Lady Blades faced off against the three magic users. Her hair whipping in the wind. Rain and blood dripped down her swords.
Priest didn’t plan on sticking around to watch the show. In the middle of the chaos, he healed himself completely. He got up and ran toward Gina and Noelle.
“Let’s go!” he screamed over the wind. They grabbed Xavier who had passed out.
“Ebonnnnyyyy,” Xavier moaned as they jostled him awake.
Priest looked over at the arrow riddle bodies of Ebony and Shiori. Shiori was slumped over and down to 4 health and Ebony was at 2 health. The two were being hauled off on stretchers by elven soldiers. Priest inhaled mana and used healing word to give a +5 bump to their health. At this distance, it would not be as effective but he hoped it would give them a fighting chance assuming the elven medics would save them.
He heard the system chime in:
Quest Complete: Save Your Friends
Congratulations! You have earned 10% in total experience points necessary to attain the next level for every person rescued; You have helped (3) people escape from team Kali for a total of 30% toward your next class level. You have greatly increased the probability of gaining a portal mage; you have the opportunity to form a new team; you have earned 200 system credits.
It was great he had helped three people escape, but Xavier was at a dwindling 5 health. He had a chance to live but he was bleeding a lot, “We’ll have to come back for them,” Priest wasn’t sure how that would be possible, but he had to do one thing at a time. He helped Xavier to limp away from the storm. Priest could heal him once they got away from the disaster about to strike.
They headed down an empty side street as fast as they could. There was a flash of light followed by a sound of thunder. An explosion of fire and heat pushed them forward knocking them flat in the dirt.
When Priest’s hand touched the dirt road it triggered a quest. The system spoke to him and displayed a choice.
You are at the crossroads of two different recommended fates that affect the Elven Reich realm:
New Quest: Save Xavier & Empower the Sister Seamstress
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to imbue the elves of the Sister Seamstress with mana. And save Xavier.
Reward: 25% of the total necessary to get to the next class level; gain a small army of Mana-Born elves; save Xavier; earn 100 system credits; gain the option of setting a new spawn point in Universal Set .0043
Failure: Xavier bleeds out in the streets.
Difficulty: Moderate
New Quest: Awaken Xavier And Armed Robbery of Magic Merchant
This is a life or death situation. Commandeer the Magic Merchant’s shop for a place to heal Xavier. Find a legendary relic that will light your path to glory. Take out anyone in your path.
Reward: 25% of the total necessary to get to the next class level; Unlock the power of the dark-born and awaken Xavier to the darkness he craves; earn 100 system credits; gain the option of setting a new spawn point in Universal Set .0043
Failure: Xavier bleeds out in the street.
Difficulty: Moderate
“What the hell does that mean?” Priest said. He saw a path from the road going to each quest. He looked at each of them. They were time sensitive quests. He didn’t have a lot of time to decipher the riddles.
Chapter 20:
Fate of Xavier
“Aaaaagh!” Xavier had knocked the arrow deeper into his leg when he fell. Blood gushed from around the arrow. He was at 3 health points. Priest inhaled mana to heal Xavier’s wounds but realized that he had to remove the arrow first.
The quest had given him clear choices, “We need to get Xavier out of the road if we want to save him,” Priest said to Gina and Noelle over the howling wind. “We have to get him to a safe place!” Priest yelled pulling the big man to his feet.
Noelle ran to the first door she saw and tried to go inside. The door was locked. She could see the people peering out of a slot then they quickly shut it. The weather seemed to get worse.
Gina was at another building banging on the small door, “Help. Please, help us!” But no one dared open their doors.
Priest followed the path of the quest closest to him. He saw a building with a sign that said, ‘Sister Seamstress’. Beneath the sign was an elven woman peering out of the door. Her big blue eyes looked inviting. She seemed to be waiting for them. Priest draped X’s arm around his shoulder and walked him toward the Sister Seamstress shop.
