The Trapped Mind Project (Emerilia Book 1)

by Michael Chatfield

  “Well, that was quite a display. Would you be willing to teach us?” Mikal asked.

  “Certainly. It will take time and patience. You already have developed bad habits that will need to be broken,” Deia said.

  Dave felt something stir in his chest. He didn’t want the Players training with Deia. Especially Mikal, who was closer to her skill set. He could see the excitement in Mikal’s face and Deia’s happiness to help another.

  Calm down, dude. It’s not as if there’s anything going on. Deia is just your teacher. Though that thing about hurting anything useful… She wasn’t talking about the crown jewel incident, was she?

  Another sight caught his eye. Esa was talking to Joko. Joko looked over Esa as she might look over a particularly interesting pile of scat. After a moment, Joko nodded, talking back to Esa.

  Jules was walking through the area. It seemed that the three Players had seen how training instead of just using commands could be useful in Emerilia.

  “When can we start?” Mikal asked, clearly excited.

  “I was just about to teach Dave some more ways to be silent as well as move faster. With there being two of you now, playing a game of Prawn and Cashal might be in order. It would definitely allow you to learn more. Games are, after all, more fun than lessons,” Deia said.

  “I’m in,” Mikal said.

  Even with the tension in Dave’s chest earlier, he enjoyed a good competition. “Prepare to lose, Mikal,” Dave said.

  “Shall we do a wager?” Mikal asked.

  “Okay,” Dave said, interested.

  “The loser has to pay for the others drinks, for a night,” Mikal grinned and pushed back his brown hair.

  Deia didn’t even say anything; she just raised an eyebrow and turned to face Dave.

  Dave felt excitement radiate off Deia. He looked to her, his eyes widening. Excitement was mixed with anxiety as Deia’s eyes met his, a smile spreading across her face.

  She seemed to realize what she was doing, turning red, looking away, and returning to her stony expression.

  He grinned wider, he wanted to see her smile again.

  She wasn’t like many of the people he had worked with at Rock Breakers; she interested him. Every time he saw her, he was filled with questions and thoughts that made it hard to concentrate.

  This isn’t Earth, this is Emerilia, I don’t need to worry about the paparazzi hounding me. I’ve been single for so damn long it hurts. Sure, she might be an NPC or a real person like Bob says. At this point, I don’t think it really matters. She’s an interesting gal.

  His life had been turned upside down in more than one way. He had gone from thinking of himself as Austin Zane, trillionaire and stressed-out engineer turned CEO to Dave Grahslagg, one of the few people who knew the truth of Emerilia, humanity’s unending prison made to create warriors to fight other races that the Jukal Empire deemed too aggressive to provide any kind of use.

  He’d thrown himself into his training with abandon. He knew he needed to learn more. That was part of it, but the other part was the fear. Fear that if he didn’t learn fast enough, then there would be a day that he couldn’t defend himself or the others who he cared for.

  Whatever he had felt, it seemed to soothe his soul. He relaxed, letting tension he didn’t know of slide from his shoulders. He didn’t need to hold all the weight of what was going on with Emerilia. Sometimes, he needed to stop thinking about the big picture and just have a day off.

  He smiled, looking at Deia and then Mikal.

  Maybe he had felt her emotions, maybe he hadn’t. Either way, after this he wanted to talk to her, not as teacher and student but just two people.

  “All right, I’m in.” Dave smiled and held out a hand.

  “Hell yeah!” Mikal shook his hand.

  “Dave, you’re not allowed to use Touch. If I sense it, you’ll automatically lose. The rules are simple. You go in different directions. I will close the party chat. Once I do so, then you hunt each other. The first to pull the others ribbon off wins.” Deia pulled out two red ribbons in small bags.

  Dave and Mikal took them, putting them through their belt loops and the back. Making a kind of red tail.

  “Off you go. I will be watching,” Deia added.

