Respawn: Nightmare Mode (Respawn LitRPG series Book 4)

by Arthur Stone

  Walking was easier now. The period of rest in the cataclysmically annihilated city had benefited them all. Finding a place with endless food and drink helped too, of course. His wounds had not yet healed without a trace, but their progress had been decent, and they no longer caused him to suffer at every step. His Stamina had recovered, and although his Pleasure was not full, it was looking much better. Traveling was no longer torturous, though still not particularly joyful.

  The slope began rising once again. Underfoot lay not rocks, thankfully, but a smooth, shallow hill. Cheater hated walking up inclines, of course, but at least that was the worst of the situation—besides Kitty.

  Until the crest of the hill appeared.

  The landscape itself was unremarkable, but there were piles of rusted iron among the stones. It looked like someone had chopped up massive pieces of metal with gigantic shears and scattered them around half a square mile.

  Some were obviously once parts of huge mechanisms, but others were so disfigured as to be beyond all guess at their origin.

  Bending down, however, Cheater picked up a highly recognizable item. It was a muzzle brake for a hundred-millimeter gun. Cut perfectly at an oblique angle, so that the tip was as sharp as a syringe, but still easy to identify.

  Tat crouched down and pointed at a smooth boulder that was chopped in two. “Look. The same kind of destruction as back in the city. Stones and metal both, scissored in two.”

  “These scraps were once military equipment,” Cheater added. “Tanks, APCs, and more.”

  March easily lifted a heavy piece of armor. “See this emblem? Spiders.”

  Cheater nodded. “So that’s why I didn’t get credit for discovering the cluster. Whole crowds of them were through here. And died here. What killed them?”

  Tat kept quiet as March crouched down by something that looked like part of a tank tower. He picked up a narrow aluminum syringe. “Look what I found. Somebody was completely annihilated except for this goldspec. And what’s this?”

  March bent over and collected something else, then showed them. It was half of an automatic rifle, cut straight down the middle, as they were becoming accustomed to. “I doubt this will ever shoot anything again, but there’s ammo in the magazine. Just the right size for your rifle, Tat.”

  “I don’t have it anymore,” she announced. “It’s gone. And I’ll never get it back—it’s not bound.”

  March gave Cheater the syringe. “Here, buddy, this will come in handy.”

  “Why don’t you keep it?” he frowned.

  “I’ll be good as new soon. Maybe even today, if the respawn happens quickly enough.”

  “Why do you keep talking about your own death?”

  “Because whether I want it to happen or not, it will. We have almost arrived, Cheater. This is a good place to die. Nice view. You can see far into the distance. As you can see, this area has already been visited by the creature we seek. He has sensed me now, and he knows the way well. He will be here soon.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course not. But your understanding is not necessary. You have done well, following me. A little too much talking, though.”

  “All for nothing, it seems, since you can’t just give us a straight answer. Just confusion mixed with comedy.”

  “Tat? Why are you so quiet?” March asked the girl.

  She shrugged. “What’s there to say? You promised I would not regret following you. So here I am.”

  “Don’t you wonder why we’re here, too?”

  “Of course. But Cheater’s right: interrogating you is useless.”

  “It was for your benefit I said nothing. I was protecting you from worrying. But now, it’s time. Our reason for coming here is not this place. Our reason for coming here is now coming towards us. He is a very rare, very strong creature. So deadly that the most powerful infecteds keep well away from him. You wondered why I remained so calm during this whole trek, Cheater. That’s why. The ruler of these lands tolerates no visitors. He is so strong that players dare not even speak his name out loud. Anyone who does is quickly shut up. With fists, if they’re lucky. With bullets if they’re not. It is only in whispers that the most brash can drop tiny hints about this threat that is never named. Anyone who has been here for a while gets the hints. The Unnamed is the scariest creature in the whole area. He is what we have come here for. We have come to kill him.”

  Cheater whistled. “I’ve heard a thing or two. If this is what I think it is, it’ll be easier for us to bite our own elbows off than scratch this beast.”

  “Do not call it a beast!” March chided, intensely serious. “He is the Unnamed. You do not do well to call him even offensive names.”

  “You never struck me as superstitious before.”

  “I’m not. I have a kind of respect for it. They say that there is no stronger adversary on the whole Continent. I have heard rumors of something stronger towards the center, but I have no way of confirming that.”

  “I’ve heard all kinds of rumors about you,” Tat retorted, “and they seem justified.”

  “Plenty of lies among them,” March said. “I’m no ordinary player, that much is true. I have abilities. A whole set of them. Well, two of them are a pair that only I have. They are the rarest abilities, possibly unique. Getting one is immensely lucky. You have seen me use the first ability more than once, but you never understood the nature of it. I can sense the Unnamed from great distances. Dozens or even hundreds of miles away. My record is two hundred and eight miles. I haven’t beaten that one yet. I can clearly see the path to my target and some objects near the target. Cluster boundaries. Regions. Large bodies of water. Buildings. Now you know how I got all that information.”

  “You can see those details from hundreds of miles away?”

