Sid casts Spontaneity. Days gains +80 ATT.
The Counts of Hell use Hell on Earth.
Oh crap. This can’t be good by the looks of their staffs turning molten red and the torches darkening. We’re all three targeted, too.
Sorry casts Reflection of Darkness. Hell on Earth is stopped, and Counts of Hell take Arcane damage over time.
Couldn’t be more perfect. The Counts are still being drained by Sorry’s DoT spells, and now Days, as a Dark Knight tank, can really kick some ass. It’s like Spontaneity knows me and what I want to happen. Sorry’s Voodoo Lady is full of quick-minded tricks and moves. An attacking buffer… interesting. Still, it’s frustrating as hell for me. I feel like I’m doing nothing to help.
Sid casts Contemplation. Days gains Protection.
Days uses Special Ability: Soul Gather.
In three seconds’ time, before Sorry or I could make another move, the Counts’ HP all but spills off the HP bar.
“Holy shit!” I cry out.
“Yeah!” Days stomps the ground.
And then I’m in a cutscene.
The Counts of Hell and I are alone in the cave. They surround me and whisper things, disturbing things that I can’t quite make all the way out. One steps forward and says, “Master, we will now always do your bidding, but keep us in the dark shadows where we thrive.”
“Uh, okay.”
They spin around me lightning-fast in a gray blur and then swoop right inside through my chest.
I feel like if I’d ever lost a part of my heart, it was just put back in.
The cutscene fades, and I’m with Days and Sorry outside the battle arena in the cave.
“Got them? Got them?” Days asks.
“Yeah, yeah, I think I do.”
“Look!” says Sorry. She’s grinning. “That was so fun.”
I look at my spell list. Now I have Counts of Hell as a summon spell.
I read their ability list.
The Counts of Hell
Description:
Five ghoulish demons in a cluster of black and gray swirling fog. Stronger damage at night. Only summon off the beaten path, or in boss or dark dungeon battles.
Abilities:
Freeze—Stops opponent’s moves for 20 seconds.
Burn—Does DoT fire damage at -30HP every 3 seconds for 15 seconds.
Surround—Surround target and push it back forty feet, dealing damage according to if and what target is pushed into.
Seizure Move: Hell on Earth—Counts of Hell swallow target in a pool of molten lava for 30 seconds, draining essence quickly. If target can fight back, a player or enemy can still fight during Hell on Earth.
“We are so lucky,” I say after reading their seizure move.
“Hell on Earth?” asks Sorry. “Yeah, that would have been ouchy. That’s why we had to do it so fast, and needed your Contemplation. Like when you got me straight when I was burning.”
“Ah, okay. I get it.”
Days grins down at me. “You always had it. You’re a natural. All the right moves. I’m impressed. I bet you were pretty good in Elora.”
“Thanks. Not too much experience as a mage. Any tips welcome.” I smile. Am I making friends? That’s what Anella and Calla told me to do, and I certainly couldn’t have ever beaten the Counts on my own without yet having a summon… ever.
“Go on,” says Days. “Summon them.”
“Yeah, hell yeah,” I say.
Sid summons the Counts of Hell.
Swirling black smoke comes out of my chest, right where they went in moments ago, and rushes out to form the five counts. They stand before us, waiting for a command.
“I did that,” I say, dumbfounded. They are huge and quite intimidating.
“Yeah, you did,” says Days in a hush.
I smile at the Counts.
Sid dismisses the Counts of Hell.
They roll back into smoke and rush into me. I don’t get that piece-of-heart falling in feeling again. “They don’t like daylight much, and don’t like being exposed.”
“Interesting,” says Days. “It’s like you get them. You know what I mean? That’s cool.”
“I’m impressed, too,” Sorry says, and exchanges a look with Days. “I think you’re right.”
“Yep,” Days answers her.
“About what?” I ask.
Days looks back down at me. “Want to join our guild? Faithgamblers?”
I feel my big Nuudle eyes get bigger. “I’d love to. Yeah, love to. Thanks.”
“Here’s the invite.”