  Dave took off slowly. He took his time, working his way deeper into the forest that the outpost butted against. He took off his armor and put it in his bag. He put the bag down and rolled his shoulders. He was tired from the training in the morning. Now he had removed what had been nearly a ton in weight. He took off his shoes and took off at a run, jumping from tree trunk to tree trunk, barely touching the trees. He skipped along the ground, casually remembering the lessons that Deia had taught him. His body flowed through the forest instead of being the restrained coil that it seemed to be when he was dealing with Dwarven fighting.

  Training Party Chat

  Deia>Begin.

  Dave used rocks and trees with hard bark to move so that he didn’t leave a trail. After a while, he circled around the outpost. He closed his eyes as he moved. Through his Touch, he had come to know the energies and the layout of the forest.

  Deia had told him that the forest could talk to him as he gained skill with it. Dave passed over the creatures in the forest without them ever realizing that they hadn’t been alone. Dave didn’t need Touch to become one with his environment now. It was slower and harder to do but it didn’t use any Mana, just concentration.

  That’s when he noticed a disturbance in the forest. Crickets weren’t making noise where they should be.

  Dave landed on a branch, walking a bit to slow his momentum. He took in the peace of the forest. He heard the noises of the outpost and the quiet of the patch where Mikal was waiting.

  He was under a dead tree that had fallen on a rock. It was covered with a thick bush. There weren’t any tracks leading to the spot. The tree and bush looked untouched.

  Mikal might be using commands but for this skill, Dave knew that he was using some of his own skills.

  Dave sat down and waited. He brought up manuals on smithing and different types of weapons and items that people had created in Emerilia. Dave looked over images and stat pages. Dave thought of the blade—how it must feel, its design—and poured Mana into it.

  He also tried it slowly instead of creating a blade instantly. It used a hell of a lot of Mana and the dagger he’d made was much weaker than the one he was looking at. He’d made it from the same material as the one in the picture and it looked the same, but it wasn’t the same.

  It’s like when I had blueprints compared to when I had a 3-D printed model of an item. With the model, I can picture what it can do, see its functionality. In an image, I can think of how it’s made, the way it moves. It’s just not as fulfilling. Dave opened his eyes. If he wanted to conjure more items, then he would have to touch them, understand their inner workings.

  His excitement made his focus waver. He felt a displacement in the air. Dave dropped forward from the branch as he heard Russian swearing behind him.

  Dave touched the ground, pushing off and heading into the forest. Even with the close call, Dave had a smile on his face as his heart thumped in his chest.

  Mikal had been hiding his presence better than Dave thought possible. The tree and bush looked so good because Mikal hadn’t been there. He’d baited a trap and Dave, overconfident, had fallen for it.

  Now the game is on. Dave saw a glimpse of the rogue in the shadows as he sped up. He closed his eyes and felt the forest again.

  When he thought that he was far enough away to have lost the Russian rogue, he found a new spot to hide in, looking for any signs of him popping up.

  “That was rather close.” Deia sat on a rock outcropping with an amused smile on her face.

  “Thanks, teacher. Trying to find my opponent here.” Dave looked around, centering himself and getting to know the flow of the forest once again, looking for the smallest disturbance to find Mikal.

  “So who you going to
take for a drink?” Deia asked.

  “Well, Mikal to pay for my beer and you if you want to go on a date,” Dave’s voice was low, so focused on the search that he wasn’t paying attention to his words.

  “You think I’m pretty?”

  “Yes, and smart, resourceful, and sneaky. Makes you much more interesting than the models that I kind of dated.” Dave turned thoughtful, realizing what he was saying.

  “Hey—you mind here? I’m trying to win this thing,” Dave said.

  “Why? You want to ask me out that bad?” Deia asked.

  Dave looked to her, their eyes connecting.

  She hid it well, but he felt the nerves, the heat that spread through her body, and the reaction through his face and his stomach. The anticipation, the risk, the possibility.

  Dave broke the look, the information overriding his ability to think.

  He took a breath and closed his eyes. I really need to find that damned Russian!

