeb was really puzzled and intrigued, and I was baffled as well. The place where I had just been wasn’t marked on the world map at all, but a sketch had appeared in my traveler’s diary: the ruins of an old fort, the riverbank, Lans and the barbarian. It was made to look like a stylized pencil sketch done by the firm hand of an experienced artist.
We examined it.
“It’s our time zone,” Jeb noted, pointing to the position of the sun.
After yesterday’s experiments with magical abilities, he had finally remembered himself and was speaking coherently and to the point.
“I didn’t see a portal anywhere in the vicinity!”
“It was a summoning,” Jeb replied confidently. “High-level magic. It requires Level 50 Intellect, at least.”
“So, Sir_Lans couldn’t have called me?”
“With his Level 12? No, of course not!” he laughed and then added more seriously, “A ‘third power’ must have been involved, mighty enough to manipulate cyberspace. I doubt that we’ll find out who had summoned you and how, unless you receive a relevant quest.”
“I received one ages ago,” I responded, briefly telling him about the Secret of Forest Hill. “But I have to get out of here to complete it.”
“True,” he sighed.
Taking advantage of his interest and good mood, I decided to bring up an issue that had been bothering me. “Jeb, I’ve got something serious to discuss with you.”
“Yeah?” he squatted down, keeping his spear ready and not looking at me, but rather monitoring our surroundings.
“You haven’t left the VR capsule in a long time. Jeb, you need to exit into the real world.”
“No,” he snapped.
“Why?”
“I can barely remember anything.”
“Don’t avoid the question!”
Jeb was silent for a long time, then sighed and quietly confessed, “My logout doesn’t work. It’s blocked ‘due to medical indications’,” predicting my next question, he added. “I’ve drowned in the digital world, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“I don’t see how exiting the game could harm you. Do you remember anything about yourself? Where you live, for example? I could find your relatives and get you help. The capsule can be pried opened, after all, even if the tech has blocked the exit, believing that it’d be better for you to remain under the care of the life support!”
“It’s not an option,” Jeb replied with a frown. “I’m afraid that I don’t have anybody. Plus, my past is a fog. Let’s drop it, OK? I can’t tell you my address or my real name. I simply don’t remember them.”
“The VR capsule’s resources aren’t infinite!”
“I know. I just don’t want to think about it! I become scared, don’t you see?” his fingers whitened around his spear.
“All right. Calm down.”
We sat by the fire for a while. I told Jeb my story and he listened, staring intently into the flames.
“I’ve heard about portal keys,” he said. “But not about Soul Crystals. Still, I think Igor from the Mongooses is right. The artifact has something to do with teleportation, just like your Guardian’s Amulet. Do you want to try getting out of here using them?”
“I’d be curious to know how.”
“Come, I’ll show you,” he stood up, picked up his weapon, and with no further explanation, walked towards one of the two unexplored tunnels.
* * *
We didn’t have to go far. Thirty paces in, we saw an old, partially destroyed brick wall. Someone had bricked up a side branch of the collector but prospectors had been here at a later time, for we could see the evidence of pickaxe blows in the light of the torch.
Jeb clambered into the break. “Dan, over here!”
The hole was quite long and narrow. I followed Jeb with a grunt. The musty smell and the cobwebs touching my face made me grimace.
A familiar iridescent glow appeared up ahead.
A portal, really?
Another push and I clambered out into a more or less spacious room. The walls contained archways, collapsed and filled with mountains of rubble. In the center, outlined by barely smoldering runes, trembled a black and purple clump of magical energy.
“Did the Abyss break through here?”
“Yep,” Jeb confirmed and added, “This actually used to be a normal portal, but then something happened to it and the room was bricked up.”
“How do you know?”
“I can read the ancient runes,” Jeb squatted down and ran his hand over the dully glowing symbols, some of them flaring a little brighter in response. “See?”
“You tried to activate the portal just now?”
“Yes, but it is blocked by another order, prohibiting teleportation. A powerful mage created it. There’s an explanation. A symbol that means danger.”
“To put it simply, someone has blocked the portal and wrote, ‘Don’t climb in, it’ll kill you?’”