It pops up in my interface and I immediately accept. I so need a guild in this confusion-filled existence.
I turn on guild chat as I look over the names and classes in the guild list. There aren’t a lot in the guild, maybe fourteen at most listed. I see familiar class tags, and a several that I don’t pick up on right away. I see one that says MYT next to it, then see it’s me. Oh! MYT must be the game’s tag for Mystic. Then there’s another MYT: Shell. She’s the one who helped Days see when he came to Dark World and sent me the quest with Master Gronai. I also see Simple’s name with class tag BLK.
Days says, “Everyone, I want you to welcome Sid, the Mystic I told you about. We just did the Counts. He got ’em.”
“Nice job.” I recognize Simple’s voice.
I hear a cacophony of male and female voices saying hello and congratulations. So nice to meet you. Glad you’re in the guild. I feel genuinely accepted and that this isn’t one of those guilds that control your life. Just my type.
I’m getting the hang of this. Yeah. Now I have to go kill stuff with my Counts. See what that’s like, how much damage they’ll do. The burn move alone will instantly kill anything with 30HP or under.
“Thanks so much, guys. I’m glad to be here. Pretty excited about the Counts.”
There’s so much more I want to say and ask, but I get the feeling there’s a time and place for discussing Dark World and how we all got here. Nobody seems to want to talk about it. That vibe is just out there with every player I’ve encountered.
Actually playing the game in Dark World, where I have to sleep and do everything else all the time here, and not just hanging out, is like smuggling heroin into prison to break the thoughts of why I’m here.
Maybe that’s why so many of the players do play the game in Dark World. My new friends were eager to battle the Counts. Big battles are fun, but it was more than that. I can’t put my finger on it.
CHAPTER 8: WE MEET AGAIN
I guess you’ve figured out by now that there’s no mana, or magic pool, in Elora. Or Dark World. Or wherever the hell I am. Mage classes do have to regenerate, it’s called. Each class has its own way of doing so. I have to recite runes outdoors for an hour once a week if I’m a semi-busy player. More often if I’m online all the time.
I’ve been here a little over a week and I’ve recited four times. It’s boring as hell. I just listen to guild chatter and learn who is who and what is what after choosing the Recite setting in my Nuudle Specific Abilites menu.
The first thing I did with the Counts of Hell was use my seizure move on a wild Onion outside Kleeple. Man, it was amazing. Their staffs lit up red and molten lava poured out of the bottoms into a pool around the poor Wild Onions, melting them in a split-second.
I don’t have the multi-targeting skill and ask the guild how to get it. It’s a quest, and they say it’s different for everyone. Pretty much have to talk to every NPC in Dark World and hope you get lucky.
I wonder how much damage the Counts’ Seizure move will do on higher-level mobs. Or other players who might not be as friendly as the first people I encountered in Dark World. If my stats are lower, are summons not as strong? I can’t figure it out.
I have felt pain now. When I went back to the graveyard to look for the NPC Calla, hoping she’d give me my next Mystic quest for a summon, a Wakened Tree grabbed me with a branch and tore the flesh on my upper arm. It hurt like hell, I saw blood an
d yelled, but I had the Counts out—it was night and I was in a secluded area—and they automatically took over hitting the Tree. When a player, or summon in this case, hits a mob the hardest, they get the hate. The Counts got the hate, Waking Tree went after them, and the Counts killed the Waking Tree with Burn that I hastily instigated somehow through the shock and fear of the pain.
Reflecting on it now as I recite in Siren Territory on the hull of the sunken ship where Silvia and I hung out, the pain wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It went away as soon as I bought some Pink Poppy Salve from a herbalist shop in Kleeple. The wound even vanished and the salve felt so good. Sensations in Dark World are odd, but I’m getting there.
I miss Silvia. I wonder if she thinks of me, wonders where I am. Something tells me there must be a way from Dark World to Elora. In Elora, we’d all seen characters here and there with one name. If we did happen upon a class we rarely saw, the player had one name.
Those classes open up in Dark World, like my Mystic. Like Days’ Dark Knight. Those one-name players I’ve seen must’ve come from Dark World.
