I bent and picked up the book. I couldn’t help but gasp when I saw the author name of the book.
“AI”
The book was written by the AI of the game world. My hands began to shiver. The AI wanted us to read this book, otherwise the book wouldn’t have appeared here. Of course all the books here had been written by the AI, but this time the AI wanted us to hurry, and that’s why had put the author name on the book cover so obviously.
“It’s written by the AI of this world,” I said to Lovebird. The two of us huddled together, and I began to flip through the pages of the book. The book was about two hundred pages in length and it took us about three hours to read the book. I didn’t even realised when the time went by, for the details in the book were so fascinating.
The book said that a thousand years ago, Death13 and the Kartoshi gang had successfully conquered the world of Prithvi. However, when Death13 had happened upon the statue of Ravana in the far north in Dinoland, he had been able to awaken Ravana using an alternate quest. Death13 wanted to suck all the Karma that was in Ravana, however once Ravana had been awakened, he was very furious. The result was that there was a great fight between Ravana and Death13. The fight didn’t last long and there was a great explosion, one that completely destroyed the world.
As for the few perma players who were still in the game world and had somehow survived Death13 till then, the explosion didn’t kill them and instead transformed them into the pixies. Something called The Pain then came to existence. It was created from the codes of the players who had been deleted by Death13. Death13 had apparently stored the codes of the players in his system, and after he and Ravana had destroyed each other, the codes had transformed, undergoing strange rearrangement which had converted the codes into The Pain. The Pain now stayed in the atmosphere of the game world, and once in a while it would rain down upon the world of Prithvi. Whenever this happened the pixies would suffer, and the constant falling of the Pain was the reason why the trees were all leafless. The explosion had also destroyed all of the NPCs, which was why there were no more Rakshashas around.
However, the blast that destroyed the earth could have been stopped, had two players with astronomical amounts of Karma, nearing a billion in each of them had stayed near Death13 and Ravana during the time when Ravana had been awakened. This might have destroyed the two players, but it would have protected the game world and all those players who had been earlier deleted by Death13 could have returned.
And that was where the book ended, basically giving the exact way how the destruction of the game world could have been stopped, which was a bit useless since the game world had been already destroyed. At the same time, the AI did want us to see that there was a way to save the game world and even return the deleted players.
I wished the book had given us instructions on how to proceed like in the book of immortality, but it seemed it would depend on us entirely what kind of decisions we would take next.
“I think we should leave now,” I said as I put the book inside the bag.
“You don’t want to read anything else?” Lovebird asked, gesturing at the countless eaten books available all around.
“We have got all we need,” I said. The book by the AI had contained all the information about all that had occurred in the past.
“But there is nothing about how we can return to our own time,” Lovebird said. “I want to return to my brother, Rohan,” a sob burst from Lovebird. She had been holding her tears so far, doing whatever she could to keep going forward despite everything. “Even my log out button has disappeared! Only if we return to our own time will the log out button reappear.”
I embraced Lovebird and kissed her on the head, giving her a light shake.
“This is the last big hurdle we need to overcome,” I said to her. “I am sure it will get easier after this.” However, I could feel that my own words sounded hollow. For every one thing that happened right, three things went wrong. Yes, we had found the book by the AI and it had given us considerable information about the happenings in the world of Prithvi in the past thousand years.
The future that we had come to ultimately was some kind of an alternate simulation inside the game world, which was more or less a warning, Earlier we had been focused entirely on awakening Ravana and we hadn’t known what that could possibly result in. At the same time, the book had also said that it would require two players to contain the blast that would occur once Ravana and Death13 destroyed each other. Those two players were going to be me and Lovebird. While I didn’t mind sacrificing myself to save thousands of players, I wanted Lovebird to be able to return to the real world, which would only be possible after Death13 was gone.
Lovebird looked at me, wiping her tears.
“How will each of us be able to acquire one billion Karma?” she asked me.
I froze for a moment.
“Lovebird,” I said, “are you sure you want to be the one who stops the blast along with me?”
“Well… if it saves lives, then yes,” Lovebird said. “I wouldn’t get to return to my brother… but all these years I have been watching people die in the war with no real way to help. This is my chance to save lives and to stop feeling helpless.”
“That’s very brave of you,” I found myself saying and I totally meant it.
Lovebird bit her lips.
“Did you see that most of the pixies had high Karma?”
“I did,” I said. When I thought about it, it was odd that they should have such amounts of Karma.
“Maybe they can tell us how they acquired Karma? I am sure the rules to acquire Karma have changed in the last thousand years even if a bit,” Lovebird said.
Returning to Kapilpura was relatively easy. We just had to stand inside the circle that had earlier formed in the grass. With some uncertainty we repeated the new name of Kapilpura, Kapila, thrice. And the next moment we found ourselves standing next to the concentric circles of the pixies. Not even a single of the pixies had moved from their position.
“I am thankful you returned,” the queen said, as she finally moved away from her position in the circle and came towards us.
