"I'm not surprised," Elise said, a challenging twinkle in her eye. "I halfway think your entire world is a construct, and so it makes sense that it would use simplistic rules to minimize processing strains."
Val quirked a smile. "The old 'are we living in a matrix?' question. And considering that some of the mathematical equations underlying reality as seen in string theory also happen to mirror perfectly the math behind programs that stabilize our web browsers, people have to actually take that question seriously now."
"Well, there you have it," Gregor smirked. "Whatever the hell web browsers are, your meaning is clear enough. By your own admission, you're just a remnant of some ancient simulation left unchecked centuries ago, perhaps fueled by Jordia's core or some inconceivably valuable pocket of Valorium. It's our rotten luck that you just happened to manifest sympathetic resonance within several million credits worth of liquid silbion!"
Val swallowed, chilled by the thought. "That's impossible," he whispered. "If anyone's deluded or dreaming, it's me, and this isn't even a world. It's just my being jacked up in a hyper-responsive, hyper-realistic computer game. That is what Endless Online is supposed to be. Just a computer game."
Sten smirked, even as Halvar roared with laughter. "That's rich, kid. Us? A computer game? Do we all look like triangulated figurines to you? What kind of world are you from, kid?"
Val frowned. "What do you mean, triangulated figurines? I mean VFX singularities and such. Graphics so realistic you can't tell whether or not they're digital or the real thing."
Sten's brows furrowed. "You have such a thing in your world?"
Val shrugged. "Not quite. I mean, the effects look great in movies, but when they try to mimic a person, you can tell it's not quite real, but damn if it isn't close."
"Impossible," Gregor flatly said, glaring from his fried pistol. "Absolutely impossible! The maths won't allow it, not with infinite complexity trying to simulate a digital picture. Most computers aren't happy handling more than the diagrams you're too stupid to fathom."
Val frowned, looking away. "It's true. I'm not lying. Why would I? Visual effects are incredibly lifelike, where I'm from."
"It makes sense if he's part of a simulation," Elise said for Gregor's benefit. "Even if we know they are just flashes of code synergized with sufficient mana to be self-aware, in their existence they will interpret the algorithms they experience as sight, sound, or any other sensation. So it's not surprising they'd learn to master their own technology and somehow think that life-like graphics were the norm in the real world, not knowing that they are themselves just a simulation."
Val swallowed. "I'm not a simulation, Elise."
"Of course not." She patted his hand. "Now let's get back to your first lesson. This symbol here is indicative of all the symbols interconnected to it, as well as the patterns of their interconnection. Now I want you to close your eyes, and tell me the names of all the connecting symbols, alright?"
Val grimaced, closing his eyes, drawing a complete blank. Dead silence save for his heartbeat, the flush he felt on his cheeks.
"Name one symbol." Her gentle voice had grown intent.
Val bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Elise. I'm not really much good at visual learning. I think in sound and, well, kinesthetics, mostly. I can feel how to disassemble and reassemble my carbine, I remember every nuance of the voice giving me my orders, exactly what I need to do, and I may be good with a map, but I don't flash memorize every significant landmark. I only know one guy who can do that, and he's shit for tactics so he was mostly just useful when things got hot and heavy and we didn't have time to pull out the map."
Gregor snorted. "He can't even remember the twelve cardinal connections, yet picks up magic after seeing just a few spells cast? He's either an idiot-savant or an arcane construct. Either way, this blaster's finished. We're just wasting time now." He turned to the captain. "Sten?"
Sten cricked his back and rolled his shoulders. "You can try to teach him the basics when we get out of here, Elise. It seems Val's a harder case than even I had thought. We might have to declare him, once we make our way out."
Val blinked, suddenly discomfited. "What do you mean, declare me?"
Sten just gazed at Val with thoughtful brown eyes for a minute, his gaze neither hostile nor welcoming. Just practical, somehow. "How old are you, Val?"
"Twenty."
Sten smirked. "You look closer to fifteen. Sixteen at most. And for all that you imply you were trained as a mercenary, children don't reach maturity til they turn thirty in the real world."