  “No. The farther away I am, the less detail. When I told you the distance from the beer can to the border, I embellished things. To enhance the effect. For some reason, people believe you more when you use exact numbers. They think you know. The closer we get to the target, the better I see him. It works best when there is an unobstructed line between me and the creature. It’s like our connection. I see the things around the target, yes, but not nearly as clearly. As for things off to the sides, I can’t see far that way. The closer I get to the goal, the stronger our connection. At some point, the Unnamed feels it, too. He knows I approach, and then it begins.

  “He runs for you?” Cheater ventured.

  “Yes. Drops everything and comes for me. After all, he tolerates nothing in his territory, and this is a clear invasion. He is compelled to respond quickly and brutally.”

  Cheater glanced over the rusted scraps of metal and shook his head. “I have no concept of what this Unnamed One looks like, but here he tore the Spider’s armed convoy to pieces. I may not like the Spiders, but they’re not utter idiots. They wouldn’t send inexperienced forces after something like this. These were good fighters. And here’s what’s left of them. So, tell us your plans. You aren’t suicidal, after all. Do you have a plan?”

  “Yes,” March nodded. “Well, I’m not sure I’d call it a ‘plan.’ That’s generous. It is a general template for our actions. I told you about my pair of fortuitously compatible abilities, yes?”

  “Right,” Tat confirmed.

  “The first ability lets me sense the Unnamed—and lure it from close range. He will charge me, crossing miles and miles in a straight line. That was my first ability. Powerful players enslaved me so I could trap their prey for them. The first time, things worked out. But the second time, the Unnamed reached me and decimated them. Once I respawned, I managed to escape the region. I thought about hiding in a corner, keeping my ability under wraps. But then I got an excellent reward for crossing the border, including a great new ability. It seemed unpleasant, at first. More like a curse. It costs no mana. But it does cost one life. When I activate it, I die immediately. Suicide. But there is one subtlety here. When I activate it, I do not just die�
�I take with me everything living that is located within the ability’s range. All of them die. People, infecteds, birds, insects, even microbes. Utter sterility.”

  “How does that work?” Cheater clarified. “Do you explode or something?”

  “I’ve never been around to see it. I don’t think it looks like an explosion, but the effects are similar. People who know about me do because of this skill. I’m useful to them, it seems. But still, it makes them uncomfortable. Now, no one will take me as a slave. I can just die at any moment, sending everyone around to respawn. There were some people who came after me, at first. When I died, I took 146 players and a few NPCs with me. There are no exceptions to death within the ability’s area. No exclusions. So, should I explain further, or do you understand?” He turned to Cheater. Tat understood, by the look of it.

  Cheater nodded. “I might be dull, but not that much. You’re luring the Unnamed, and as soon as he is within range of this ability of yours, you will kill him by sacrificing yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you need helpers to collect the loot.”

  “That’s the gist of it,” March nodded. “But it’s more complicated than that. Can you imagine how many goodies the Unnamed drops?”

  “No. But probably a lot, considering what risks the Spiders took and how many they sent.”

  “There are several kinds of prizes that the Unnamed drops which cannot be found anywhere else. Or at least not anywhere else that I’m familiar with. And I am familiar with most things, if not all. So this is a chance at once-in-a-lifetime treasures. There are twelves kinds of loot that can only be obtained this way. If you hear foolish rumors about them being found in other creatures of the Continent, disregard them. Perhaps you can loot them from a body or even the body of another player, but they didn’t come from those sources. Each of these trophies has a unique, or almost unique, effect. I can tell you more, if you’d like. I recommend it, Cheater.”

  “Tell us then, if there is time. As far as I understand, something is rushing at us at this very moment.”

  “You are correct. But we have enough time. As always, I have everything under control. First, there is the Cache Expansion Sphere. It increases your cache limit, including your special cell, if you have one. There is also the Inventory Expansion Sphere. Obviously, that increases the size of your inventory. Both your primary and secondary inventories. I’ll tell you about Shards of Invulnerability later, not now. Next, there are the Needles of Great Strength. These provide excellent buffs to your base and auxiliary stats. They can turn a noob into the top player in a region for twelve hours. Sadly, this cannot be a perpetual effect. You can take them more than once every 48 hours if you wish, but you will not like the results. After that, things get more interesting. Distributable Experience Drops and Random Experience Drops, in variants for base and main stats. With a bag of goodies like that, you can level up without leaving a stable, in theory. In practice, it’s easier to find the philosopher’s stone on sale than to find these items at the market. There are also essences that increase your scales, both with selectable targets and with random targets. Of course, none of these are unique in their effects, since all of these things can be taken from infecteds, as you know.

  “But the spheres are much more interesting. They come in two kinds. One gives you a random increase to the modifiers of your base or auxiliary stats. The second does the same, but you get to choose which stats. Modifiers are the most powerful thing we have. They can only be increased with great achievements—or by using loot from the Unnamed. If your Strength is 30, say, and your multiplier for it is 1, and you level up that multiplier to 2, that makes your effective Strength 60. Of course you know this already, Tat. Next, two varieties of crystal allow you to replace your abilities with new ones. One is not so great, but the other is the ideal prize item. You get to choose what ability to lose, and several other options are provided for you to choose from. With luck, you get two or three abilities that replace the single ability you toss out. Each of which you can choose from a list. Finally, there is the most valuable, most coveted item, the subject of endless legends among naive noobs. The most priceless loot the Continent has to offer. It is a golden pearl. The only item of all of these that resembles loot infecteds normally drop. Nothing is greater than the golden pearl. Cheater?”