“Here! Over here,” he yelled to Noelle and Gina over the wind. X was drifting out of consciousness from loss of blood so Priest was practically dragging him. The other quest greyed out and faded as he leaned on the doorstep of the seamstress shop and accepted the pivotal quest to save Xavier. He’d have to figure out the rest of the quest once he was inside.
Once he was closer, he could see an elven lady with braided hair coiled on top of her head like a blonde crown. Her youthful tan face looked very stern like she was not taking anybody’s shit, ever. She seemed to have changed her mind once Priest got closer, “Wait here while I summon the Red Robes! You savages cannot attack us!” She shut the door.
“No, please! We were their prisoners!” Priest jammed his foot in the door. Xavier’s limp body was draped over his shoulders.
“He’s gonna die. Please…” X’s head was drooping down toward the ground and he was drooling as he struggled to stay conscious. Priest stared into the lady’s eyes, pleading. She looked at Xavier, then Priest. It seemed like she wanted to help but she was a little apprehensive. She let them in. Priest rushed in and laid Xavier in the middle of the lobby moving a small wooden table aside with his foot. A pool of blood spilled out on the pristine marble tiles of the business. Gina walked inside dipping her head to get through the doorway. Noelle followed her and rushed to Xavier side stroking his brow gently.
The blonde woman peered outside to see if anyone had seen them come in. She attempted to shut the door but the wind and rain were so intense that she didn’t have the strength. Gina had to help her close it using her whole body weight to finally slam the door shut against the force of nature outside the door.
The elven woman looked at Gina, “If there is any trouble, we’ll call the Red Robes,” she tightened a green lacey belt on her silk tunic. “You should also know we have a magic user with us, so don’t try anything.”
Gina nodded but didn’t quite know what the small woman was talking about. Gina’s eyes were wide. Her face was still sprinkled with blood and rain. She was in shock from all of the death she’d just seen… not to mention stepping into another universe. She had not doubted Priest but her interpretation of what he had preached differed from any of this.
“Put pressure on the wound,” Priest told Noelle after he’d taken out both arrows. She was crying; her hands drenched in Xavier’s blood. The man was now barely breathing. Priest put his hands-on Xavier’s two wounds over Noelle’s bloody hands. He closed his eyes and breathed in mana to apply as much energy as he could into the healing spell. His hands glowed and the warmth of the light flowed into the wounds.
Noelle and Gina stared at the glowing light work. They stared at Priest, then at each other. Noelle had felt that energy pass through her hands and into the wounds. She felt the wounds close up and mend.
Noelle looked at her own hands still tingling with the warmth of the healing light, “what the hell…”
She thought about something he’d told her when they first met, “there is a power flowing through each of us. I want to help you access that power.” She thought it was a corny pickup line. But it worked and she had been hanging around for the sheer novelty of being in a cult and to hang out with Gina who was like a sister to her.
Noelle looked at Priest, “So this stuff is real?” she said out loud.
Xavier took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He tried to get to his feet, “Ebony! She died! She was shot!”
“Whoa, whoa. Wait-a-minute,” Priest said putting a hand on t
his chest to gently push him down. “When I last saw her, she was alive. She wasn’t in good shape but the elven army was moving her off the road on a stretcher. Her and Shiori. Your health is only at about 15%. You need to recharge.”
“She’s alive!? I have to get to my sister. Gotta go back. She was shot with arrows,” Xavier had tears in his eyes. “It’s my little sister, man.”
“I know,” Priest said. “I know. You’re not quite 100%. Do you feel 100%? You gotta be feeling like shit right now. The full healing will work fast but you need to rest. Heal up and we’re going to find her and bring her with us. Right now, I need you to rest.”
Noelle stared at Priest, “Oh my god, you healed him,” she looked at X. “He was bleeding to death. I felt the wound close up. I felt the energy. You just freakin’ healed him with light from your hands! How?!”
