Respawn: Nightmare Mode (Respawn LitRPG series Book 4)

by Arthur Stone

  Cheater had also noticed how beloved these dangerous gray clusters were. They were the primary sources of extremely valuable items. Of course such items could be bought from their extractors, or stolen—but not if there was insufficient supply. So loners and weaker teams went hunting regardless of the extreme risk.

  One look was enough for Cheater to understand. His questions received their answers. It was no surprise that the van was shuddering so insistently. They weren’t on a road but were charging straight across the steppe. Although the terrain was flat, there were enough bumps, rocks, and shrubs to simulate potholes. The engine trouble made sense, too. Gray clusters were not black. Even complex electronics could operate here. But they failed sometimes, even spectacularly.

  That had just happened a few minutes ago. The driver had declined to avoid a gray patch. The reason was simple: a ravine ran along the right, and an impassible string of shrubbery on the right. There was no other way. The motor began to belch and sputter, then stopped. Attempts to restart it were futile.

  So they had to all get out, push, and be jealous of those in the surviving truck. It was riding along slowly, giving the stragglers some time.

  Cheater reluctantly stepped out onto the land devoid of vegetation. It was a vile feeling, like stepping into a pit of sewage. The place was not entirely lifeless. Bunches of grass were still visible, and a stunted bush clinging to the hefty stones. But they were the exceptions. And they were all gray, as if dusted with ash. A close look revealed that the plants were colored normally—just partly desaturated.

  Perhaps the phenomenon was entirely optical.

  Regardless, it was a sight that was intensely uncomfortable for the eyes.

  The minivan was easy to push, at least, and less than a minute later, it was next to the truck.

  March had settled down next to the barrel of the cannon and slurped down a beer as he watched his underlings work.

  Then, he told them they would stop there.

  “Janitor, set us up some defenses. Roach, cover the place with your stench. We’ll be here for a while. Clown, Cheater, you’re going to the ravine to recon. Fill us a water canister. Look for a spring or stream. I can sense water.”

  “He means beer...” Roach muttered.

  Cheater turned to Clown. “Where are the water canisters? Can we take two?”

  “Taking two won’t work out.”

  “Huh?”

  “We only have one left.”

  No matter how much the others criticized Roach for his perpetual negativity, he had to admit that the man’s statements captured the essence of things. The pickup he had collected from that tunnel in the city was a pile of slag. Only its weapons had survived. Their other truck had been lost during the night battle. Cheater didn’t know the details, since he had been dead. Apparently, the trailer had burned down with everything inside, except for some small items they were able to save. Their big machine gun had gone up with it, along with a mountain of the party’s things, including items like the other water canisters. The truck with the cannon had not been carrying much. After all, it didn’t have a full-fledged cargo area—its trailer was occupied by an open platform with an anti-aircraft gun mounted on it. Behind it were two barrels of diesel fuel, somehow protected with steel sheets that prevented them from being punctured with machine gun bullets, as long as those bullets were shot from a sufficient distance away. Four sets of spare parts were strapped to the sides and bottom, and some minor items were kept in the cab.

  So the party had lost its water, food, and plenty of ammunition. They had gathered everything together as quickly as possible, and now they found themselves with little. March was satisfied, though, since he kept all his beer in the cannon truck.

  But Cheater knew the degree of his thirst. Soon, even the smell of alcohol would be gone without a trace.

  The vegetation outside of the gray patches was poor. Perhaps the soil was infertile, or perhaps the spots that poisoned the earth with colorlessness had some effect on the surrounding area, as well. There was little that was green. The grass was withering, and the bushes’ leaves looked devastated by caterpillars or other pests. A match would send the place up in flames from here to the horizon.

  Wait.

  Cheater pointed ahead of them, and to the right. “Clown, are those mountains on the horizon?”

  “They are.”

  “Strange. First time I’ve seen genuine mountains here.”

  “Have you seen a lot?”

  “No. This is only my second region.”

  “Then you haven’t seen much. You really are new, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not about to argue with that.”

  “Those mountains are just the beginning. This is the border, and neighboring clusters often don’t mesh well here. I once saw a whole cluster dropped in from Antarctica. Or Greenland, maybe, who knows? It was a huge polygon of glacier ice. Several square miles, at least. I only saw it for a few seconds, sure, but I’ll never forget it.”

  “A few seconds?”

  “There was a permanent fog around the thing. You know, from the severe contrast in temperature. After all, the three clusters around it were from the Sahara, or the Kalahari, or whatever. Hot sandy clusters. Those clusters reset quickly, too, every few hours. That’s not an uncommon thing near the border, either. So the sand and stones came in and heated the ice block. Water vapor poured into the sky. I was lucky to catch a glimpse when a strong gust of wind cleared the view for a few moments. Otherwise, I would have never known. I would have thought it was just a serious deathveil, from a reboot. Meaning I’d run up to get some good stuff before the infecteds came. But clusters from Antarctica don’t have good stuff. Not that I’d turn down some fresh ice right now. Of course, that means the infecteds don’t care for the place, either.”

