“Very useful video, thank you, Marinar,” I said slowly, looking steadily at Zangar. “It’s a pity, though, you weren’t able to cover more. I would very much like to know about the stone located in the center of this cave. There must be something valuable about it!”
“We must return,” the necromancer said calmly. "Can’t make it further.”
“Oh yes we can‒ we’ll just have to. Tell me rather – is this for good?” I showed him the stone glove once again. “Or will it return to normal over time?”
“No information. Teacher not mention ceiling. You could be stone. You’re lucky.”
“Really, I am a positively lucky bastard!” I said testily. “Marinar, do you have anything under your robe? If we were to take it off you, would you be running with us naked, or in your underwear still?”
“I don’t understand …”
“There’s not much here to understand. We need to complete the cave. For this, we need a support, which would be a set of class armor. Since you aren’t planning to become a mage anyway, we could undress you.”
“NO!” The girl cried out, blushing deeply. “I will not walk around the Academy in my underwear!”
“That means you do have something there,” I grinned, and added: “Relax, no one is going to undress anyone. I just said it to lighten out spirits. Now, we’ll all go into the cave. I’ll leave you at the entrance while I figure out what can be done about the rays and the remaining traps. If I turn to stone, you will send me to respawn and die in a trap. We’ll meet at the respawn point.”
“Why you need it? Dangerous and stupid,” Zangar tried to address my sensible side.
“Because there’s a book there which practically made your teacher a Viceroy. I don’t know about you, but I am not prepared to pass up such a gift from fate. I am not going to rush forward without thinking, I need to check everything once again, but I need help. I suppose you can hit a target on the head from some distance? So, great then!”
Twenty minutes later I left Zangar and Marinar at the last trip wire, having expressly forbidden them from entering the cave. Then I returned to the vantage point. The yellow beams were still there, criss-crossing the cave in all directions. Having carefully circled the cave I reached its opposite side and couldn’t contain my emotions: there were no supports or statues here, but from the point diametrically across from the central pedestal I gained a view of blue rays that were not in any way connected to the yellow ones. The Book immediately generated a 3D model of the cave with the rays and helplessly blinked red: it would be impossible to reach the exit from the center. Generally, the cave only had two safe areas: from the entrance along the wall to the 90 degree points to the vantage spots. Everything else was blocked with either yellow or blue rays; in addition, their concentration around the central pedestal was most dense.
“Fuuuuuuu….!!!” A horrible scream of pain indicated learning what would happen if someone crossed a blue ray. First I touched the ceiling with my stone glove, since it was completely and irrevocably ruined, but nothing happened. No explosions, no sparks, no smoke. Unwilling to lose the other glove, I touched the ceiling with my bare hand and immediately crashed to the floor filling the entire cave with my scream of pain: the hand, not covered with armor, started dissolving as if eaten up by acid. The pain was so horrendous that I fainted; when I came to, I had no hand. A disfigured and burnt stub was all the Game had left me.
“You need to respawn,” Zangar noted, calmly as always, once I hobbled back to the group. The elves’ ointment from a red vial helped: it killed the pain and healed the wound; however, it failed to accomplish a miracle: my hand did not regenerate. “Now you’re deficient. Bad fighter and partner. Do you need help?”
“The yellow rays activate destruction of armor, and the blue ones destroy organic matter,” I grumbled, unable to take my eyes away from the pedestal and the book sitting on it. A mere fifteen meters separated me from fascinating knowledge; yet right now it seemed like another abyss! “No one can provide a guarantee that there are no more, say, green rays that destroy everything altogether. But we were in that blasted cave!" By the last sentence I was already shouting, giving way to my emotions. "Blue rays were deactivated there! That means there must be a way to remove them somehow! Zangar!?”
“I have no information. Not even the kind I couldn’t tell. Teacher thought – one cave. Said to go that way. We can return. Find new keymaster.”
“I am not leaving this place without the book,” I almost growled, studying the 3D model of the rays. “How far can you throw me?”
Zangar thought for a while; he even lifted me, estimating my weight, then said:
“To the opposite end of the cave or even further.”
“Excellent. Marinar, what attack ability do you have, and how much time will it take you to activate it?”
“Ice. About two seconds for activation.” Apparently no one understood what I was getting at: both the cynocephalian and the former inhabitant of Varnax looked puzzled.
“It takes Zangar about two seconds as well.” The plan in my head took shape, and now was fleshing out so actively that the Book of Knowledge that had learnt to read my thoughts formed a planned trajectory of my flight. “Then we’ll do the following. Marinar, you stand in the corridor. As soon as Zangar throws me, you wait for one second, then shoot ice at me, hit me – that’s most important! Don’t you even think of missing! Then you go for respawn via a trap.