I had asked the guild about it, but none of them knew a way to Elora. They told me they’d speculated on it before, but the conversation didn’t go anywhere from there.
My Passion Berry that’s keeping me breathing under water has about fifteen minutes left, and I’m done reciting.
I had found Calla in the graveyard, and she had given me the quest to fight Varengan, who, according to the Shell, is a glowing bright blue bird mainly used for healing. I’m getting better gear, doing little quests I find to boost my concentration stat, and tomorrow I’m going to try taking on Varengan. Days says he’ll tank again, and Sorry says she’s onboard. A Blessed White Elf named Doolittle wants to come along. I’ve never been healed before by a healer in Dark World, and I’m curious to find out what it’s like, how it feels. I bet it’s something.
I open my eyes.
A White Elf male with long, white hair floating all through the water, deep golden skin, and wearing silvery robes, swims in front of me. He’s wearing gear I haven’t seen, but I can tell it’s some kind of healing attire. His weapon is a black, gnarled staff with a rough crystal quartz in its twisted top. I stumble off my perch and swim away from him, saying, “What the hell, dude?”
“Sid Vicious, wait.”
I stop, tread water. He knows my old name.
I turn and look at him. He’s smiling, but his digital white, glowing eyes have a familiarity, and it’s that the smile doesn’t reach them.
I see his name now that he’s not so close.
Seeker.
“Yes, it’s me. I’ve been looking for you. I heard rumors of a new Mystic with the mark of Ananta on his forehead. I knew it had to be you.”
“What the fuck do you want?” I yell at him. Bubbles rush out of my mouth in a stream as though they are cursing at him with me.
“I came to explain.”
“Explain what? Just leave me alone. I want nothing to do with you.”
“Wait, hear me out.”
I turn and swim toward the capital of Siren Territory and the Kila Crystal that will take me back to Kleeple. My oxygen timer has no time for this shit.
“I have a Bloom Berry if you’re worried you’ll run out of air. Only five minutes, that’s all I ask and that’s all it’s good for.”
I sigh. The first burst of anger I felt fades away, and curiosity gets me. I have to find out what he did to me because I know he has something to do with my being in Dark World.
I swim to face him again. He’s holding out the berry. I take it and eat it. Tastes like raspberries. My interface says I now have nineteen minutes of air time.
“Okay, I’m listening.” I glare at him, hoping he gets right to the point.
I’m disappointed.
“Why do you think I did what I did in Elora?”
“Because you’re an asshole.”
He chuckles. “I might be, but that’s not why. Do you want to know?”
I roll my eyes dramatically.
He acts unaffected by my dismissal.
Sid summons the Counts of Hell.
“Just in case,” I tell Seeker.
“I understand. But today, you have nothing to worry about. Today, you will learn your purpose. You will discover why I chose you.”
“Chose me?”
“My name. What do you think it means?”
“I have no clue, man.”
“I have been seeking Elora for someone to go Total Immersion with me.”
“Couldn’t you have just asked someone? And what do you know about Total Immersion and what’s happened to us? To everyone here?”
He shrugged. “There are so many secrets to this game. I found out about Dark World in my travels. Leave it at that.”
“Great. So, you named yourself The Seeker and went around killing and looting hard-working players to seek someone. Tell me how that makes sense.”
He swims a little closer. “I got a special class offer, too, like you. I’m a Psychic.”
I wait. He says nothing during his dramatic pause, then starts up again.
“I fought people to find someone who could beat me, however it might be done. You did. You must have been so very dedicated to killing and looting me to get your stats up that high, and all your gear back, in eleven months. Well, almost all of it. I know you never got another pair of those silver knuckles.”
“I did after I looted you.”
“You don’t have them anymore.”
“Shut up and tell me what you did to me.” I swim away from him. The Counts of Hell surround me from behind, as though they are showing me they have my back.