Priest nodded, “Everything I told you is true, Noelle. We are in a simulation… like a game. I’ve got my powers back. I’m a cleric. I heal people. I also hold the role of game master which allows me to give powers. Let me show you.”
Chapter 21:
The Personal Reality Subset
Priest took Noelle’s hands, “Close your eyes and relax.”
He inhaled a little mana and exhaled the energy into her. Her body suddenly felt paralyzed but her mind remained fully awake.
“What’s happening?” She said. But her lips didn’t move. Panic set in as she attempted to open her eyes and move her arms. Her body wasn’t responding.
“Hold on. Hold on,” Priest clapped and a soft dim light showed a very small room. She blinked and looked at her hands.
“Is this a dream?” Noelle asked.
“No.” Priest said. He swiped the air and a file structure appeared. Glowing files and folders hovered in the room like a cluster of stars. He swiped again and they scrolled by, “I mean, yeah. Kinda, I guess. I-It’s more like your body is sleep and your consciousness gets dialed into a programmed reality fragment… or something like that… We call it a Personal Reality Subset. Hold on give me a sec. Looking for aaaa… man, I gotta clean up this mess.”
He rotated the files up, then left, then he zoomed through the cluster of 3-dimensional folders until he found an app icon that looked like the profile of a person with a halo over their head. The app was called, ‘System_Realization_Character_Sheet v.1729.exe’.
“Aww! Finally! Here it is,” he clicked on the app and a door appeared on the wall of the room.
He walked over to the door, “Ok, I’ve created a profile on the system for you. You now have access to a Personal Reality Subset. The next time you go to sleep, take a nap, nod off or meditate, you’ll be able to enter a room that looks like this,” he said. “It’s customizable, and gives you the ability to create shared reality subsets, public reality subsets, train, teach, create fantasies, record thoughts, you name it.”
“Follow me,” Priest walked through the door and he disappeared. She was reluctant. She stood there for about 5 seconds and she followed. As soon as she walked through the door, she felt like she was moving through a tunnel toward a light. The light got brighter and larger until she thought she could make out the familiar red and white bull’s eye logo and font of a Cj Clothing Store. She looked around. Strangers walked from store to store shopping. Some just hung out laughing with friends and family. This place looked familiar.
“Alamogordo Mall?” Noelle said to herself.
Priest walked up to her eating a vanilla ice cream cone, “This is a system training module. It’ll allow us to find the best class and skills that fit your natural ability.”
“It feels so... real,” she’s said looking around.
“That’s because it is,” Priest said.
“How is it real?” Noelle said almost to herself.
“Yeah, exactly, how is anything real?” Priest turned around and stopped a random stranger. It was a blonde guy in a cardigan and tan slacks. He was with his family. His daughter was startled by Priest. She let her balloon go. The red balloon slowly floated upward.
“Hey,” the blonde man protested. “What’s your problem, buddy?”
Priest ignored him. He kept his grip on the guy and looked over at Noelle, “Look at these people. What do you see?”
Noelle grabbed the balloon with a perfect leap performed in high heels and a skirt, “I see a cute little family.” Noelle said handing the balloon back to the little girl who smiled.
“Look closer,” Priest said.
“What do you mean? I don’t see—” And then she saw it. Above the father’s head was the name: Edward Smith. The mother was Mildred Smith and the little girl was Milly. “Milly, Mildred, and Edward?”
The mother spoke, “I’m sorry. Do we know you from somewhere?”
“I’m seeing... numbers,” Noelle said. “Edward, HP, 40/40…”
Priest nodded, “Ok. Good. But if you focus you should be able to see more.”
Noelle focused on the little girl.
“Oh god,” the mother said. Tears began to well up in her eyes. “How are you doing that? Your face...”
The father looked from his daughter’s face to Noelle’s face, “How?”
Little Milly cried, “Mommy?” The family quickly moved away from Priest and Noelle.