Jeb laughed. “I didn’t think of such an interpretation but yeah, that’s the right meaning!”
“How do we get past the block? Do we need to remove some of the runes? For example, smash the stones upon which they are carved?”
“I’m sure the runes are protected. Still, if one of your artifacts is really a portal key, the passage will open. Try it yourself.”
“Okay,” I gently and slowly began to move my hand over the portal stone, and one of the characters suddenly shone brightly. As if bright, golden rays had cut through the stone surface.
“Stop!” Jeb grabbed my arm. “That’s enough!”
“But it’s working!”
“We don’t know what’s over there. We have to prepare ourselves...” he seemed to be overwhelmed with panic.
I moved my hand reluctantly away and the glow faded.
Jeb scanned his surroundings. His pupils were dilated and his face frozen in an expression of inexplicable horror. I understood his sudden state. He’d been exposed to way too much realism. It was better not to push him, forcing him to go against the surge of fear. I could easily drive him back into his shell.
“Let’s go back to the fire.”
We returned to the central hall. Jeb was silent yet I could see a fierce internal fight taking place.
“I’ve got the Cooking skill. I’ll prepare some meat for our journey.” he promised, sounding lost.
I nodded, sank down by the fire and started looking for information on portals.
I had landed in the Edge of the Abyss by accident and I simply didn’t know many aspects of the virtual world, so I had to catch up as questions arose.
So, portals. As it turned out, each location was equipped with its own teleportation stone, usually not far from the respawn point. Anyone could use the in
stant transport system without any special abilities. In addition to the stationary teleportation network, there were also scrolls, which could send a player to a known location. Moreover, a powerful mage, a sorcerer or a druid could create a temporary portal.
The instant transport system had failed when the Abyss appeared. A large part of the cyberspace had been visibly altered. Portal stones in the Wild Lands changed their location, lost their links to known coordinates, but didn’t lose their properties. Travelers could find them and put them on the map and then the discovered portal became accessible again. It was harder in the Dark Frontier. The few who had been here noted that the stones they found were protected by additional runes. To activate the portal, one needed to know the correct touch sequence. There was a note online stating that trying random combinations through trial and error could easily send one into respawn.
As far as I could understand, the ill-fated Abyss portals (through which the invasion had taken place) had been mostly shut down or destroyed, while the remaining ones spread negative effects around them (i.e., Abyss mutations).
Did that mean that the teleportation stones located in the collector and in the former dwarf settlement could take us to safe regions to which they’d once been connected?
Not a given, since we couldn’t accurately predict where we’d be sent because of the past catastrophe. It was possible that the receiving devices now lay at the bottom of the ocean or at the top of snow-capped mountains. There was a reason why someone had blocked the portal and drew a symbol indicating danger.
Right, what about my newfound (but completely undocumented) ability?
It was definitely being generated by one of the items in my inventory. It was likely that Igor from the Mongooses was right, and the Soul Crystal was a master key to the teleportation system. It allowed me to ignore bans and even use ‘destroyed’ portals, as had happened in the ransacked estate.
It all made sense in general, but there was still plenty to figure out...
I opened my character panel. Thanks to the unexpected summoning, I had reached Level 25 today, and with it, a significant and long-awaited event.
Choose your first ability from the three options:
Rage - you become completely immersed in the element of battle. Effect: sustained damage is reduced by 5% while the damage you inflict is increased by 5%, duration 30 seconds, cooldown/reload 5 minutes. With each new ability level, your damage absorption increases by 5% and your inflicted damage increases by 5%. The cooldown/reload time is reduced by 30 seconds. Maximum ability level — 5.
…
Resilience: you are cold-blooded and calculating in battle. Permanent effect: use of Stamina when blocking attacks is reduced by 5%. With each new ability level, Stamina expenditure will decrease by 5%. Maximum ability level — 5.
…
Purist: you are used to relying on your physical abilities without being distracted by various magical ‘tricks’ in battle. Effect: mana is spent instead of health points at critical moments in battle (HP <5%)
…
Purist clearly didn’t suit me if I was planning to develop a multiclass character. I was left to choose between Rage and Resilience.