  It had gone from a competition to something more. It was only now that he had been challenged that he was starting to realize he had feelings for Deia.

  Seems that I'm just going to have to win this.

  A few of the villagers walked through the forest. They were looking at trees to cut down. Dave was about to look away when he realized why he had been attracted to them. Hiding in one of the trees was a large snake.

  Dave sent out a pulse with his touch of the land spell. His eyes opened; they were shimmering gray shadows formed in his hands, solidifying into axes.

  “Snake, ambush, villagers,” Dave said.

  Deia’s bow moved to her hand. “You lead.”

  Dave started off. He moved too fast to be hidden. He arrived as the snake dropped from the tree onto the unsuspecting villagers.

  “Watch out!” Dave yelled.

  The villagers saw the threat and got out of the way of the dropping snake.

  Level 45 Acid Snake

  Dave’s Touch allowed him to see inside the thirty-foot-long snake and the five hearts that it had. He jumped from a tree and brought his two axes down on the snake.

  Its attention turned from the villagers to Dave.

  Deia put two arrows into the creature’s side before it lunged at Dave, spitting acid.

  Dave felt it on his arm, burning through his shirt and the skin underneath. He cut at the snake’s body; his blade sank deep into the four-foot-thick creature.

  Deia was turning it into a pincushion. Its Health declined quickly as Dave continued to aggro it.

  The villagers legged it, yelling as they went. Help would take too long.

  The snake twisted and hit Dave with its tail. Dave hit a tree; the air went out of him as he felt more than one bone break. Dave rolled away. His broken ribs caused him agony as the snake bit the tree he had been on. Smoke came from its mouth where it was caught on the tree.

  Dave felt something else move in the brush. Mikal.

  The man appeared in mid-air above the snake. He landed on its head and stabbed it repeatedly.

  It shook him off. Mikal rolled, putting his hand down and sliding into a crouch. The snake turned to face Mikal, getting an arrow to its eye. It hissed in anger. A spray of acid caught the forest’s growth, leaving smoke tendrils.

  Dave had used the time Mikal had given him to stick his bones together. The experience left him feeling drained, yet he climbed to his feet.

  Dave ran at the snake, bringing his axe down on the snake’s third heart. As he jumped away and used a rock to change the direction of his movement, his other axe came down on the second-to-last heart.

  Deia jumped from a tree and came down behind the snake’s head, driving her twin blades through the snake’s last heart.

  It flopped about before lying still.

  Deia pulled out her blades and stabbed the snake again. It didn’t so much as twitch.

  “Why did you stab it again?’ Dave asked.

  “Sometimes the creatures get sneaky and try to play dead. If it’s really dead, then it won’t do anything. If it’s not, then you’re better prepared to kill it.” Deia got off the snake, blood on her blades, hands, and armor.

  “Damn. The others are going to be jealous of all the Experience I just got.” Mikal looked excited, whereas Dave and Deia contemplated the dead snake.

  In that moment, Dave saw the differences between him and the Players. Dave cared whether Deia died; he knew that she wouldn’t come back. Sure, Mikal would find it annoying, but to him, Deia was just ones and zeroes. She wasn’t a real person, to him.

  To Dave, the people on Emerilia were real.

  Chapter 18: Back to Basics

  Dave was eating a simple meal of bread and soup and stared at the mixtures that were in front of him. He’d been trying to form beer for the last couple of weeks since Bob had put the idea in his head. His first attempts had turned into poison.

  It wasn’t as simple as just combining elements and they made beer. They were organic elements that went through multiple processes before being brewed into beer.

  So, he’d looked through forums on brewing and then talked to anyone who had any type of insight into alcohol. It seemed that the Dwarves were a wealth of knowledge, with all of them having at least one family brew. Armed with knowledge, an alchemy set, different cookware, and a thirst, he’d set to concoct his beer.

