by M J Conlon
Derick took one quick look up, before realizing that his battered body was too sore and too banged up to attempt to climb up. Derick then took mental inventory of his stamina, or at least tried to, but he was seemingly still cut off from being able to see exactly where he was on his stamina count. Not wanting to fall to the ground again. Derick looked down past his feet, looking for the slight indentations that would signify a window was present. It took some time but finally he found the faint trails of what had to be ornamental bricks denoting a deviation in the towers normally smooth exterior. There was only one problem, the fact that it was well below his current position, as he had only been a few hundred feet from the top of the tower and two that the window was surely too far down to reach before his stamina, even aided by his climbing ability, would end before he got to the bottom. Thinking quickly, Derick planted his two feet into the side of the wall, instantly feeling his climbing ability kicking in upon doing so. Derick then reached around his belts for more daggers that he would not mind losing and struck them quickly into the side of the wall.
Derick pressed up and in with his toes until he felt his knees were right below the hilts of the daggers that were now stuck in the side of the wall. He raised the middle of his body up, making sure to loop two of his three leather belts over the tops of the hilts. Instantly he felt the strain on his arms and body begin to lessen, as the belts that were slung over his shoulders now let him rest much of his body weight against his shoulders. From there Derick then lowered the third belt with his hand so that it now sat below his butt. Once in position around his butt, Derick then raised the third belt so it sat on the hilts of two of the four daggers that were positioned on the wall.
Derick could feel that his body and mind were close to exhaustion at this point, now or never. Derick thought to himself as he lifted his hands up and waited to fall to his death. His weight shifted slightly, his feet were still holding him in the optimal position against the wall, but he could feel the grip of exhaustion that had been overtaking his body finally let go as he hung against the wall. Finally after a few minutes, Derick felt that his ability to levitate had been reset, but he still waited, letting the moment of success at his survival overtake his want to climb up the last few hundred feet before he reached the top of the tower. Finally after he felt his stamina was either full, or as close to full as he could get given his current position, Derick cast levitate. Instantly his body turned weightless and no longer tried to rip his three belts apart.
Derick leaned forward, and quickly removed the three belts from draping over the various dagger hilts that they had been resting against. Then repositioned them all so they fit snugly against his body once more. Derick then let go of the last dagger hilt, allowing his climbing ability to keep him stuck to the wall. Then Derick used psychic telekinesis to remove the four blades from the wall without his having to jerk them wildly using his now weightless body.
Once all four blades were back in their holsters Derick began climbing up the wall once more. This time Derick stopped his rise, right before he reached the lip of the tower. derick caused his mind to focus for a second, as he let his mental energy and Stamina refill. Then in one fluid motion, Derick did two things, the first was that he mentally canceled his levitation ability. The second was that once he felt weight once again take over the limbs of his body, he began to pull himself up and over the lip of the tower. It was with a lot of awkward grabs and lunges forward that Derick was able to finally drag his small frame over the side of the tower.
Once over the lip, Derick not wanting to be blown back, just let his body roll toward the center of the tower a few times. Finally feeling that he was no longer close to falling off of the tower, Derick sat up and examined his surroundings. Derick saw the deactivated dungeon gate, he saw the stair case that led down to the castle keep down below. It was looking at the staircase that lead down to most likely the king and the few surviving nobles that Derick had felt with his psychic-viewing earlier that Derick had an evil thought. What happens if I go down and kill the king and all survivors?
“You would likely become the defacto ruler of this city, but that would mean you would not be able to leave here, nor would you be able to achieve the rank of resurrection.”
Wait, why?
“You would not be able to leave, as it would then be your job to refill the city with trained inhabitants who could help the travelers unlock starting professions and provide a general safe place to conduct business transactions while trying to go to one of the five main starting planets. Secondly this is the underworld, everything you do here, from killing one to a thousand men, while granting you experience points that can be used for leveling, will not give you resurrection points.” Not-HAIL stated, before adding “even though you have leveled since being back here, you have not received any points towards the resurrection, partly due to the inquiry on your account, and the other key contribution is that you are still here in the underworld.”
Derick pondered the words of his AI companion, before first double checking his gear, to make sure everything was straight and orderly. Then he finally got up to go look at the inactive portal structure. As he approached Derick could instantly see why this was Portal that only led to a dungeon. First he saw a thin barrier that separated both the underworld from the five known planets.
Derick reached out and touched the giant portal, instantly feeling the lost knowledge of the universe traveling into his mind. He could see that this film around the underworld was what originally separated the underworld from the other planets.
Derick could feel the existence and knowledge of where other planets were, ones that had never been traveled to. In a second, given his knowledge of portal mastery and his own god given talent for mathematical recall he knew the exact paths needed to go to the final two planets. It was here, at seemingly the beginning and the ending of the universe that Derick could see how his destruction of the one astral body had caused a rapid release of gasses to the inbetween, to the places that separated the planets by vast distances.