“Have you been staying here like this the entire time we were away?” I asked curiously.
“Yes, it’s the only way to maintain the portal.”
“If we hadn’t returned you would have stayed like this still?” I said, overtaken with surprise. I only now realised how desperate the pixies were to get rid of The Pain.
“Well… we would have,” the queen said. “But I am glad we trusted you. Both of you are good folks. I hope you will help us in getting rid of the Pain.”
“We will,” Lovebird said with some hurry, “but can you tell us how you all have so high Karma points?”
“Karma?” the queen said. “It’s pretty useless. We don’t even want it.”
“But why?” I said, confused. Earlier everybody was after Karma but now nobody seemed to care about it even though they had large quantities of it.
“Well,” the queen said and by the sound of her tone it sounded like she wasn’t really sure what to say. Meanwhile the other pixies were breaking the concentric circles, “nobody really knows what Karma does. Sometimes it increases randomly. We don’t really care.”
“When does it increase usually?” I asked. I was sure the queen would say that it increased when the pixies did good things, but her answer was different.
“Usually after we have been subjected to the Pain,” the queen said.
Now that was interesting.
“Now would you like to go to the place where the deer is?” the queen asked, “You don’t have to go immediately. But maybe after a couple of hours? We pixies also need to recharge. Plus we do not really know at how much of a distance the deer is from us as of now. The farther the distance the more difficult it is for us to open the gateway.”
I told the queen that we would go. She and the other pixies had so much hope pasted on their little faces that it was
impossible to turn them down. The pixies returned to their town, while Lovebird and I stayed outside the gates of the town.
“Why didn’t you tell her that we followed the deer here?” Lovebird asked me once the pixies were out of earshot. “I thought of telling her, but since you were quiet about the matter, I decided to not say anything.”
I shrugged.
“The deer was brought us to this place,” I said to her, “he will probably help us return to our own time.”
“He ran away the last time,” Lovebird reminded me.
“But if we tell the deer about our situation maybe he will help us in getting out?”
“So you don’t plan on capturing the deer and sacrificing him?”
I realised I had never given any direct thought to this. While I did want to help the pixies, I didn’t want to kill the deer either, especially if we found out the deer wasn’t doing anything wrong.
“It will depend on the deer,” I said finally. “If the deer says he would help us then we won’t capture him.”
“What about the pixies?” Lovebird said.
“I guess they will deal with the Pain as they have dealt with it for a thousand years.”
Chapter 35
Once again the pixies formed the concentric circles and began their magical chant. In a while the new gateway opened. I was at cross roads. If the deer turned out to be agreeing to help us, we were not going to return through the gateway. I hoped the pixies would eventually break their circles and go away instead of waiting our return.
Lovebird and I could see a tree in the distance inside the gateway. The tree was at the top of a hill that was lit by the light of the full moon. Below the tree was a special kind of grass, which was of a yellowish hue. The deer was eating this grass.
Lovebird and I stepped through the gateway.
The deer didn’t even notice us approach, so busy he was in munching the grass. He seemed to be savouring the grass completely.
I ran different ideas in my head on how the deer could be caught. The last time it hadn’t been easy at all chasing him. We hadn’t tried any spell on the deer the last time though. Maybe a spell like Paralysis would be enough to deal with the deer? If all that failed, we could wait for the animal of light to fall asleep—in the scenario that it actually slept— and then I could use my Bad Dreams spell on the animal like I had used on the guards earlier.
But first a more civil approach could be tried out.
“Hey,” I called out loud as we neared the deer. The ear of the deer moved but he didn’t care and didn’t look up, the grass too delicious. The deer was eating the grass like it was going to be his last meal.
“Hey,” I said aloud a second time. The deer looked up.
“I see… you two,” the deer said chewing the grass in his mouth fast. “I am eating.”
Which was a bit too obvious.
“We wanted to talk to you,” I said.
“About getting you back to your own time zone?” the deer said, still chewing the grass, “I- I am sorry…. Oh my this grass is so sweet! ... I am sorry, you were the ones who followed me here. I didn’t force you to come along. I cannot take you back to your own time zone because I don’t want to return there.”
“Please,” Lovebird said taking a few more steps close to the deer such that she was only a few feet away from him, “we need to return… only if we do so that it will be possible for us to save the lives of thousands of players.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the deer said, “I have nothing to do with this. Just leave me alone. The last time I ate this kind of grass was an aeon ago! You don’t know how much I waited patiently in my portal form, dreaming all the while of this yellow grass found only in this particular time zone. Even as players used me again and again, all the while I hoped to reach the maximum number of times I could be used as a portal by someone, after which I would be free to do my wish. Please leave me alone.”
Listening to the words of the deer, I could see his point of view well. Our problems were like a thunderstorm that was occurring in a different part of the world for him. He was just too detached from our problems.
“It’s time for the second plan,” I said to Lovebird.
“Paralysis?” Lovebird asked.
“Yes,” I said.