  “What?”

  “Are you dozing off?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Good, because for you, this is the most important part. Like all of the other pearls, the golden can activate new abilities. But its chances are the best. It can also give your old abilities new characteristics. It also gives you a good boost to Talent Rank and Willpower, like the others, but at insanely higher levels. Like white pearls, golden pearls can heal quasis and give any digi immunity. But beyond that, golden pearls have properties that the others do not. They can add between 1 and 4 lives to your Life counter and can give you a unique buff: a 100% boost to all of your stats, for a duration of 100 to 200 hours, and the option of canceling your new region interval. Meaning you can bind yourself to your current region for the next 20 lives, regardless of your current counter. Another interesting feature, which some say is the most valuable of all,” March winked at Cheater, “is that if you take this pearl near a person dear to you, you have the option of being bound to them, not just to a region. After that, no matter what happens, you will respawn in the same region. That is, of course, only if the person you selected says yes to the System message. So, you remember all that, Cheater?”

  He nodded.

  “Yes. I’ll do whatever you want. You know I would do anything for such an item.”

  March shook his head. “Still so naive. My whole story, Cheater, beginning with my slavery, is one endless string of betrayals. With my set of abilities, I have to trust those helping me. And I have not had much luck along those lines. Of course I can do pretty well hunting elites. I can go somewhere where they congregate and lure them all to myself. Then, I activate Kamikaze and return after respawning to collect the loot. Once, I went on a quest like this with an experienced party of cretins. After that, I met you. I was blind then, I’m sure you remember, but that did not keep me from realizing you were different. Different in a good way. Good for me. So, I thought, I might give this one more try. The ability’s cooldown is incredibly long. I can only use it several times a year. Still, I did not hurry. I watched you. I even began to trust you, might I say. And Tat, by extension. Plus, she has an ability that is useful here. So if we pull this off, the terms are simple: we divide the loot in three equal parts. If something cannot be divided evenly, we will meet and consult on how to divide it. Now, follow me, and I’ll tell you what we need to do. I would be happy to continue this conversation, but the Unnamed is making good time. Faster than any I have encountered before.

  * * *

  March pointed at his feet. “I will stand right here and smoke a final cigarette in a manly fashion.

  You will both stand on the hill over there, where the piles of metal left from the Spiders come to an end. Take this, both of you.”

  Cheater tossed what he received from March back and forth, from one hand to the other. It looked like a ping pong ball eaten through by some kind of acid. But it was intricate, detailed, and decorated—not chaotic. The work of some master craftsman. In addition, it was made of a material similar to glass, with many colors dancing along its surface.

  “These are the Shards of Invulnerability I told you a little about before,” March explained. “It is time for me to tell you more. If you squeeze this in your hand, it will break, and its power will be activated. It can also be activated from your inventory menu, if you’re holding it in an inventory cell. Once it is activated, you are immune to everything for 30 seconds. No bullets can pierce you, no fire can harm you, no nuclear explosions or gamma rays can irradiate you. If a charging rhino collides with you, his horn will snap, and you will not even budge. An amazing item that opens countless possibilities. Sadly, the Sy
stem prevents players from using this too often. So here is what we do. I will stand and wait for the Unnamed to arrive. You stand there. At my command, you both activate the Shards of Invulnerability, and pray to your gods. Once everything calms down, you move with all speed to the Unnamed. Tat will use her radar ability to search for more Shards. Once you find them, you punch through the Unnamed’s sac, or whatever it has in its place, collect the loot, and evacuate the area. Any questions?”

  “Do you know where its sac is?” cheater asked.

  “There are many kinds of Unnamed Ones. That is a general description of many different types of creatures so powerful that even dire elites are terrified of them. For once, I can sympathize with the elites.”

  “Why use the shards?” Tat asked. “They must be worth a fortune.”

  “So that you survive my ability.”

  “There’s no way it has a half-mile range, right?” Cheater doubted. “We can just go however far away you tell us to and wait there. Without wasting the shards.”

  “When did you two become such cheapskates? You’re perfect for each other. Cheater, you should drop these desires for Kitty and marry Tat. You’re like two boots in a set.”

  “We’re not laughing.”

  “Really? Then think with your heads!”

  “Where did we go wrong?” Cheater furrowed his brow.

  “I know my ability, yes. But I do not know this Unnamed One’s abilities. They are all different. Each has its own unique factors. Did you see what he did to that city? Some of its blocks were simply wiped off the face of the Continent. And look at what’s left of the tanks. I simply do not know what magic he is capable of, and how great of a range it will have if he uses it. I’m not even certain the Shards will protect you. Did either of you get protective abilities at the crossing?”