by Sarah Lin
"I'd rather not do that," Bloodwraith said. From the corner of his eyes, he saw the others moving.
"Are you still suspicious? Really? Look, it's a necessary step in the process, particularly if you want to be completely protected from the Mirror Court infection. You've already given me plenty of trust, can't you offer a little more?"
"There's a mistaken assumption in your thought process." Bloodwraith drew his sword. Across the room, Gharavi dropped down to one knee and used her staff to sight toward Alan. Meara took a deep breath and her body began to flicker as she gathered her power.
Alan glanced between all of them and smiled ruefully. "I was afraid of that. Listen, I want you to know that my offer was completely sincere. I was really just going to authenticate you, not try to do anything underhanded."
"Forgive me if I don't believe you."
"But the thing is, I'm not stupid." Alan locked eyes with him without blinking. "I described this as a pocket dimension earlier, but it's actually a testing chamber. While we spoke, I moved it deeper and attached it to the bottom of a substantial barrier. Now we're deep enough that you won't be able to escape, even with your friends' abilities."
When Alan's hands started to move, Bloodwraith lunged forward, impaling him through the chest. His blade actually seemed to hit flesh, yet Alan only grunted slightly before looking back up and maintaining eye contact.
"I actually like you, Bloodwraith - ridiculous name and everything. And I honestly think you'd be good at this job. So you stay here and think about everything I said. By the time I finish cleaning up and take care of this Mirror Court situation, hopefully you'll have changed your mind."
With that the Outsider vanished, his body dissolving into light that slid into the ceiling.
Suddenly the world itself seemed to pitch, Bloodwraith's head reeling. He managed to right himself and saw that the tavern had abruptly snapped back to normal size. The other three seemed a bit disoriented as well, but Izzy rushed toward them in concern and Danniah followed.
"Gods," she said softly, "I couldn't quite hear all of it. Are we stuck here?"
"This is a prison." Meara had her eyes closed while she spoke, but then opened them with a grim look. "We might have gotten most of the information we need from him, but there's no way out. Not until it's already over."
Bloodwraith wanted to say something, but found himself remaining silent. She was right.
Chapter 9
For a moment, Bloodwraith had no idea how to proceed. They were trapped in some sort of unnatural space that likely didn't conform to any known physical or magical laws. He had no magic and Gharavi didn't specialize in portals, so they weren't likely to be able to force their way out - and the Outsider had suggested that it would be especially difficult to escape.
What could they do, then? Even if Alan had been telling the truth about his offer, Bloodwraith refused to become a flunky to those who had already used him as a pawn once. He might not particularly care about the random citizens of Alliandelle, but he didn't like the implications that had been made by all their plans. And the Aesidh might set off something even worse just to amuse themselves.
While everything was changing outside, they were trapped here. All he could-
[Quest Complete!
Survive the encounter with the Outsider by strength or deception.
EXP +10,000]
It was a single rock against a flood, yet Bloodwraith found himself smiling. "Foolish boxes." His voice was much softer than he had intended, so he forced himself to focus on their situation.
"What do we do now?" Danniah asked. "I looked around and this place doesn't have any doors or windows..."
"Remember that their powers aren't godlike." Bloodwraith looked around at all of them, making his determination clear. "We can affect the same systems and he was forced to try to bury us here. That implies that it's possible to break our way out - all we need to do is exceed his expectations."
Gharavi had been working with her bone necklace but now glanced up. "This place is almost pure Outsider magic. I intend to take a better sample, but I don't think there's any way we can bludgeon our way out."
"Even if we used up all the energy we've stored in the wand?"
"I wouldn't want to risk it. There's a chance it might punch through the veil that separates us from the real world, but based on what he said about us going deeper... I'm afraid that it would fail. If we're going to get out, we need to do so by navigating the artificial world constructed here."
"Any easy solutions, Meara?"
She shook her head. "I'm not sure if this place was built to contain someone like me, but it definitely includes that function. I can support you here, but I have no way of unlocking the path out."