Val blinked. "Thirty?"
Elise nodded. "I'm thirty five. Only a few years past what should have been my childhood, before it became a nightmare halfway through.
Val's eyes widened. "Honestly, Elise, you don't look any older than twenty at most, and if you told me you were eighteen, I'd believe it. Your skin is flawless."
Elise smiled. "Thank you, Val. Whatever world you're from, a girl always likes to look young." She frowned, then. "Maybe you're a remnant of an exceedingly ancient civilization. Millenium ago, humans barely lived to see a hundred years. Now? We see two hundred easily without treatments, six hundred to a thousand with even the most basic rejuvenations."
Sten nodded. "Which means you have plenty of time to learn to read. And you'll need it. Every formal profession requires mastery of their respective tomes. If you don't know them, you will never know the most efficient ways to carry out your tasks."
Halvar looked up from his gun. "If you're declared, it means you become a ward of whatever nation you happen to be in. If you really are just twenty, or fifteen it looks to me, you're definitely a child in need of a caretaker providing room and board while you master the charts of your chosen profession."
Val blinked. "But... I graduated school as I turned eighteen. I've already served my country as a soldier, and the skills I learned, I learned damn well. No charts needed."
Gregor rolled his eyes. "Oral traditions are all well and good in primitive cultures or computer simulations, but this is reality, and we've advanced a lot in the last few thousand years. In other words, Val, whatever your memories, whatever it is you think you know, you're still just a child, assuming you're human at all."
"We are not throwing his humanity into question, Gregor." Elise's voice was like steel.
Gregor shrugged. "I'm not going to throw accusations that could get him sliced and diced by whatever Darklord wants to figure out how he ticks, Elise. All I'm saying is that as soon as we get out of here, babysitting this boy will be the state's job, not ours."
Halvar frowned. "A private institution, Gregor. We won't give him to the local government."
"Of course."
Val grimaced, feelings of limitless potential quenched by the nameless dread of becoming a faceless drone lost in a soulless bureaucracy. "I'd rather decide for myself what happens to me when we get out of here, if that's alright with you all." He forced a smile. "Come on, we're all basically treasure hunters here, right? No chart mastery needed to think on your feet and handle dilemmas as they come, no? If you find me useful? Well, I don't eat that much. Let me learn by observing so I'm no trouble at all, and I'll pitch in as I can. You'll find that I'm a fast hands-on learner, even if hitting the books was never my strength."
Sten, eyes hard, gave a curt shake of his head. "No dice. That's exactly what I offered you, Val, and a damn good offer it was. And you turned me down. Flat. Acted like I was trying to trap you. As if I would ever do that to a child." He shook his head and spat.
Val winced, and perhaps it was his increased charisma or perception, but he was beginning to think he was guilty of a grievous breach of etiquette in his refusal. He flushed and looked away. It was so goddamned unfair, really.
"Where I'm from, minors can't sign contracts without a guardian's consent," he said at last, putting things in terms they might understand. For all that he saw himself as an adult, they clearly did not. "It was a year-long commitment, and I hadn't
even gotten a chance to familiarize myself, to understand anything about you, or this culture, so different from my own."
He gave a frustrated shake of his head. "Binding contracts are almost anathema, where I'm from. Most people who use them do not have your best interests at heart on Earth, and, well, you have to remember that the whole series of events that led me being here was a result of me and several chance-met friends trying to escape some very bad people trying to trap us with a contract that would have allowed them to effectively kidnap us and use us as indentured servants for at least half a decade before throwing us away. So... yeah. Binding contracts leave a really bad taste in my mouth right now."
Elise nodded. "He's telling the truth, Sten. Or at least, what he believes to be the truth."
Sten smirked. "Assuming Darklords really did take dozens of his peers hostage." He shrugged, looking all around. "Maybe the dreadnought above didn't find some exotic way to breach a dimensional rift to kidnap children with Psionic potential to use as drone slaves. Maybe the truth is simpler than that." Brown eyes bored into Val's blue. "Maybe Val here is just a remnant of the original civilization that was overthrown a millennium ago. And those thirty children stolen? Dead long, long ago."