“Zangar, your task will be more difficult. You have to throw me like this.” Using gestures, I indicated the trajectory of my supposed flight that would avoid most of the rays, “Immediately after you throw me you have to get out your staff and cast your mega-deadly curse at me, then step over the trip wire and join Marinar in the trap. I hope I die before I hit the floor… I don’t see another way out that would enable us to obtain the book without one of the group dying. Oh, but we have the agreement! For the Game: I officially allow Marinar and Zangar to inflict damage on me in accordance with the algorithm I have just outlined. The last thing we need is for you to incur punishment after all of this. If anyone has objections or suggestions, speak now because later we’ll all be dead, so it’ll be too late.”
“This is crazy and irresponsible,” Marinar stated.”You are exposing the entire group to potential danger for the sake of some book. What if there’s nothing there?”
“Zangar?” I looked at the imperturbable necromancer, ignoring the girl’s words.
“The book made teacher stronger. Can help us. We’ll cover you. Risk justified. Say when to throw you.”
“To hell with you, let’s try,” the mage surrendered. "I’m ready. By the way, dying is very unpleasant.”
“No one’s arguing with that. On the count of three: Ready, set... Marinar, go to the corridor. STOP! Take a step to the side, slowly, now freeze! You nearly activated a trap! Everyone ready? One! Two!
“THREE!”
You were killed and sent to a respawn point
You lost one level
Your current level: 7
Object received: Founders’ notes. Volume 2 of 3: Madonna
The space around me regained colors and I realized that I was standing next to the respawn stone. Zangar was standing next to me.
“We need a new keymaster,” the necromancer said carefully, examining something behind my back. “Marinar forgot to put her hood on.”
I turned around following the necromancer’s gaze and was barely able to suppress nausea: the girl lying on the ground had very little left of her head. It was a horrendous sight: the acid had destroyed Marinar’s head all the way to the brain at the back. Swallowing hard, I looked at my hand and my body turned cold: the hand was still a stub which did not regenerate after respawn.
“Marinar lingered before trap. Didn’t want to die. I killed you. Left through trap. As agreed. Mage was scared and retreated. Acid flooded the corridor. Did not harm me. Marinar was slow. Stupid death.”
She had level three!�
�� I whispered in astonishment. “Why is she dead? This was not supposed to happen! I calculated everything! She had two more lives!”
“Acid prevents regeneration. Your hand shows that. Hard to live without head. Not everyone can. You got what you wanted. What’s the book about? Was it worth Marinar’s life?”
Only at that point did I realize that in my right hand I was convulsively clutching the book shining with all the colors of the rainbow. Before I burnt up – and I was burnt by the fire of the trap, not the mage’s ice nor the necromancer’s curse – I had grabbed the book, making it my property and an integral part of me as a game character. The book was made in the same style as the notes of Zangar’s teacher: wooden boards with the text written in broad handwriting. Only this time I was able to read the text without the necromancer’s help:
… Failed again! We managed to put HIM together, but something is going awry! The Game is asking for an access code. WHAT IS THAT?!
… We found the code! It’s frightful to imagine the mind of the one who invented it!
… Merlin is still doubting. He considers we should wait another couple of hundred years. There is no time to wait! Humanity will die if we hesitate!
… I figured it out! We need a sacrifice! I know who that will be. All three of us!
… The Emperor felt something wrong and tried to stop us. Fool! The Game has no power over those who have HIM! We shall reach our goal!
… My beloved brought the babies. Two boys and a girl. He says we don’t have to die after restart. It’s possible to become part of the Game again, of our Game. We need some time to work out the ritual.
… The Emperor found us but didn’t destroy us. It’s funny: he is not against restart. He doesn’t care, actually; the most important thing for him is to preserve history.
… We agreed on the list of players who will come with us to our new world. This is the third restart!!! It would be funny to look at the three histories combined, The Emperor says the Game will find a way to explain it.
… We will have to respawn after all. The power surge must be great, else the server won’t be able to make it. That’s a pity; I had hoped to keep my current body and consciousness. The Emperor offered to help with the transfer. We agreed.
…This is the last entry, so I’ll pay special attention to it. Tomorrow we are going to restart the Game and establish our order! Since we’ll become different beings, I will leave a hint with the Chancellor of the Academy. Merlin and my beloved hid their books. Those who want will find them. In essence, in order to restart the Game, one needs the founder’s key – it consists of three parts (the parts are described in Merlin’s notes, he was working on that), coordinates of the game server (those coordinates are in my beloved’s notes) and the access code (). A strong power surge is required for restart, so the one who restarts the machine must die. I hope the new world will be different from the old one and that humanity will come to its senses.
Priestess, level 796, Madonna.
“Yaropolk?”Zangar reminded me of his existence once I turned the last page and froze, staring into nothingness. Madonna wasn’t a founder of the Game‒ Levard was wrong! “Have you become stronger?”
“He has become wiser,” came the Chancellor’s sarcastic voice; however, it had none of its former anger now. “Even though in his case it’s the same thing. What would you say, Dark one, was the book worth what happened to you in the cave?”