"Then we're back to ordinary problem solving." Bloodwraith folded his arms and considered the matter for a time. "Unfortunately, we're bereft of many of our tools because we lost my Extra-dimensional Bag outside. If I'd been thinking properly, I'd have retrieved it."
"Oh!" Danniah beamed and jammed her hand into her pack, bringing out the Bag. "I actually picked it up at the end of the fight! I figured you might want to do that throwing trick again, but I guess it worked out, huh?"
"Good thinking." Bloodwraith smiled at her and took the Extra-dimensional Bag. Fortunately, it seemed to be at its normal weight instead of heavy - presumably Alan only temporarily disabled its weight-canceling effect instead of breaking it permanently. In that case, they still had all their equipment.
To start, he examined the walls of the false tavern carefully. As had already been noted, there were no doors or windows of any kind. There were various ornaments like a wall of drinks, a board of requests, and posted bounties, but none of them seemed substantial. Unhooking his sword, Bloodwraith began to walk toward the wall where a door would ordinarily have been.
"One of the most valuable lessons we've learned from this," Bloodwraith said, "is that our power isn't arbitrary. The EXP I've gathered does represent real power that runs the box system, including this prison. As such, that power can be set against itself. There may be loopholes and ways of manipulating this system, but even physical force is ultimately real, not artificial."
With that, he hefted his greatsword and struck the wall. It felt like striking a solid block of hard wood, but his blade bit in just like real wood. That was encouraging, so he swung again. Yet after destroying a chunk of the wall thicker than any normal wall would be, there was only more wood. Bloodwraith tried a thrust and it stopped short, failing to break through anything.
"So, Bloodwraith..." Meara had a smile on her face as she watched him. "Was your speech about the reality of power just an excuse for the fact that your first instinct was to attack the wall?"
Bloodwraith huffed. "It's a valid strategy!" Having said that, he had a feeling that trying to break through would not be effective. Even if he did, they might break into some dangerous liminal space instead of the real world.
Meanwhile, Gharavi walked closer and examined the damage to the wall. "It was a valid experiment, but I don't think we're going to be able to break through that way. Remember, the Outsider said that he moved us to make brute force less effective."
"Then we need to take a different tack, but I don't know what it should be." Bloodwraith stabbed his sword into the ground and considered their options. He could try attacking the floor and ceiling, of course, but had a feeling the result would be the same. No, they needed to think of an entirely different approach, working with the system instead of trying to destroy it.
After a long enough pause, Danniah went to sit down at one of the tables. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to eat. Even if the food isn't real, it feels real. Just eating something might help clear my head."
Taking a step back to think was a valid strategy, but Bloodwraith had no appetite. As she began to eat, however, it reminded him of something else. Bloodwraith reached into his inventory and pulled Alan's severed limb from his Extra-dimensional Bag. He had
been afraid it might have dissolved into light, but it remained - even if it was just a copy of the real man, that copy had substance.
"Izzy, would you like to try this?" She was crouched on one of the tables, poking at the fake food, but perked up when he handed her the arm. Grabbing it, she tore off the white sleeve and then took a careful bite.
"Tasty!" Her eyes opened wide and she began to tear into the flesh eagerly. Copy or not, Outsider or not, the flesh and bone looked realistic and Bloodwraith found himself staring at the messy sight.
When all of this had begun, he had imagined that the box gods were insane, incomprehensible entities from a world of swirling numbers. Now that he had met two of them, that hypothesis seemed thoroughly disproven. Oh, they were still mad in some ways, and they played very strange games indeed, but in the end they were mortals like him. He wasn't sure how he felt about that - insane box gods might have been easier in some ways.
Before he resolved his thoughts, Izzy finished off the arm and snapped her teeth together happily. Soon after, a new box appeared in his vision.
[Izilthor Necromancy Points +2!]