I make a quick calculation: if I developed Rage to the maximum level, I would gain a temporary +25% to my defense, +25% to damage, and the ability cooldown would drop down to two and a half minutes. Given that the bonuses were expressed as a percentage, their values would grow, or, as they say, ‘scale up’ as I developed.
It was decided. I chose Rage.
Now I had to distribute several free characteristic points. This was what I got in the end:
Dan, Level 25.
Race: Human.
Racial bonus +2 to Adaptability.
Class: Warrior.
Class bonus +1 to Strength, +2 to Stamina.
Life Force __ 12
HP 240/240
Strength _____ 12
Maximum load 60 kg
Physical Defense 12 + 20.3
Dexterity _______ 5
Chance of evasion 5%
Agility 5
Stamina _____ 13
Physical Energy 65
Accelerated Regeneration 6.5%
Intellect ___ 7
Mental Energy 35
Learning Ability 7, Mental Defense 17.5
Adaptability 15
Resistance 15%
Adaptive Leveling - active.
Ability to Create Multiclass — available.
Luck _ 5
Chance of success 2.5%
Chance of finding items 2.5%
Charisma _ 5
Attractiveness 5
Possible number of NPC companions 1
Damage (fists) 24
Damage (magic) 0 (no spells)
Damage (broken sword) 48-60
Faith (undetermined)
Effect of the Abyss 0
Mutations 0
Primary Skills:
Secondary Skills:
Swordsman +5% damage when using one-handed swords.
Fighting technique +5% to physical defense when using
light and medium shields.
Abilities: Rage (Level 1).
Fame 2 (Normal Wanderer)
Required to reach next level: 5500 Exp (0 Exp available)
While I mused about all this, Jeb had calmed down a little and recovered from his panic attack. He was preparing the meat and casting occasional guilty glances in my direction.
I had to cheer him up. Yes, I was also afraid to plunge into the unknown, but we couldn’t remain here, eternal prisoners of the musty dungeon.
“Jeb?”
“Yeah?” he turned around.
“I suggest we form a party.”
“Sure, I don’t mind.” he said and a message icon blinked in my interface.
I opened it and read,
Jeber_Arium invites you to join a group.
* * *
Many of our dilemmas were solved by chance again.
It felt like events were forming a slowly spinning whirlwind with Jeber_Arium and I in the epicenter.
The distant light of a torch flickered through a gap in the wall and a muted echo carried the sound of voices muffled by distance.
Jeb was immediately on edge, “Someone’s coming!”
“I can hear it. Go and hide!”
“What about you?”
“I won’t stick my head out either, for now. We’ll observe first.”
The Dark Frontier was a dangerous place. It would be naive to think that its inhabitants, whoever they were, would be friendly.
I rushed over to the creek, scooped up some water, put out the fire and hid behind a pile of stones that had accumulated under the fissure in the vault.
“Check it out, amber resin! A lot of it!”
“Mark the place on the map. We’ll come back here later.” replied a second voice.
“Have you decided to become a crab[5]?” a third voice chuckled.
“What’s it to you?”
The uneven light of a torch lit up the jagged break.
“I think we’re here. He should be somewhere nearby. See the respawn point?”
“Yep, behind the mounds of garbage. It’s activated.”
“Dan must be here! Hey, come on out or we’ll find you anyway!” hollered the large Dark Warrior.
I wondered what they needed me for and how the heck they had found me in the first place.
“Hey, kiddo, there’s no point in hiding from us! The Shadows want to talk to you.”
I was all for having a chat, especially as I had plenty of questions. It was the players’ smoky auras that concerned me. Someone had sent three Dark players after me. A Warrior, a Mage and an Archer, all Level 35. The mysterious Shadows were aware of my progress and were operating within the PvP range, without the risk of subjecting their minions to penalties, even if they decided to send me into a series of respawns.
Well, what were my chances in a fair fight? In my worn-out
outfit and with a broken sword in hand, I wouldn’t last a minute against any of them.
“Listen, Dan, don’t be a newb and get yourself in trouble. There’s three of us. You’ve got nowhere to go, so come on out! Otherwise, we’ll get very upset and may keep you in reskill for a little bit, which is painful and unpleasant, as you surely know!”
Edge of the Abyss (Respawn Trials Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 14