by Elian Tars
“Berg, get into the hole. The passage is clear.”
I think I knew why the captain chose him for the mission. I was a level low and suspicious. Arthur himself had little HP left and no possibility to drink a health potion, so he needed Lade, who probably had little mana left, as a healer. And just like Lade, our sorceress also had little mana left. The ranger was thus a perfect candidate for the task.
The man nodded and approached the hole. I held my breath in anticipation. A little bit more and we would know what had been hidden there…
Suddenly we got dazzled by a bright white light and a message in silver letters popped out:
The game session will end in:
3…
2…
1…
Chapter 27
Home
The matte blue lid of the virtual capsule went down slowly. I blinked trying to focus my eyes.
Damn it, am I dreaming again? I hadn’t been sleeping! We’ve just defeated the gigantic creature of Decay… Well, not “we”, the guys did. I was just standing there during the last few minutes of the fight, having shot all of my crossbow bolts.
I tried to turn around… Wow! It actually worked. I can control my body! Everything was different the last time I had this dream.
“Hey, are you all right?” the technician’s worried bristled face hovered above the virtual coffin. I remembered him! He customized the virtual capsule before the testing launch, “Hey! Can you say something?”
Another technician appeared beside him — a skinny guy with glasses. He looked intently into my eyes and stretched his hand to my pupils.
I jerked away my head involuntarily. Both engineers sighed with relief:
“He’s fine,” the bearded one poked the other one in the ribs and then looked at me again. “Are you going to get out or what? It must be cold to be lying naked like that…”
I sat up in the capsule and looked around. It was the same office in which I “worked”; the same date — my first day at this job — was framed in a red square on the wall calendar…
“What happened?” I asked. My mouth wasn’t dry and I didn’t feel discomfort.
The engineers frowned but the bearded one answered a moment later.
“A glitch, damn it… Nothing like this has happened when we had tested them before! But, as soon as we’ve put a living man into it, bam… Now we’ll have to examine it again… Well, anyway, we’ll put you in a new one tomorrow,” he smiled broadly.
“Tomorrow?” I didn’t get him. My brain was refusing to work properly.
“Well, yeah,” the technician shrugged. “You’re a tester, so you will test. But the bosses will let you go home early today. You may consider yourself lucky. But first, you have to see a doctor.”
“How much time did I… Spend in the capsule? When did the glitch happen?” I finally managed to ask the most important question.
“Twenty minutes ago. Of course, we didn’t get you out immediately. The medical module operates in standalone mode; we waited until it took the readings and provided a safe shutdown.”
“And what about the readings?” my head was pounding and my brain still refused to start working.
“Everything’s fine,” the bearded man smiled. “Despite the voltage surge, you weren’t hurt.”
“You’re a little bit in shock,” noted four-eyes. “But that’s okay. It’s normal.”
I got out of the capsule, put on my clothes and the bearded man led me into the nearby room. Busy staff-workers were running up and down the corridor. Gazing around slowly, I wondered why should I see a doctor if the medical module had already made an assessment?
However, everything was cleared up when a pretty woman in a white lab coat started asking me questions like: “What’s your name?”; “What are your hobbies?”; and “Why have you decided to become a tester?”. She checked my answers against the application form I had filled during the job interview. The capsule checked my body, and the doctor — my mind.
“One last thing,” the woman said. “What did you feel when the glitch happened? What did you see? What were you thinking about?”
Damn, that her “last thing” was the most important question of the interview…
“Nothing,” I answered wearily, “everything got dark, and then the guys opened the lid.”
Well, what? How could I tell her that I had been fighting for my life in some dark middle-aged game for the past several weeks when only half an hour had passed in real life? God forbid, they would send me for further examination. That could take really long time, and it could detrimentally affect my health.
Saying goodbye, the doctor reminded me about the contract terms and made me understand that everything that had happened was well within its terms. All in all, from the doctor’s and the technicians’ point of view, the incident was nothing more than a work-related issue. A little bit unpleasant, but nothing serious. Say, for example, that you had agreed on white wallpapers, and that the supplier brought you pink ones. That kind of deal. The work took a little bit more time, it was a pain in someone’s ass, but, in the end, the situation worked out, and my bosses could even benefit from this.
I was thinking about all this while nestling my forehead against the cool window of the electro bus and looking at the dull, wet from the rain high-rise buildings and people hurrying to hide from the rain. Oh, God, were they afraid of the raindrops? Did they think that they would melt away from those petty things? Or die? Or that they would get irremovable effects? The blood of the creatures of Decay was quite a different story — a single drop of that stuff could really corrode your skin.