Derick now realized that he wasn’t the first to have used such a trick to kill off an enemy. He could see in the portal a written knowledge of how Braden Scuttlebut the sage portalist that Derick had gained the memories of had done the same action years ago, except he had performed the attack to the dragon’s original home world. An act that forced the remaining dragons who had fled to Draco to band together and kill off all possible threats. It was then that Derick realized how he had done things out of order. He was always meant to leave after first unlocking his ability, the heading back with a group of friends and allies to gain the knowledge along with the warning. Yet he had finished his mission first. Derick felt all these emotions, then part of Derick wondered how can I have such clear emotions and memories flood into my mind like this? Derick asked.
“It is a new training format, we are trying to see the best way to teach vital skills necessary for those who achieve Resurrection. While the process is not fully refined, we have chosen a few test cases to act as our ‘control’ group.”
I’m just your guinea pig?
“To an extent yes.”
Derick looked over the inactive portal’s coordinates, committed the different runes to memory that led to this dungeon. While going directly to the underworld might be problematic in the future, using the dungeon as a jumping point to go to and from the Underworld might be a good fail safe. Derick poured his mental energy into the portal and saw the required glyphs light up until finally the entire portal came to life with a giant purple glow.
“It has been a pleasure serving you, travelers, but I must depart.” Not-HAIL stated.
But it hasn’t been 72 hours, yet. Derick stated, knowing that his mental clock while not as accurate as the one on his broken character screen still put him at under a full day since being sent back to the underworld, with Not-HAIL.
“Indeed, but given that your death in this dungeon will likely result in both of our perma
nent deaths, i have been ordered to leave you and find another host. That said, I am able to grant you a quest for unlocking the quest chain for a rare profession. I am authorized to offer you 10,000 experience, one respawn, spell power point, three stat points, and five skill points per day still owed to you of my services. That puts you currently at a times three rating for each of the listed rewards. Goodbye, it has been a pleasure.” Not-HAIL said, before leaving Derick’s mind completely. Instantly Derick could feel the tingling sensation in his mind where both HAIL and Not-HAIL had been empty.
Three days? Did he give me one for today as well? Derick thought as he entered the glowing purple archway. In a second Derick could feel the pull of the universe around him as he found himself at the entrance to a long and winding tunnel that was filled with crystalline structures that darted randomly out and around the familiar tunnel. Derick smiled slightly as he began navigating his way through the tunnels while being in stealth.
Derick felt the minds of hundreds of hidden creatures lurking about the different hallways and entry points of the cavern. It was on this time through the cavern that Derick felt a giant blue room fill his mind’s eye. He could feel the hundreds of different creatures that moved about hundreds of feet in front and around him in their own versions of Stealth. Derick never wanting to leave a possible enemy to be able to flank or sneak attack him decided that this time he would kill every monster that he could find. With his 100% to detecting all hidden persons, places, and objects Derick wanted to fully see what wonders he had missed on his first frantic time through the winding caverns.
Chapter 13
Derick found his way searching every lair, he felt the minds of the Psychic Spiders before he ever got with in range of their Psychic attacks. Instead from a distance, he tried something different. Once he picked up on their thoughts and wants, he mentally tried to push ideas on their own. Instantly he felt their minds that had been relaxed tighten to his approach and push his foreign thoughts out. Instead of trying to push thoughts, Derick then decided to test out his new ability psychic assault. He began using it against the mind of the Psychic Spider that was now climbing over the crystalline structures that hid his sleeping area and tried to warn its comrades, yet it was never meant to be. As it ran, Derick felt the connection of his thoughts to the spider’s, then he felt a million different hooks separate from his thought of death.
Instantly the one thought of death turned into hundreds of little lines of energy that grabbed at different parts of the monster’s psyche. Once each tendril was firmly implanted they all began to turn, while a second tendril came and cut at the now exposed mental landscape.
Once the cuts were deep enough the being that had up until that point been a psychic spider ceased to exist and a now mindless husk of a creature took up the same spot. Overall it was an eerily disgusting feeling, yet Derick knew he had to get over such qualms in order to survive.
Derick felt a bit of bile build up in his mind then quickly swallowed it down, forcing himself to find the next sentient creature so he could practice. He knew that if he was to succeed and survive he would have to be able to cast this without any hesitation. He would need to cast it, before his enemies could even begin to resist. Looking back on it, Derick knew that this was part of why the last attack had taken so long, even though it was a number of seconds the psychic spider had been ready. It had known that he was trying to mentally push ideas into its mind, more than likely causing a mental defense to be enacted. A mental defense that was utterly useless, even for a Psychic Spider, but a defense none-the-less.