  The ravine caught them unawares. Gray grass stretched on, then suddenly gave way to a thirty-foot drop.

  Clown looked both ways. “Let’s go right. I think there’s a way down. The bushes look greener, too. That means water.”

  “The whole ravine is gray, though,” Cheater pointed out. “The water might cut through the gray.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t know. Can you drink gray water?”

  “Why not? Gray clusters aren’t poisonous for players. If you find any berries or mushrooms, feel free to eat them. I once ate mushrooms in a gray cluster, and I didn’t end up poisoned. They didn’t taste very good, though. Maybe I didn’t cook them quite right—I’m no cook, and I was in a hurry. Four days of wandering will do that to you.”

  “Did you make it out?”

  “No. I died on the fifth day. Went to sleep, woke up at respawn.”

  “What did your logs say?”

  “Gray spirits. You roll the dice by coming here. You could live in a gray cluster for a week without encountering them, or you could encounter them as soon as you step in.”

  Clown began descending, without slowing his speed. Cheater had no choice but to follow suit, holding out the empty water canister for balance. It wasn’t too steep, but it demanded his attention. Losing his balance might mean falling all the way to the bottom. Down there, the ground slept beneath hefty rocks and bushes that looked viciously thorny.

  Once he reached the bottom, Clown tilted his head. It looks like he’s ... sniffing.

  Cheater ignored that. “Look a spring! Seems like clean water, too.”

  “Do you smell that?”

  “Smell?”

  “Yes. Smell. Go on, take a sniff!”

  “It smells like the grassy steppe. But there’s something else, a sharp smell, like ground pepper.”

  “Your sense of smell is shit. That smell’s not grass, and it’s certainly not ground pepper. It is a good smell, though.”

  Without explaining further, Clown began decimating one of the stunted bushes and examining the large rocks behind it.

  One minute later, he made a satisfied grunt and pointed. “There she is! Have you ever seen
shit like this?”

  Cheater shook his head. “Just looks like a rock to me. I’m no geologist. They all look the same.”

  “You don’t need to be to see the difference here.”

  Clown pointed at a prominent, black blotch on the speckled gray surface. It was like wax had melted across the surface and been stopped forever by an ability like Cheater’s new one.

  “I see it.”

  “What do you think? What is it?”

  Cheater shrugged. “Looks like shit, like you said. From some small animal. But I doubt it is, unless your interest in that topic extends much deeper than I thought.”

  “It does not look like shit! Smell that?”

  “The smell is strange,” Cheater allowed. “Like a hundred different spices, mixed together.”

  “That’s the smell of money, Cheat. Maybe good money. This is why the nodium collectors come here.”

  “That’s nodium? I thought it looked more like diamonds or something. Not like tar.”

  “This is its most common form,” Clown informed him. “There are others, though.”

  Cheater’s partner rummaged around in a vest pocket and pulled out a cell phone battery with a short wire wrapped around it. After unwinding the wire, he touched one end to the surface of the stone and the other along the black blotch. Then, he abruptly struck the lode with the blunt side of his blade, and it fell out without a struggle.

  “So, see how it’s done? Shock it with electricity and it’ll fall right out. If you find yourself without a source of power, though, you’ll have to resort to a sledgehammer—or carry the whole rock off with you. So always keep a charged battery with you when you’re traveling through the gray clusters. Come on, let’s find some more. Usually these things are like mushrooms—they don’t show up in isolation. This chunk is worth thirty spores, at least. I’m good at estimating this kind of thing. To tell you the truth, my heart starts pounding when I see nodium near. Like gold rush fever was, I imagine.”

  Cheater fished for more information as he examined the other rocks in the area. “So what is nodium good for?”

  “How the hell do you not know that?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know, you’d think I was new here or something.”

  “You’re a newcomer, but a mysterious one. People like you often know things that even high-level players often don’t. Well, I know that the razers and some players have a strong need for nodium. Some of the razers’ tech can’t run without it. They have self-repairing machines, for example. As long as those machines have a supply of powdered nodium, they are near impossible to break. When they do break, they fix themselves rapidly. Perhaps some players trade with the razers, but not even your average mole with try that, as I’m sure you could guess.”

  “So what do players need it for?” Cheater pressed.

  “That’s easy. You’ve heard of doublers?”

  “Yes. Players who can clone things. Especially ammunition. Most rare kinds of ammunition that exist in the world originated from them.”

  “They do produce most of the best sniper rounds and armor-piercing ammo, yes. But you cannot make such things out of thin air. You need a source—the item you’re trying to clone, some raw materials, and a pinch of nodium. Let’s say a bullet consists of gunpowder, steel, copper, and tungsten carbide. You need all of the raw elements that entails. Iron, tungsten, oxygen, nitrogen, and so on. And you need a little nodium. Only then will you get an accurate copy. Nodium is a rare item, though, and there’s not enough for all of the doublers in the world. Without it, they basically just sit around, doing nothing. The supply never meets the demand.”

  “I found some more.”

  “Where?”

  “Right there, at the base of the rock, nearly underneath it. I barely noticed.”