  When Kol sat down on the log beside him, he was focusing his Touch of the Land on the different apparatus that were supposed to create liquor. It was a little easier than beer—in his mind, at least. He had others who were using different processes and ingredient blends to make beers strewn across his house.

  Focusing and concentrating his Touch of the Land was still hard. Bob was teaching him slowly but their lessons turned into magical debates. It was like two coders talking different stacks and coding practices. They made connections and thought of new ways to do old code with small practices and experiments to confirm or deny their ideas. They did a bit of the experiments when they talked, but many more when Dave was just wandering around and an idea they’d been talking about clicked with another.

  “Well, it seems I’ve got some Scotch—pretty nice as well. Have to age that and see how it turns out,” Dave muttered to himself. Once he had the mixture created, then he could conjure it at will. He was building a small cellar to store the various casks he was making as he didn’t need to tap them to drink them and leaving them in would allow them to age, changing and developing the flavor.

  “The hell are you doing?” Kol asked.

  Dave jumped as he realized that he was not alone. “Making booze?” The man seemed perpetually unhappy and grumpy.

  Dave looked at the man. He wore baggy clothing as well as eye coverings to try to hide the worst of his damage. Most of his facial hair was gone and his face looked like a wax statue that someone had taken a lighter to.

  Dave found it strange, but he was more interested in the well of magical power that the man seemed to give off. He might look weak and his baggy clothes helped to hide his power, but there was nothing that Dave couldn’t see with his Touch of the Land.

  Kol was no simple grandfather. He was still strongly built. Although his face and chest had been badly burned, his hands were scarred with work rather than the accident.

  Kol didn’t look at Dave but Dave knew that the man could see him. He used a cane to walk around but it was merely a prop, like the clothes.

  “Do you have Touch of the Land?” Dave asked.

  “Well, you’re more than you look.” Kol sounded amused. “I do.”

  Dave nodded and continued eating.

  “My grandson tells me tall tales of you making items from nothing,” Kol said.

  Dave debated whether he should say anything before he nodded. If Gurren trusted the man, then he would.

  “Conjure up your axe,” Kol said.

  Dave focused. It took him a few seconds to get the form down and then rush Mana into it before he lost the form. In his hand, he held his axe. He passed it to
Kol, who turned the conjured axe as if it were a true weapon. He tested its edge, the balance; he even smelled it and tapped it in various places.

  Kol nodded to himself and passed the axe back. Dave pulled his power back from the form, the shadows turning to nothing.

  “The similarities are only skin-deep. I see where you might need to know more of the basics in order to create a true weapon. Do you have a pickaxe?” Kol asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Then eat as we walk. We are a good distance from a good vein.” Kol stood and started to walk off.

  Dave put his bread in his bowl, grabbing his bag and hurrying after Kol. Don’t worry—just killed a big-ass snake not even an hour ago. I’m perfectly fine to go mining for some ore.

  Dave ate his food as Kol pulled out a piece of rock from his pocket. He tossed it into Dave’s bowl. Soup splashed on Dave’s face.

  “The hell?”

  “To know your weapon, you must first know your materials. That is steel. See the different elements of the metal. See how it has been formed and changed from iron.” Kol threw another metal bit. Dave caught it before it landed in his soup.

  “Seems that you are capable of learning.” Kol’s gruff voice made the finding sound surprising.

  Dave ate his meal while Kol threw metal bits at him.

  Then Kol took the metal bits back. He’d hold them up, talking about their uses, how he would use them. The different needs to just mine them, or turn them into ingots. He had Dave close his eyes and name the pieces that Kol held in his fingers.

  Dave had tried to use shapes at first, not understanding the differences between the ores.

  Kol smacked him with his cane. “Use your brain. Know the metal, not just its form. You know how it’s supposed to look—you’ll never create something that has the same effect. Now what is this?”

  “Ebony,” Dave said a few seconds later, resolving to find the characteristics of the metal without using shapes. Kol had a point and he was also using Earth and Dark magic to change the forms of ore. Iron and Mithril was like clay in his hands.