The deer was too busy eating the grass that he didn’t see us raise our hands at him. We muttered the word for the spell. The next moment the deer was thrown off his hooves.
That was not something we had intended. The deer groaned. That he hadn’t been paralysed was clear. Apparently the spell didn’t work exactly the way we wanted for the deer.
In a few heartbeats the deer was back up. When he had fallen, some of the grass had been crushed by his body even though he was only made of light. The way he now looked at us made it clear that he had lost his temper.
“How dare you?” the deer said, “I told you to go away and yet… I am a peaceful creature, but you have messed with my grass and now you shall meet my fury!”
Saying so the deer charged at us pointing his antlers. Lovebird was standing in between me and the deer and I pushed her away just before the deer’s antler could hit her. The result was that I was the one who was hit. Who would have thought that antlers of light could hurt?
They pierced into my stomach and because of the impact I was thrown off my feet and landed hard on the ground on my buttocks. My health fell rapidly by two hundred, even as I watched in horror as the deer now turned towards Lovebird and charged at her. I forced myself up, even though my stomach felt like shit. I could have drunk a health vial but due to the heat of the situation the health vials didn’t even cross my mind.
Just before the deer could hit Lovebird, I threw the paralysis spell on the deer. Once again the deer was thrown off his hooves instead of being paralysed, which was not a bad thing since that was exactly what I wanted to do to save Lovebird. Lovebird ran to me and then the two of us raced down the hill. We turned back to see the deer returning to his yellow grass below the tree.
I sat down on the ground. It was Lovebird who gave me a health vial and once I had drunk it I felt much better.
“Are you going to use your nightmare spell on him next?” Lovebird asked me.
I nodded.
“But we’ll have to wait till he sleeps. If he even sleeps that is.”
Crouching behind the boulder, we spent the next hour observing the deer eat the grass and waited for the deer to sleep. The grass couldn’t last eternally, could it? And the deer was eating fast. It was an agonising wait, particularly because we knew that the pixies on the other end of the gateway were still waiting.
It was a great relief when I finally saw the deer lie down, having finished all the yellow grass that had been below the tree. He closed his eyes.
“Now is the time,” Lovebird said.
I activated the Bad Dreams spell and let my consciousness wander over to the mind of the sleeping deer.
The dreaming mind of the deer was different from the minds of the soldiers on whom I had earlier used the spell. The deer was dreaming of eating grass below the same tree above the same hill. It was a very déjà vu experience for me to watch the deer again a few metres away from me munching on the grass.
In the dream of the soldiers the surroundings of the dreamer had been rather vague with the faces and forms of other people in the dream vague. In the dream of the deer though, everything was very clear. I could easily see the individual blades of the grass beneath my feet.
I was contemplating what to do to scare the deer, when suddenly there was a noise behind me. I turned to see Lovebird and myself enter the scene of the dream much like we had earlier approached the deer.
“Hey,” my other self said aloud. The deer paid no heed. Lovebird and my other self approached the deer. They didn’t seem capable of seeing me.
Suddenly the deer looked up. It was a surprise, for I saw that the eyes of the deer had become red. Unlike what had happened earlier, this time the deer gave
a roar which sounded more like that of an angered lion than a deer and then he charged towards Lovebird and my other self. The deer moved very fast and struck Lovebird with his antlers and she was thrown away. My other self went rushing to the deer with a cry. The deer charged towards him. My other self was quick and he grabbed the antlers of the deer and didn’t let go even as the deer shook his head violently.
It was a wrong move for my other self. Some kind of extraordinary power seemed to enter the deer and then he gave such a massive yank that my other self lost his grip on the antlers of the deer and he was thrown twenty feet into the air. I watched as he plummeted back to the ground. He hit the ground hard and went unconscious and his body rolled down the slope of the hill.
Lovebird let out a cry. The deer turned his attention to her again and charged. She tried to evade him, but the side of his pointy antlers pierced into her arm. It was a gut wrenching site to see Lovebird pull out a gory arm from the antler of the deer, a visible hole in her arm. I wanted to go and help her even though she was a mere figment of imagination of the mind of the deer.
Wait, I could help her, even though she was a mere figment of imagination.
I smiled, even as I made Lovebird grow in size. Ten feet then twenty and she kept growing taller. She seemed to get confused and she looked around and finally her eyes fell on me. Even the deer was looking at me with his red glowing eyes.
Wait, I had never planned them to see me. Why was this happening?
It was also at that moment that I realised that I could not feel the presence of the actual Lovebird beside me. This had never happened when I had used the Bad Dreams spell earlier, why was this happening now? The arms of fear closed in around my heart. Was my consciousness going to be stuck in the mind of the deer forever?
Deactivate spell, I thought, panicking.
Unfortunately the spell cannot be deactivated unless you go out of the mind of the target.
What? But I couldn’t go out of the mind of the target without deactivating the spell!
And then, even the eyes of Lovebird went red, much like that of the deer. She threw a massive fist towards me, intending to squash me.
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