“I picked you because you are the only one who has even come close to defeating me. You are my better. I chose you and now, we will become strong together and rule over Dark World. We will overthrow Bane instead of Kane doing it, and we will change the map. See what I mean? We’ll create a paradox. People in Elora will open their maps one day and see that the capital city of Dragonbane Territory isn’t Kane, but instead Sid. Or Seeker. We can keep the dragons and humans from going extinct. In Elora, there will suddenly be humans and dragons—”
“Wait,” I interrupt him. “Are you saying you know for a fact that Dark World is Elora’s past?”
“I’m saying together, we could own this game. We can make the creators of the game shit their skinny jeans. It’ll be chaos, and we’ll be gods.”
I shake my head at him. My timer has five minutes on it. “Look, I have no time. I’ll run out of air. Just tell me what you did to me, you obsessed, delusional fuck.”
“Do you agree to take on the world with me?”
“Absolutely, positively no. Never. Not in a million lifetimes. I hate you. I know you’re the reason I’m here, I know you enjoy terrorizing people and making everyone victims. Even if I had any interest in creating some kind of paradox, I wouldn’t ever, ever do it with you. Ever. Now, tell me what you did to me.”
“I gave you a better life, a dream come true. A better gaming experience. Have you had the beer? Have you been healed? Here, let me.”
He starts to cast a spell, hands glowing, but I yell, “Stop!”
He does, cocking his head at me.
“Tell me what you did!”
“You’re surprised and angry. I’m going to give you three days to think things over. Think about what I said. I will find you and see if you’ve changed your mind.” He blinks for what feels like the first time.
“No. The answer is and always will be no.”
My interface turns red. My timer is at ten seconds. “Shit!” I start swimming straight up. I hear Seeker laughing behind me as my timer ends, and I feel the burn of needing air in my lungs.
I swim as hard and fast as I can. My instincts keep begging me to just inhale, no matter what it is. I continue heading for the surface, which looks miles away even as it comes closer.
As I burst through the surface of the Marana S
ea, I loudly gasp for my first breath. I pant and pant as I tread water, trying to stop shaking, trying to get my shit together. The Counts are still with me. After I catch my breath, I dismiss the Counts and start swimming to Wet Eyes Isle. It’s going to be a long swim.
I can’t believe this guy. I hate him. I really hate him. He chose me? The guy’s a nut obsessed with this game—and, apparently, me now. But he does seem to know a lot more about Elora and Dark World than he’s letting on. As much as I’d like that information, I couldn’t fake it to be able to dig the information out of him. I couldn’t trick him with compliments or flattery. I couldn’t deliver it, not at all.
On I swim, feeling exhausted even though I just got done meditating. Three days. What will he do then, kill me and loot me? He can’t be much further along in stats and spells than I am. And after tomorrow, hopefully I’ll be able to summon the blue glowing bird Varengan.
CHAPTER 9: BATTLE OF VARENGAN
The three of them are waiting for me near the Caves of Eternity entrance. I’d had to swim to a vendor in north Wet Eyes Isle to get a Bloat Berry to allow me to breathe underwater for two hours, and then swim back through Siren Territory to the Caves of Eternity.
“We thought you gave up. You weren’t on guild chat,” Days calls to me as I swim to them.
Doolittle is a moss-green-haired, deeply tan-skinned White Elf with high-stat gear, mostly craft-specific. The kind you can only wear if you make it, and you have to be very high level in clothcraft to be wearing what he’s got on.
I reach them. “Sorry,” I say, nodding to Sorry. “I mean, I’m sorry, not referring to Sorry.”
They all chuckle.
“I turned off guild chat. Don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Mystery,” Sorry says. “Of course, there’s mystery.”
“Simple wanted to come, was going to surprise you, but she got beat up pretty bad in a dungeon this morning and wanted to take it easy,” Days says, catching the hint that I sincerely don’t want to talk about it. I appreciate that.
“Did you get Meditation?” Days continues, floating over me.
“I have the quest,” I tell him. “It doesn’t explain much as to how to do it. It’s going to take a few days to walk to the other continent, and I figured I’d do it when I have a summon fight there, too.”
Total Immersion: Dark World: A LitRPG Adventure Page 7