by Adam Elliott
“You know you'll be able to get a good party with ease after this, right? Healer built from a strong class, smart, pretty... and with a terrifying bodyguard." Cayden laughed. "You will do fine."
“Calling a girl pretty before you dump her.” Celia replied with a snort. “Way to boost a girl's self-esteem Cayden.”
“Anyti-" Cayden started to reply, trailing off in mid-sentence as a thought occurred to him.
Celia waited several seconds, expecting him to finish his thought. It was only when it became clear he'd drifted off into his mind that she spoke again. "Cayden. Babel to Cayden."
“I- uh... sorry!”
“What's up? You aren't having another vision, are you?"
“What? Oh, no. Nothing like that. I just... I had a thought.”
“Rare for you.” She laughed.
“I think I figured it out.” He continued as if he hadn't heard her, which actually seemed possible from the look of almost mad excitement in his eye. “A way to get to the forty-ninth floor.”
“What! How?”
“Well. This is going to sound a little strange. But I'll need you to kill me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Cayden, I haven't known you long enough to be sure, but I'm pretty sure this is the stupidest idea you've ever had.”
It was a sentiment Celia had reiterated a number of times in private moments over the course of the day. She had delivered the thought in a variety of colorful and sometimes vulgar fashions as they traversed the second-floor dungeon and emerged onto the third floor. Her complaints had gotten even more vocal after Shifty had taken his leave upon their arrival in Coalwright. They'd continued all the way out of town, to the small cave they'd passed on their way into town, an out of the way location where they were unlikely to be spotted or harassed.
She wasn't wrong, at least, not entirely.
The concept had struck him like a bolt of lightning, but he'd had a difficult time explaining it at first. He'd rambled on about boosts, zenkai's, respawns and grand quests before he'd finally managed to circle back to what had provoked the thought in the first place. A damage boost.
“I'm telling you, it will work." Cayden insisted. "Or at least, I'm fairly certain it will work. It's just like Super M-"
“Metroid, yeah. You've said.”
It actually wasn't just like Metroid. The Zelda games with their death reset or the Up+A warp were probably a better comparison, but Metroid had been what came to mind, and it was close enough to serve as an example.
The theory behind damage boosting was simple. Games like Super Metroid had included a knockback animation to prevent players from getting hit over and over by the same enemy, while at the same time increasing what passed for realism in a 16-bit game. You run into an enemy, and Samus would find herself getting knocked back in an ouch animation, complete with invincibility frames.
The trick was that the knockback animation was faster than many of the methods of travel players had access to during the game. Doubly so when players discovered a glitch that allowed them to extend the distance traveled during the knockback animation by pressing jump within a handful of frames after the attack connected. The end result left Samus able to tear through places like the brinstar spike room in six seconds by intentionally jumping into ceiling spikes rather than take the normal, careful jumps to get across.
Similar mechanics were present in games both old and new. The specifics might change, but the basics were always the same. Take damage to go faster. Or in his case, die to respawn somewhere he shouldn't have access to.
“And what happens if you're wrong?”
“Sort of the beauty of it. Nothing." He smiled. "If it doesn't work, I'll resurrect at the temple in Coalwright, and you can come and say you told me so while I'm stuck unable to play for the next week. There is no real risk."
That wasn't strictly true. Mechanically it was correct, there was no additional penalty for death beyond the debuff, but there was still one risk. He needed someone to heal him so he could respawn, which meant he had to trust her. While he did have faith in her, he'd have been foolish to ignore the reality that she had five million more reasons to let him die than she did to heal him.
“But it will work.” Cayden continued. “I've found three examples of players respawning on a floor different than the one they died on, totally outside of the normal rules. The thing they all have in common is that they all had a Grand Quest as the active quest in their log, and they respawned as close to their next goal as possible.”
“Yeah, and in all of those cases, the players resurrected on floors that they already had access to. You are suggesting skipping all the way to floor forty-nine based on a hunch."
“Oh stop being such a baby and stab me.”
If Celia's eyes could have rolled any further, they likely would have fallen entirely clear of her head. "That is your new tactic huh? Childish insults to provoke me?"
“Is it working?” He grinned.
“Well... I do want to stab you." She admitted, scowling back at him. It was hard not to smile when he looked at her like that, and a blush began to creep over her cheeks. "You really couldn't have asked Shifty to do this?'
Cayden's smile faltered at the question. “I need someone I trust. I'm not anywhere near that with him.”
“You're going to have to explain that at some point.” Celia sighed. The bookish blonde ran a hand through her hair, glancing outside the mouth of the cave where the first droplets of rain had begun to pepper already muddy soil. “Great. Now I'm going to have to walk back alone.”
“You'll do it?” Cayden asked excitedly.
“On one condition." She said with a raised finger.
“Name it.”
“When you get back if everything goes well... I want to party up with you again. Even if it is only time to time, even if we have to work around Silver."
Cayden could tell from the sudden seriousness on her face that this was something the girl had been thinking about quite a bit. They'd never really finished hashing this out from the evening before, he'd had his revelation, and then that was all that he could talk about. That had been cruel of him, he realized now.