Heh! The creatures of Decay… They were just a product of my mind. Maybe the technicians didn’t tell me the entire truth and the capsule’s malfunction had left an imprint on me after all. I should request to see the examination results made by the medical module. It would be good to do an MRT. Well, as soon as they paid me an advance for the first month of work.
I took out my Smartphone from my pocket and glanced at the date again… Shit, it really was my first day of work! There was no mistake about it.
Just in case I checked the date on the web, in case that the four-eyed technician changed my phone’s settings.
Hmm, the date was the same. Why were these strange thoughts creeping in my head? I had never been this paranoid before. Just in that game, in that dark world…
That didn’t exist.
Dammit, how could my brain imagine a whole world and live in it for several weeks in a course of half an hour?! It was unbelievable! Time did go by faster during sleep, but not that much…
Shit! What was I to do now?
I ordered pizza on my way home. The delivery guy arrived just fifteen minutes later than I had. Paying him almost the last amount of my last money, I sat on the sofa and switched on the TV. News… TV-shows…TV-series…
It sucked.
I tried to read. I even got absorbed by the book, getting interested in its hero’s adventures. He got everything so easily! Being able to make the right decisions and detect people’s lies was a true superpower! Having something like that in the dark world would have saved me lot of nerves.
Having finished reading, I turned on my computer and put on the virtual reality headset, reclining in the armchair. During the following hour and a half I tried to play three different games… God, it was child play! There were no pain sensations, the monsters were dumb, and randomly chosen allies filled the voice chat with their squeaky child voices and awkward curses. Me and my rotten luck with random choice…
Taking the headset off, I came to the window and opened it, inhaling the gas-polluted air. Some punk was starting his diesel engine right in the yard. Oh, dear, we were creating our own territory of Decay with our own hands. At least, I had some immunity because of the power of Darkness.
Damn it! What immunity? It all was just my imagination. I-MA-GI-NA-TION.
But it was so hard to believe that those adventures had never happ
ened… And I really wanted to find out what treasure had been hidden in the decayed lands. What were we fighting for?
Something acid-green was coming out of the diesel engine’s exhaust. It didn’t smell like gasoline at all. The same thought kept coming to my mind the entire day: “What the hell was going on?”
Suddenly, a familiar message appeared before my eyes:
The effect of Decay has been blocked.
I looked over the lines — it always surprised me that they didn’t completely block my view — and froze in utter astonishment. The world around me reeled like a rippling image on a disturbed water surface. The view from the window was slowly changing from the yard to the decayed lands, at the center of which stood the black oak-tree on a hill.
***
I looked around quickly — my companions stood frozen, mouths open and eyes rolled. Lade and Berg had drooling trickling from the corner of their lips. If you looked closer, you could notice everyone’s chests were rising and falling — they were breathing.
Having your brain free itself from the invisible shackles and start working full force was a nice feeling. I immediately assessed the situation. I could draw only one conclusion — the effect of Decay, casting illusion spells, broke through the Glozeysk Crystal’s shield. It was a very powerful effect and even my Dark Side of the World couldn’t weaken it. But it wasn’t the land that was emanating the effect — such debuffs were being cast every moment and if Dark Side of the World’s chance to block worked, they would be cast again. But I was still conscious. So who was messing with our heads? Where was the enemy?
I looked around again; there was nobody except the giant’s corpse and us on the clearing. I slowly came closer to the disgusting body. Amidst the revolting acid slush I noticed a part of a green ball. It didn’t look like a part of the monster’s body.
“What is this?” I asked the system.
Will of the Mother of the Decayed
Level 1
HP: 50/50
“Destroy it!” a fierce thought flashed through my mind. In one leap I closed the distance between me and the strange bubble, taking out the pitchfork from my inventory as I did so.
Power Strike.
You have dealt 51 points of damage,
You have defeated the “Will of the Mother of the Decayed”.
XP received: 67
You cannot use the slaying skill on the “Will of the Mother of the Decayed”.
The enemy will self-destruct.
The bubble burst, showering the area with acid-green sprays, and a small gas cloud rose up into the air. For a moment, it took the form of a pretty woman’s face, looking surprisingly at me. And then it was gone.
“Oh…” I heard a strained groan and the sound of bodies falling limply.
I looked at the guys — they were alive; moaning and slowly coming to their senses, they rolled on the decayed grass. Arthur had already opened his eyes and squinted, trying to clear his vision.
“Take care of the others, commander. I’m going down there,” I cried darting to the hole.
I had a chance to see with my own eyes what treasure had been hidden deep in the territory of Decay. I could find out what this unknown artifact, for which the mayor of a big town was ready to spend lots of money and risk the lives of his people, was. I would be able to make a guess about what was hidden at the other part of the map — there, on the east, where Vella and I hadn’t managed to go.