"He hardly looks like a dwarf, Sten," Halvar said. "Not nearly bulky enough."
Val shook his head, dizzy with horror. "No... I... that's impossible."
Sten shrugged. "I don't know, kid. Look, let's just worry about getting out of here in one piece. Once we're free? We'll play it by instinct. Sound good to you?"
Val forced himself to smile. "Fair enough, Captain."
"Alright," he nodded. "Fortunately Halvar's military blaster was an easy fix, so we're all armed once more. Val? You're taking point along with Elise. Thanks to Halvar, we know the distance we need to keep back. If I give a holler or we close, or I say 'close tight,' that means you use your sword, no spells. Got it?"
Val blinked but held his tongue, the captain's increasingly hard gaze making it clear that he had just given an order.
Val dipped his head. "Yes, Captain."
"Good," Sten said, cordial once more. "Now freshen up, and let's get out of here."
Val did just that, and within moments they had retraced their steps back to the eerie temple radiating such strange energies as to bathe everything in a curious rainbow of light. Much to Val's relief, no trace of the specters remained. Just a massive byzantine cathedral, or the closest thing to it.
"What was this place?" His whispers carrying eerily through the vast domed cavern they were crossing, all of them approaching the cathedral at a cautious pace.
Sten frowned, gazing at Elise. "It's a damn good question. What do you think?"
Elise's eyes had grown soft. She shook her head. "I think, well, I fear we are at the heart of what was once a vast enterprise to accrue either wealth, magical power, or both."
Gregor cursed softly, nodding his head. "This place stinks of Elementium. And this mine is old. Right above an ancient mage's demesne. That can only mean one thing."
Even Halvar nodded at that, brows furrowed, checking his carbine carefully. "Damn, but this planet's history was an ugly one."
Val frowned, gazing at Elise. "What is everyone saying without directly saying it?"
Elise sighed. "Even our oldest ancestors knew how incredibly valuable Elementium was. Even a small amount focused into a wand could increase a mage's ability to channel mana into spells. It's only grown in value, as almost every piece of technology we use has Elementium filaments at the very least, so useful it is for mana-electromagnetic conversion and stabilization."
"And so damn easy for rebel wizards to knock out of commission," Gregor grumbled.
Elise nodded. "Anyway, it is only modern mining techniques that allow for the civilized gathering of this most vital and precious resource."
Val blinked. "I'm not quite sure that I know what you mean."
Elise gazed sadly at Val. "It means that before the modern age, before True Artificers and their unique gifts became known, the only way to free Elementium from the rocks it was bound to and properly purify it was by using necromancy and darkest sacrifice. A surge of blood and power that worked quite well at freeing pure Elementium."
Val blinked, gazing at the glowing temple, suddenly feeling sickened as awful things began to click into place. "You mean... those shades..."
"Yes." Elise nodded. "They were the power infused remnants of just a few of the innocent souls that had no doubt been sacrificed to extract purified Elementium from its ore."
Val swallowed a throat suddenly parched as they neared the temple of obsidian, wordlessly reaching out for a water flask put in hand despite their limited rations. He was surprised but grateful, drinking sparingly as they approached, Halvar's crimson light leading the way.
"Oh my friends, our lucky day!" Gregor crooned as they took their first footsteps into that ancient cathedral of horror. Awful depictions of sacrifice and slaughter had been carved into the stone walls and ceiling with loving detail, bass reliefs painted in what looked to be gold and blood, giving the awful artistry a sheen that had lasted centuries, and for all Val knew, would last til the end of time. He shuddered and pulled his eyes downward, catching sight, then, of dry dusty bones aligned beside five fire pits with cages of heat scorched iron. Val would have thought it all rusted long ago, but a tentative touch revealed carbon blackened bars. So much death and horror had those cages contained, so many victims burned alive, that the iron had actually been carbonized. Instead of rust, it was caked with a thousand screams given literal form.