It would be a hard promise to fulfill, but what choice did he have? "I accept."
“Okay.” She nodded. “Then turn around and take off your armor. Going to be hard enough to do this without you looking at me all excited.”
They both laughed at the absurdity of the moment as Cayden did as requested.
“You may feel a little whack.” Celia said softly.
“Okay, just tell me when you ar- Ow!”
Avaritia hits You for 55 Physical. (Critical)
Cayden yelped in alarm as a wicked thud impacted the back of his head. The pain was muted, but not muted nearly enough without the normal battlefield high pumping through him.
Bonk
Avaritia hits You for 92 Physical. (Critical)
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Rawgh!" Celia cried behind him, swinging at the back of his head with all of her might.
Avaritia hits You for 67 Physical. (Critical)
“You know, in my mind, I pictured this going another way." Cayden laughed. "Like a single elegant coup de grace."
“Oh shut up!" Celia barked, her staff cracking off the back of his head twice more for fractions of his total HP.
“You could try using a spell.”
Avaritia hits You for 41 Physical. (Critical)
“Right, why didn't I think of that.” The girl scowled. “Oh yeah. Because I was dungeon crawling and didn't think I'd need direct damage spells!”
Avaritia hits You for 133 Physical. (Critical)
“Oi.”
The carnival act continued far longer than either of them would have liked. Cayden knew Chronomagi wasn't a weak class, under the right circumstances she could probably put out more damage than he could, but these were far from the right conditions. As it stood, it took her nearly a solid minute
of beating on him to finally bring his HP down into the critical range.
“Are you sure about this Cayden?” Celia asked.
“Are you really asking the guy with severe head trauma anything? Not like I'm thinking straight at this point.” They both laughed a little as he nodded. “When you're ready.”
Crack.
Avaritia hits You for 121 Physical. (Critical)
All at once Cayden control of his body. Without his input for balance, his body toppled. Despite the blow coming from behind he actually toppled backward, motionless eyes staring up at the dim ceiling of the cave, and the robed girl who looked suddenly stricken.
His research had prepared him for some of this. Even the best players had typically found themselves in Bleedout once or twice over the course of their years of play, a bad Crit or a late heal could be all it took to send even an expert to the ground. The state was so ubiquitous that there were thousands of stories to be found online, along with FAQs with names as ridiculous as 'What to do if you are in Bleedout'. As if there was anything he could do.
More than one player had quit the game entirely after a bad experience in Bleedout. Paralyzed on the ground, Cayden could understand why. The feeling of helplessness, of being trapped in your own body unable to even move your eyes was... unsettling. And these were the best of conditions, how much worse would it be if he could hear the din of combat while his life ticked away a point at a time.
He'd had nightmares about John3. The dreams had always left him when he awoke, but they came back to him vividly now. Was this what the man had experienced, laying on the ground while they argued over bandages? The thought made him want to be sick, but of course, that too was out of the realm of possibility.
“You know, I have to say Cayden, I didn't think you'd make it this easy." Celia's voice reverberated slightly in the enclosed space as he watched her pace around the edges of his peripheral vision. "I mean, what were you thinking?"
The girl continued to pace as his mind whirled. She couldn't be serious.
“Easiest five million dollars I've ever made.”
Cayden screamed inside his own mind. This couldn't be happening. Not like this. There had to be...
The twinkle in her eye was the first hint of it. Celia wasn't a good liar, even in their short time together her eyes always gave away her mischief. And there it was, sparkling just behind them before it spread to her cheeks, her lips and finally her voice. The girl began to laugh, not the cruel laugh of a murderer, but the uproarious laughter of someone who was far too taken by their own joke.
“I'm sorry. I just... I had to.” She said through a bout of laughter, her hands busy summoning a set of bandages that would patch him up. “Seriously though, if you ever get the wish you damn well better be thinking of me.”
Celia knelt next to him and unfurled the bandages. With measured ease, she began to wrap them around his many, many head wounds. Inside he watched in relief as his counter began to ascend with each passing second. Oh, he would be thinking of her if he ever won, that much would be sure.
“I'll see you in town.” The girl said softly, cradling his head as the bar continued to tick upwards. “Or not, I suppose.” She leaned down, pressing a kiss to his forehead through the soft linen bandages. “Good luck Cayden.”
Words would have failed him even if he'd been able to speak.
All at once his vision was obscured by an outpouring of light. It crawled over him like a physical object, the glow that had originated from his wounds spilling out to encompass his head, then flow down across his body. Within seconds he could no longer see Celia through the curtain, and not long after, the light was the only thing he could see. It covered him from head to toe, an unsettling feeling of weightlessness overtaking him as his body departed the earth to float amidst the glowing chrysalis.
You Have Died
“Finally." Cayden murmured the paralytic lock that had overtaken his body at last releasing him. The space within the bubble was cramped, but just being able to shift his posture, to bend his arms and knees again felt like an untold blessing.