“Everything is relative. What happened to Marinar?” It dawned on me only now that contrary to the mechanics of the Game the girl’s body hadn’t disappeared. If she had died, she would have simply faded, as had happened to many before her, returning her “soul” to the NPC pool. However, her body showed no signs of dissolving, which indicated one thing only: somehow the girl remained living. Since the Chancellor himself deigned to visit us, why shouldn’t we find out from him the reasons for this very strange phenomenon?
“It seems as though she died: can’t you see? In your flight you crossed both a blue ray and a yellow one. Had you spent a little more time investigating you would have also learnt about purple rays. While the yellow and purple act with a certain delay, blocking a blue ray instantly fills the cave with acid; the result of it is literally upon your heads. You nitwits, you are told when the armor is issued to you: don’t take it off under any circumstances! But no, we are such smart ones. It’s more comfortable for us without headgear. So one oh so smart one outsmarted herself.”
“Had she died the body would have disappeared.”
“Oh, she is alive! She is just being punished. Both for being slow and for figuring out the way to convey information from Zangar to you. I don’t like cunning players, so now she will have to enjoy this. Her mind won’t suffer; I will restore her mind from the point when you took the book. No, but what a crazy idea — jumping across the rays! Through the air! Some explorer, aren’t you… I need to close that loophole to be on the safe side. And to protect against various explorers too smart for their own good.”
“For the next time?” I said in surprise.
“You thought that there was only one copy of the notes? Levard was the first in the current version of the Game who obtained the notes, so I created the second cave. You are the second. So that means that the third cave will soon appear, with even more elaborate traps that will account for flying as well. At least I’ll get some amusement from that.”
“So the first and third volumes are not in the Academy?”
“Dark one: read the notes again! Don’t aggravate me; it’s already hard for me to get used to the thought that Merlin’s reincarnation might be Dark. He was fun to talk to!”
“…?”
“What did I do to deserve all this?! Since you are the one who found the book, you may be one of the three mages of the past. Specifically, the one you are is: Merlin. Madonna can only return as a woman, and the third player is still alive. For that reason his name has been removed from everywhere. He survived‒ understand? He withheld some of his power, spared himself. That’s why the current version came out so flawed. There are too many discrepancies in it; it’s too far from the original plan. Thus, either you or Levard, or the subsequent player who finds the new cave and retrieves the book is the reincarnation of Merlin, a level 933 mage. The others are just lucky.”
“I have question.” Zangar joined the conversation. “Even two. First, how to heal Marinar? I understand she is alive. Not good to abandon partner. Second… Not question Request. Remove constraint on information. Cannot keep silent. No hand, no head. Weak group we have. Will not pass Labyrinth.”
“My constraint applies only to Levard, I have nothing to do with you. You need to resolve your issues with your teacher. Either you betray him and tell everything, or keep silent, or… Really, I am not the one to give you hints, players. By the way, it probably makes sense to warn you: if you do manage to get out of the Academy, we’ll have to sign a non-disclosure agreement between us. It wouldn’t be right to release information on specifics of the Academy into the public domain. Don’t frown, Dark one, you’ll receive your compensation. You wouldn’t be able to sell it at a higher price than that.
“As for Marinar — her body needs to be restored. The damage from my acid is not removed by respawn. I took her soul into storage; right now there is no place for it to return. Bring the body to me, I’ll restore it. And your hand too, Dark one, even though it would teach you if I were to leave it like this forever. So that you’d think twice before sticking things into places! She will still lose Energy, so hurry. As a goodwill gesture I’ll slow down the drain rate, say, by half. Now she’ll respawn every 24 hours. Did I answer your questions, necromancer? Then I have a surprise for you: by my right as the head of the Academy I am changing the terms of the quest issued to you. If you want to get a reward I’m waiting for all three of you in the castle.
“Further on you can’t use any more keymasters, that’s enough. You already had two attempts and you fai
led both times. Besides, there are no more players in the forest, everyone has left for the Labyrinth; so that’s more of a formal constraint than a critical one, but I have to warn you. If you show your faces in the caves you may forget about the reward.”
Quest “Visit” has been updated …
“There was a player left in the first cave,” my eyes fell on Marinar’s body and I immediately remembered the statue. “Is he being punished as well?”
“It was his conscious choice. He sacrificed himself so that Levard could have the book. At that time I hadn’t invented the blue rays yet, so I let him stay where he is. Oh well, and it’s a little more fun for me: between the enrolments of recruits I play with his spirit. The way he screams in pain is very amusing… He’s a funny guy. That’s it; I'm waiting for you at my place.”
“I have twenty two Energy elixirs and nine elves’ ointment,” I said once the pause grew long. Zangar and I simply stood and stared at each other, lost in our own thoughts. I didn’t know what the necromancer was thinking about, but I was thinking about his teacher, Levard. If he were an incarnation of Merlin, it would explain his thirst for knowledge about the beginning of the Game and his advancement to unprecedented heights for a player. A potential Viceroy, one of the four players who control the Game. Perhaps the Emperor himself made him a councilor as he was worried about the possibility of another restart.
The Beginning (Dark Paladin Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 30