Just two points? Bloodwraith had been hoping that part of an Outsider's body would be worth an enormous amount, given his power. But as he reconsidered, he realized that Alan hadn't been trying to create all-powerful projections of himself, just simple avatars that he could use to manipulate the system in more subtle ways. It was an efficient and useful tactic that Bloodwraith could respect.
Unfortunately, it left him without any easy-
[New Undead Companion Trait Unlocked: Consume Veil]
Bloodwraith's eyes widened. Izzy saw his expression and hopped over to him, peering at the space where the box was, though she couldn't see it. "It was tasty, but not that tasty. Is there a special box?"
"Yes, there is. Something about a new potential trait for you, let me check it..." It had been a little while since he'd needed to search the boxes for a trait, and this was the first one that had said it was unlocked, but he figured it out soon enough and a new box appeared before him:
[Consume Veil
Cost: 43 NP
The Undead Companion will gain the ability to consume magic invested in corporeal form. This trait will significantly increase penetration of magical defenses and may override certain rules regarding immunity.
NOTE: This trait was produced through an unexpected combination of local factors and is poorly suited to Undead Companions. Taking this trait is not recommended. Please contact AdventureCorp about this bug on the next available opportunity.]
At 43 Necromancy Points the trait was expensive, but Bloodwraith found himself quite certain that he wanted Izzy to acquire it. The serious warning from the boxes only increased his eagerness to see exactly what it could do. They tried to call it a "bug" as if it was trivial, but he sensed some quiet panic in the dry text. Those who had designed the system had not intended such a trait to be created.
"It's good, right? Right?" Izzy began shifting eagerly beside him, so he chuckled and put a hand on her head.
"Yes, it is. We can't get it yet, but I'll describe it to you..." Bloodwraith read out the box to her, wishing that he had sufficient Necromancy Points at the moment. Hopefully it wouldn't take long to acquire them - that might be a bit more difficult if she couldn't eat Fellsilvered enemies, but he found himself wondering if it would be possible to find a "Consume Fellsilver" trait in the system.
No such trait appeared and he didn't find any other breakthroughs, so Bloodwraith thought that was likely all he could do for now. Instead, he returned to setting his mind to the core problem of their imprisonment.
First he ruled out the obvious by investigating every surface of the false tavern. When he got close to the request board, he was surprised to see that there was no legible writing, just a series of scribbles. While it was remotely possible that they were in another language, they looked very repetitive to him and he suspected that they were just nonsense. This wasn't an actual tavern, after all, just scenery.
After that he ignored Meara's snickering and attacked all the walls, floor, and ceiling. As he'd suspected, they all seemed to be made of endless solid wood. Surely there couldn't be endless walls surrounding them, could there? Perhaps if he began tunneling... but that sounded like forcibly breaking out, which Alan had explicitly said they couldn't do in time. While it was always possible that had been a deception, Bloodwraith set that tactic aside to consider again when he became desperate.
Wanting a break to consider other ideas, Bloodwraith checked to see what everyone else was doing. He didn't see Izzy, Gharavi was engrossed in a complex spell, and Danniah seemed to be simply practicing her strikes against one of the walls. That left Meara, who stood near one wall with a blank expression on her face.
"Any thoughts yet, Meara?"
"Hello, welcome to my shop! What can I do for you?" Hearing the cheerful and empty tone, Bloodwraith decided to leave her to whatever she was doing. The real Meara wasn't really there now, focused on something else while her shell worked automatically.
Meanwhile, he saw Gharavi sit back and let the strands of mana she had been holding go slack. She rubbed her eyes wearily, so he decided that it was a good time to talk to her. When he sat down opposite her, she smiled at him. "Sorry, no solutions yet."
"I don't expect you to come up with a way out alone. Have you figured out anything about the structure of this space?"
"I'm afraid it's a different sort of magic than I'm used to, so I can't get much by pushing directly. I don't think that we're in the middle of a barrier, though. More like we're in the center of a larger mechanism. Even if I had the ability to create portals, I don't think we could simply step through one to leave."