  “Ah, good hiding spot. Come on, let me give it a shock. This is a good piece, worth fifty at least. Do you have a cell for unbound items in your cache?”

  Cheater hesitated. He decided that the question was not seeking some great secret, but he still hedged. “What about it?”

  “Put this in there so it doesn’t get lost.”

  “You can’t put loot in a cell like that.”

  “Read the description carefully. ‘Loot’ includes things you get from infecteds and other creatures. Spores, peas, and so on. But nodium doesn’t count as loot, since you just find it. Mods don’t count as loot, either.”

  “Where do mods even come from?”

  “From gray clusters. But clusters like this one have a near-zero chance of giving you a mod. They’re too bright. Not enough black. The darker a cluster is, the better. The richest gray clusters border black clusters. Of course, those clusters have more dangers to your life and limb, but the chances of finding something valuable are much higher. Have you ever seen a mod that’s not on a weapon?”

  “No.”

  “They look like crystals. And they come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. And in all power levels. Mods grow in the rocks just like the nodium we found. The Institute says nodium is either a substrate in which modifiers grow, or is itself an early-stage mod. Who knows? Sometimes you’ll hear stories about players running into whole fields of mods. Filling their sacks up and going off to live like kings. I don’t give stories like that much credence. Finding three, or even two, is unbelievably lucky. Generally mods are obtained fairly by searching clusters like these. There are other ways, though. Gray clusters come in from all over. Some are even alien. From other planets which don’t look much like Earth. If you find clusters like that, look for buildings, or at least ruins. Anything that looks like rundown civilization. Even if it’s non-human civilization. Razers, for example. There you can find the weapons of the fallen. Weapons like your bow. They can come with mods on them, or without, and sometimes you can find mods that have not been used. Of course, you can find the weapons’ owners, too. Some call them the gray, or the undead, or gray spirits, or wanderers. They’re terrifying to look at and come in two basic types. The first kind are like animals. They’ll tear you up with their claws or other appendages. Sometimes they can use abilities on you—their camouflage tricks are particularly good. Others are intelligent, like atomites. They are humanoid and fight with melee arms. Killing a party of them will get you some pretty powerful hand-to-hand weapons, in fact. But it is far more likely that they will be the ones profiting off your corpse instead. They are quick and nimble, they know the regions they inhabit, and they can have powerful abilities. Mighty loners. Stealing from them is like trying to steal honey from a bear with your bare hands.”

  “This is the second time we’ve inspected these same rocks,” Cheater objected.

  “Nodium is worth it. Let’s take a third look and then we’ll fill up on water.”

  * * *

  March chucked an empty can and watched as it bounced across the gray grass. “Roach is right. We’re in trouble.”

  Roach made an “I told you so” gesture.

  The party boss continued. “We haven’t had the best luck with vehicles, ever since the start. We can keep driving across the gray lands, but not for long—our fuel is running low. And we don’t know what’s up ahead. The gray clusters can confuse my ability, like the black. The left side up here makes sense. Places line up with my map. But the Spiders also have this map, so they might come for us. Something’s up with the atomites, too. They won’t leave us alone. We took the first van we could find, and its tires were nearly gone. Not the kind of vehicle you want to be riding over rocks with. Our truck has started having problems with its engine overheating, too.”

  “I should take a look at it,” Clown offered.

  March agreed. “Do it. We’ll hide the vehicles in the ravine. There’s a way down over that direction—we’ll just need to clear it a bit. There, we will not be visible from any direction, giving us a day or two to get things together.”

  “A day or two in the gray clusters?” Georgy cautioned.

  “They’re the only thing around for miles
, Georgy. We have to get our vehicle situation sorted out. One and a half cars is all we have left. The slightest mishap will put us on foot, and anyone who walks the border lands on foot does not walk for long. Janitor climbed the hill and got a look around. He says there’s a green cluster off to the right, five or six miles away. Possibly several green clusters. I’ve decided that we do not all need to go. Most of us will stay here to work our magic on the truck and wait for Button’s mana to recover. But we can send a group to the green clusters. Fatso, you’ll be in charge. Cheater and Roach will go with you. Look for food and vehicles. Any food will do, as long as it won’t kill us. Of course, if you find some beer, I’ll be personally grateful to you, since my supply is about to run out. This heat is driving my thirst mad. But vehicles are the most important. We can deal without food for a little while, but without wheels, we’re done for. Anything that drives. And don’t forget about fuel, since we’re pretty low on that. As soon as you find a suitable vehicle, come right back. I’d love two or three, but one will work if it’s solid.”

  “They don’t know a thing about cars,” Clown said.

  “That’s why you’re staying here to fix the truck!” March replied. “I’m sure they can tell an SUV from a sports car, at least. We don’t need any more than that. Alright, get moving. And be careful. You won’t have Button around. She wouldn’t have the mana to bring you back anyway. Anyone who dies on your expedition is out of the party.”

  Chapter 12

  Life Eight. Looking for Wheels

  Roach, fussing as he followed Fatso, suddenly dropped prone, machine gun in front of him. Cheater followed suit without hesitation—though he had the presence of mind to avoid slamming his chest down on a sharp rock.