Derick breathed in, then then out, centering himself. It was his first breath he had taken in quite some time, as he didn’t really need to breathe given his advantages, he just knew that the simple human gesture was soothing. Human gesture? Does this mean I no longer consider myself human? Derick thought about whether he still considered himself human, as he mentally grabbed the minds of sentient beings around him and mercilessly struck them from the same location. Then another thought hit him, if virtual reality is your only reality, does the ‘virtual’ portion eventually become redundant?
Derick could feel a strong thick liquid beginning to pool at his lips. Instinctively he wiped it off, then rested, seeing the act of his virtual body as a warning that he was pushing himself to far, too fast. Derick, mentally seeing that every being in the side passage ways was now either out of his range or deceased decided to meditate, letting his mental energies recharge faster. Derick waited until he felt all of his mental faculties return, then forced his way up to his feet and began looking for the next cluster of sentient life so he could practice ripping the thoughts and muscle coordinations from his prey.
Derick didn’t have to wait long until he mentally felt birds that had silver lines leading from them back to an unseen entity. Without thinking too long about what the silver line meant, Derick tried first mentally feeling the line, then cutting it with his psychic assault. It was somewhat of a surprise when Derick felt that he was not only able to send a tendril of pain to the silver line that connected the bird to an unseen entity, but then he saw that he was actually able to cut said line with a different tendril. The attack did two things, first the bird started fleeing quickly. Derick could get the mental impression of excitement filling the bird as it began flying around the hidden room frantically looking for an escape path that was away from the silver line that Derick had just severed. Derick not thinking too much about this, quickly cut the silver lines to the other birds that were also connected to the unseen entity. Is that a sign that they were enslaved to a being, silver lines? Also, does this mean that anyone I mentally command would have the same cords attached from me to it? Derick thought these things, as he tried to mentally direct the bird like creatures to the nearest exit. Yet the bird-like creatures were either too frightened, too dumb, or otherwise unwilling to listen to his suggestions.
Finally Derick got up, used pyrokinesis to create a small flame, that gently shown through the different crystals, alerting the creatures to a possible exit. As the creatures came closer Derick instinctively began moving the flame back, and diminishing it, not wanting to either burn the creatures, nor cause them to leave the only exit due to a fear of being burned.
Derick looked up overhead at the only exit/entrance that his mind could see to the hidden room. One that had up until a bit ago been guarded by no less than five psychic spiders. Now the creatures were close enough that Derick could hear beautiful music being emitted from the creatures, is that their way of communicating with each other? Fascinating, Derick thought to himself as he couldn’t help but mentally try to break down what was happening around him. The rhythm began to speed up, as a new creature began to enter into Derick’s mental range. Derick was so distracted by the new creature getting within 300 feet of Derick that he almost missed one of the most impressive sights he had seen since getting uploaded to the game. The Game now being my new reality.
Derick looked up to hear and see an auditory and visual display that would likely never be unrivaled. Derick saw the first of the bird-like creatures that he had freed flee from the entrance that was high overhead. The lead creature had bright red and golden feathers, and sang a song of freedom and the need for haste. Instantly upon fully hearing the song, Derick knew that the lead bird had been singing the song to direct its friends out of the tunnel. He was leading the way to freedom and he was now encouraging his friends to follow. Derick knew this almost instinctively, picking up on the subtleties of the songs and the surface thoughts of the creatures that all had an extra thought of freedom.
The lead bird flew to the far side of the tunnel, perched on a crystal, then continued to sing encouraging thoughts towards his brethren. As he flew overhead a faint trail of glowing dust fell down over top of Derick, coating him in a thin film of dust that mentally glowed to his senses.
Derick could tell that to an average creature this would at most be considered to be dust that had been knocked free from the tun
nel, yet to Derick’s enhanced mental senses that also included awareness Derick could feel the energy on the dust that had fallen on him. Then Derick watched as three other birds flew out of the tunnel, each brighter than the last, each dropping the same film of dust onto Derick. Derick had little time to think about what the dust meant, before his thoughts began to fill with hurried panic. He felt the panic then realized it was from the four birds that all sat perched on the crystal across the tunnel, each face now turned towards the tunnel that they had just exited. Each frantically calling for their friend to join them.
Derick mentally could tell that the last bird was in far worse shape than the others and could already feel the equivalent of a silver lasso snaking around the bird-like creature that seemed to have given in to its fate. A return refrain of song and sorrow came back from the tunnel, it spoke of freedom and sacrifice, yet his friends would have nothing of it. If anything it caused his friends to sing their encouraging song more enthusiastically.
Derick saw this, or rather mentally felt this happening around him and wondered am I going crazy, or am I becoming more in tuned with my Psychic Leech class? Derick thought, as the lasso that had ensnared the bird that was still on the wrong side of the tunnel had begun to force its way into the mind of the creature that now lay helpless. In a second the lone bird’s call that had a second ago been a song of escape and freedom now turned into a song of safety that called for his friends to join him in paradise.