Noelle touched her face, “W-what?”
Priest smiled and nodded, “That’s not what I wanted you to do, but at least we know what your power is.”
Noelle walked over to the window of a store. The reflection she saw in the glass was the little girl’s face.
Priest put a hand on her shoulder, “Ok, that face is creeping me out. Anyway… looks like you’re a shapeshifter.”
“A what?” Noelle asked.
“You have the ability to change your face and your body to look like other people. It’ll be limited at first, but you get better as you gain experience points. You don’t get experience points in the Personal Reality Subset training modules but it’ll allow you to get used to using the system interface and your powers. What I want you to do is walk around this mall and change your face to look like some of the people you see or touch,” Priest walked away.
“Wait, where are you going?” Noelle called to him.
“You just keep practicing,” Priest said not looking back. “Get used to the system. I’ll be back.”
Priest opened his eyes and he was back in the room being stared at by all the elven ladies, Gina and Xavier.
The elves were watching intensely and talking amongst themselves. Gina was holding Noelle’s hand and watching her face. Noelle sat there quietly with her eyes still closed and her face changing from time to time. The face of a bearded man, then the face of an old woman, then her face started shifting tones of skin and lengths of jaw and chin.
Xavier was sweating with dark rings around his eyes but he was doing a little better with his health bar at 17%. He was laying on a few linens that soaked up the blood of his previous injuries. The big man managed to maneuver his body to face them, “How the hell is she doing that?” he said.
“Oh,” Priest said. “I’ve activated her powers. She’s now a shapeshifter. THIS is how we’re going to rescue Ebony and Shiori. And hopefully, Samantha too, if we can find her.”
Xavier sighed and leaned back, “That’s a neat little trick. But I don’t see how that’s gonna help us get ‘em back.” He rubbed at his scar where the arrow used to be.
“We have to activate your powers too,” Priest moved over to him. “But only if you want to.”
Xavier nodded, “I’ll do it.”
Priest warned, “Once you’re system-realized… I mean, once you get these powers, I can’t undo it. It will change your life… and not always for the better. Take my hand if you want to do this.”
Chapter 22:
Lady Blades Audio Log 1
An audiolog from Game Master 665, Lady Blades (Kiera Kali) archived in the GM LitRPG shared reality library
Dear Listener,
I record this fo
r future players, system users, and those who serve in the Game Master Corps. I want to give you another perspective of a Corps player at their lowest and highest moments. I hope that this perspective will give you a realistic view of the Czarzakian Multiverse simulation. The litRPG archives often show the highlight reels of high adventures and fleets of fantasy that occur here. They show the pro-gamers competing for fun and civilians enjoying pleasure realms within the system. But the view from inside the system for those of us exploring alternate universes can be bleak. While I have time to create this audio log, I will give you a glimpse.
I am in a small elven cell in a newly discovered Universal set. I am recording this in my Personal Reality Subset and will upload it to the Share GM LitRPG library when I get a chance. I don’t know if the Game Master Corps will declassify or redact elements of this audiolog for the public but here goes.
I had successfully lured my rival and former teammate, Priest, into our old safe house. To be honest, I didn’t think he’d be dumb enough to come near the place when I was there. Especially, after I had tried to kill him in and out of the system. It is an admission of guilt. But I hope that some of you can at least see why I did it. We’ll get to that. Just listen.
Luring him into the safe house went better than expected because he brought a new portal mage. He might be arrogant, selfish, and a coward but he has a real knack for finding talent and valuable objects. I needed that talent to complete my quest. The quest was to open a lost portal. I have a database of lost portals with me extracted from the damaged portal gun of Phaze6, the last servicemen to get caught in a lost portal besides our team. When I came out of the lost portal, I still had his device in my hands. The GMC promised to assign a portal mage once I had a team with at least level 10, but I am not waiting anymore. I am going for it.
Lost Portals Page 11