"Hmm. It's true that the Outsider didn't use a portal out, he just allowed his copy to dissolve." Bloodwraith glanced over at her axe staff where it leaned against the table. "That skill you used against him... something dedicated specifically to fighting Outsiders?"
"That's right. I didn't tell you about it because I wasn't entirely sure I could trust you. Plus, the skill was weak until recently when I had so much opportunity to practice against your effects."
"I'm not objecting, just curious."
"Speaking of that..." Gharavi cocked her head and gave him a strange look he couldn't interpret. "What do the boxes say about my 'affection' now?"
Bloodwraith summoned her box:
[Name: Gharavi
Race: Half-Orc/Half-???
Class: Sorcerer
Health: 181/181
Mana: 98/98
Stamina: 171/171
Level: 16
EXP: ???
Affection: 14/14
Statistics:
Might: 22
Vitality: 27
Quickness: 43
Intellect: 52 (57)
Charisma: 22
Willpower: 32
Wisdom: 25
Luck: 15
Piety: 12
Skills: ???
Proficiencies: ???
Inventory: Custom Staff, Ring of Ice
WARNING: This character may be involved with an attempt to tamper with the core AdventureCorp system. Eliminating them is strongly recommended. Check your quest log for rewards.]
Though he was mildly interested in her statistics, which had improved again, all that mattered was her "Affection" value. While everyone else in the world had a value listed out of 100, Gharavi had been working to change that... as the system had noticed.
"You have it down to 14 now. Do you think that you could do the same to nullify whatever he did to suspend you in the air?"
"Unfortunately, he's not being as cooperative as you are. Given the amount of time it would take, I don't think it's a viable option in combat." Gharavi stared where the box had been, gaze unreadable. "I look forward to getting the number down to zero, which should eliminate the influence. That will allow me to test out some theories."
"Feel free to keep working on it, but is i
t likely to earn us a way out of here?"
"No, probably not. And before you ask, I think trying to use my necklace to grind down whatever is blocking us would take far too long."
He had assumed as much, but it was good to confirm. Bloodwraith sat in silence for a time before another idea occurred to him. "The wood surrounding us may not be natural, but it still has the properties of wood, doesn't it? Could we try to burn our way out?"
"Seems risky to me," Gharavi said. "The fire might spread to every part of the tavern. For that matter, it could cause other problems... have you considered what we're breathing? Clearly there's air from somewhere, but a fire could suffocate us."
"Good points. We will reserve tests with fire for later."
"For whatever it's worth, I think a true solution will be coming from you or Meara. I'm manipulating this magic from the outside and I'm not as good at it as the people who built this place. But the two of you are already inside and you can work directly."
Bloodwraith nodded, considering her words somberly. He left Gharavi to her work, toying with ideas in his mind. Nothing in the tavern triggered any boxes, but he had forced the box system to acknowledge the Fellsilvered enemies, so perhaps it could bend to help them here? Before he found any answers, he wandered far enough to find Izzy.
She crouched behind the bar, moving along it and examining the floor. When she saw him, she perked up. "Hello, Da!"
"What are you looking for, Izzy?"
"Just sniffing out if any part of this place seems different." She glanced around at the space under the bar and pouted. "But it's all the same and boring. I don't think I'm gonna find anything."
"It's still worth trying. Keep it up."
"Okay, Da!"
Leaving her to it, Bloodwraith tried to consider what he alone could do. Gharavi could handle magic and Izzy could handle the detailed search. If it came down to it, Danniah could cover physical force. What contribution would be unique to him?
Or... perhaps not unique.
Thinking back to the conversation, Bloodwraith remembered how Alan had manipulated the white boxes to control the tavern. What was striking was that they were different than the invisible boxes he used to access all his other powers. They seemed like simple controls for the tavern itself... and perhaps those controls were generic, designed to be used by those who entered.