He would be here for a while. The respawn timer was fixed at ten minutes, regardless of distance, which would give his mind an unfortunately long time to wander. If he died in the game, really died, rather than just being sent back for respawn, would he still end up here? Was the game cruel enough to give someone like John a full ten minutes to reflect in horror about what was going to happen? Or did they pass away at the moment of Bleedout?
I don't want to die.
The memory sent a shiver down his spine. Even a day later he still hadn't the slightest idea what to think about the experience. Why had the game shown him that? What did the man mean when he promised Cayden that he wouldn't die? Was it a sick joke, or did that man have some worse fate in store for him?
Nothing in the experience, the vision, made any sense. Worse yet, it was getting fuzzier by the day. The whole thing had felt like a bad photocopy of a dream when he'd first awoken, and now it felt like a copy of that copy. He was losing details. He couldn't remember the name of the wine anymore, or how long he'd spent in the closet while the woman bled out. Would he still remember things if they turned out to be important?
Cayden resolved to write up a journal later in the evening. That horror had been inflicted on him for a reason, he was sure of it, he just needed to figure out why.
Eventually, his thoughts drifted away from visions to more practical matters. If this worked, if he arrived on floor 49, what was his plan? He would need to find lodgings for the evening. Then he'd have to find a way to get to Axfell.
He couldn't just walk. Even ignoring the fact that he was going to be entering an open war zone, this was floor forty-nine. The average monster level of the floor was between 95-98, or roughly ninety levels above him. The death malus wouldn't make a whit of difference for him in combat. Celia would have had a better chance of beating him in one on one combat than he'd have at bringing down the weakest mob on the floor even with every advantage at his back.
That meant he'd need help. It couldn't be players, a player who caught sight of Cayden would have problematic questions at best. He'd have to rely on Elan. Perhaps he could pay his way onto a merchant caravan, though that seemed unlikely given his current funds. More likely he'd just have to use his winning personality to convince one of the Elan to do him a solid.
Yeah, this is going to go swimmingly.
The automated respawn timer continued to track down at the edge of his field of vision. Less than two minutes to his respawn now.
Even if he made it to Axfell, things were far from assured. Aaron and Vincent were supposedly the leaders of the Axfell mages guild. Getting the two strongest magic casters in a conflict zone to set aside time to train him would prove no easy task, doubly so when he was asking them to do it essentially for free.
Not that any of his plans would matter if he were about to arrive at the Coalwright temple.
The clock ticked ever further on, and Cayden braced himself for disappointment. The edges of the golden light around him were beginning to fade, which meant it wouldn't be long now. He was probably already on the slab, just waiting for the energy dissipate.
The cocoon around him continued to dim as its task drew near to completion. Cayden began to catch glimpses of a framed wooden ceiling through the faltering brilliance. Flickers of torchlight replaced the divine light, and sensation of weightlessness finally gave ground to gravity as he felt the cold stone of an altar beneath his back.
He could see a woman to his side, an Elan. Her hair was a pale white that, for an instant, made him worry that he had succumbed to another vision. As more came into view, however, he realized the bright hair contrasted almost painfully with rich indigo skin. If not for the rounded ears, scarred skin and almost total lack of grace in her posture and demeanor he might have mistaken her for a dark elf from some old D&D supplement.
Perhaps she could read his mind. Because she did not look impress
ed.
“-the door!" She was shouting. Sound was the last sense to return to him as his respawn timer clicked down to zero. Cayden didn't need to hear the whole sentence to understand her meaning, not with two guards slamming a deadbolt into place with the turn of a key, their swords drawn and ready as they interposed themselves between Cayden and the outside world.
This was not Coalwright. But it wasn't the temple of Ranzington either. He'd googled pictures, and the Great Emperor's temple in Ranzington was an opulent affair with hundred foot arches and stained glass. Not a cold wooden shack with a single door.
“Where am I?” He stammered.
The woman responded not with words, but with spells. Her hands carved mystical symbols into the air as she retreated a half step from him, chanting. Elan spellcasting required neither the English activation phrase, nor the name of the skill, but Cayden could guess what she'd cast by the effect as it washed over him.
For the second time in ten minutes, he found himself utterly paralyzed.
“Call the lieutenant." She instructed in harsh, stilted English. "Gribb as well. We may need his services in the interrogation."
Only after the two guards had repeated her orders to comrades on the other side of the door did the woman turn her cold eyes to him. “We shall see why this one came to Axfell.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“So you are the one who has been causing all of this ruckus.” The man on the other side of the bars seemed bemused by the situation. There was a perpetual smirk on his lips as he paced this way and that, observing the shackled interloper.
Cayden was less impressed. It had been at least three days based on the meals they had been feeding him, though in a windowless cell it could have been a week and he would have been hard-pressed to tell the difference. Days of solitude, interspersed with the occasional bouts of interrogation. Each time it was a new questioner, a lieutenant, then a captain, then a colonel. They'd promised the last time that the general would be next, but the man in front of him did not look like a military officer.