Val grimaced, pulling his hand back, almost imagining that he could taste the awful arcane memories of those screams embedded in the very iron. He turned his gaze to what Gregor was so excited about, eyes absently tracing the lines of tarnished black that he suspected when buffed would reveal brightest silver, connecting the cages to a large alter of gold-veined marble upon which even now rested a pitcher and chalice.
Heedless of danger, Gregor rushed forward. "The chalice. Look what it contains! Raw Elementium in its purest form!"
Val shivered, catching Gregor's excited gaze. "Um, Gregor? I wouldn't recommend you touching that."
The smaller man's scathing stare froze Val's tongue. He knew that as far as the others were concerned, he was a forced obligation of their find, a hindrance of duty, and little more. Still, that cold stare made it clear how deep that contempt went.
"As if I was in need of an illiterate child's council," Gregor said, deliberately opening up his pack and pulling out a crystalline flask.
"Gregor!" The captain's voice, his concern strangely matching Val's own. He was no aspiring mage, but Val already knew Sten had a feel for trouble. Luck, as his friends put it.
Gregor rolled his eyes. "Any arcane residues associated with the ore will be neutralized with modern refinement. We will pay the standard fee when it's marked as ultra-pure, and that will be the end of it. Besides, I'm wearing gloves," he smirked, carefully packing the sparkling ore away in his pack.
It was a trick of the eye, Val knew it, but it almost seemed as if a thorn of darkness lifted free of the Elementium, for all that Halvar's sourceless light seemed to cancel all shadows, viciously pricking a suddenly screaming Gregor as he collapsed to the ground, spasming uncontrollably.
"Gregor!" The captain roared, cool equanimity vanished, racing in furious panic toward his friend.
Val hissed, his Arcane Perception picking up a ghostly matrix of power percolating through a moaning Gregor's blood. Dark, awful laughter suddenly filled the cathedral, Val drawing his borrowed sword as fast as he ever had, even when training for the draw with his 1796 cavalry saber, years ago. The laughter did not die, though no foe coalesced, but a faint tingling in the back of his head told Val it was only a matter of time.
There. A sense of something coalescing in back of the cathedral. A beacon for a presence foul and awful now heading their way.
Val blinked, turning his gaze back to a pan
icked Sten, an anxious Elise, and a grim-faced Halvar, the only one still keeping an eye out for danger.
"Halvar. Trouble's closing in."
Halvar frowned. "What are you talking about, kid?"
Val grimaced. "As the saying goes, something awful this way comes."
Halvar turned around, seeing only the back of the cathedral. "Talk to me, Val. We got a man down and you're blabbering. What are you talking about?"
Val grimaced. "Can you hear the laughter, at least?"
Halvar's gaze hardened. "This is no time for jokes or a breakdown, Val. Gregor's already suffering a seizure."
"That's not a seizure, Halvar! Gregor triggered some sort of arcane trap, and something terrible is going to be here within seconds, so get ready!"
Halvar's human eye widened. "You mean like some ancient eldritch knight wearing black armor with crackling green flame and eyes that burn like coals of hellfire?"
Val blinked. "Shit," he cursed, spinning around to see a horrific monstrosity of that very description approaching the cathedral door with a blade of shadow.
Shadownight encountered! Ancient and terrible, these specters were once priests and keepers of hundreds of slaves. Nothing was too depraved for them to keep their worker's output high, butchery and sacrifice were two of their favorite tools! But fate plays by its own rules, and sometimes the keeper becomes the most abject of slaves. This ancient remnant is bound to the cathedral you are in. If you run far and fast enough, your survival is virtually guaranteed! Or, you can stay and defend Gregor, who never really liked you in the first place, and risk your life and soul facing off against this horror. A horror you have no idea how to fight. Which do you choose? - Quest: Defend Gregor. Do you accept? Yes/No.
Val grimaced, shaking the maddening prompt away. He didn't know if it was fate, the rules of this universe, or his sarcastic subconscious that had somehow tuned itself to the inner workings of this strange realm. Either way, this was no game to him, and he had a teammate to save.
Endless Online: Oblivion's Blade Page 22