The tunnel, dug by some animal unknown to me, was about foot and a half in diameter, so I had to crawl on all fours. It was pitch black and wet. But could that stop a “Follower of the God of Darkness”? Thanks to the Eyes in the Dark I could clearly see what was ahead of me. Though there wasn’t much to look at.
Despite having concerns about traps and other protecting devices, there weren’t any. Whoever had hidden the treasure seemed to think that the Decay itself was enough to protect it.
The tunnel changed direction a few times, until it ended in a pit about ten feet in diameter. In the center of this “earthen hall” was a quarter of a black disk, a little bit bigger than my hand.
A Quarter of Zurtarn
Legendary item
Mana charge: 256871/256871
Chapter 28
New Powers
And that was all. There were no other descriptions. Scarce information, as always.
But still, the three lines and the artifact’s form were enough to draw some conclusions. The first, and the most obvious one, was that there were three more quarters of the disk. “Three quarters” to be more specific, not “three parts”. Who knew, maybe they cut off a piece of that mysterious Zurtarn and hid it. And if its other seventy five percent were one whole piece, than I would have to find only one part. On the other hand, those three quarters could also be split in hundreds of pieces, which made the task much more difficult, of course.
The second conclusion was also quite obvious. I thought that I now knew what Bon’s father had hidden. Though I had no guarantee for that. Anything could have been hidden eastward.
Not to mention that the Quarter of Zurtarn was filled with mana; and its quantity was tremendous! If we multiplied it by four, we could suggest that a whole Zurtarn contained more than a million mana points! What level should one have to be to be able to possess that much? I wondered whether the Zurtarn itself could use it. Or was it just a storage device?
Okay, there was no time for idle thinking. I couldn’t straighten myself up for I was on my knees and hands under the muddy dome surrounded by the oak’s mighty roots. I had to return before the captain fully recovered.
But first I needed to do something.
I took out the Altar of Darkness and squeezed it in my right hand; the Quarter of Zurtarn I squeezed in my left. I had the crazy idea of uniting the two items.
“Altar of Darkness, consume the energy of the Quarter of Zurtarn”, I chanted in my head.
The dark piece of wood shuddered and pushed away from the artifact as if they were magnets of the same polarity. It didn’t work.
I flipped the Altar in case it really had the opposite polarity, but got the same result. Let’s a try a different approach.
“I devote the finding of the legendary artifact and all my today’s deeds to the Darkness. Only owing to the powers of Darkness and my Patron’s power could I dispel the illusion created by the effect of Decay and, crawling through the pitch-black tunnel, find the Quarter of Zurtarn. Hail the Darkness.”
Just like yesterday in the camp, I prayed in my thoughts, so that the others couldn’t hear. And if yesterday’s deeds seemed quite humble and worthy only three faith points, bringing me back to zero, then today the system, or the Old man himself, duly appreciated the achievements of this “Follower of Darkness”.
You have received 150 faith points.
I smiled broadly and stood frozen with excitement for a few seconds. But I was quickly able to pull myself together and opened the Element Types menu.
As far as I understood, the Altar itself was a silent collector and accumulator faith points, which I could spend in the menu. Two new lines in the first column proved my theory to be right:
Call of the Patron:
Cost: 50 faith points
Elusive Darkness
Cost: 100 faith points
The name of the first of the “goods” was self explanatory:
“The Call of the Patron” gives you an opportunity to call your Patron for advice or help (to their discretion).
I remembered at once the Old man “fixing” my brain and accidently giving me a buff, multiplying my powers of Darkness. However, the last sentence was not a very pleasant one:
Your Patron may not answer your call, but the faith points will still be spent.
I hoped that I wouldn’t have such problems. The Old man had been looking after his “Follower” quite attentively, for now, at least, and even appeared twice on his own free will.
I closed the description and impatiently read what was
the second skill has to offer.
Elusive Darkness
Grants a special skill — “Elusive Darkness”.
Elusive Darkness
Cost: 2 skill points
Available only for “Gleams”.
Level 1
Active skill
Activation time: 2 seconds (can’t be reset)
HP cost: 75%
Recharge time: 12 hours
Transfers you to the selected respawn point.
Attention!
The effect cannot be undone. If you don’t have enough HP, the spell will be completed anyway, but you will die.
I read the description twice, trying to understand what I was being offered. So, it was a teleport that used HP instead of MP? Did that mean that it could be used even in the special cells, where any magic was blocked? Although it was handy, three quarters of HP required to activate it was quite a high price to pay.
Suddenly under the text, which I had been reading, slowly appeared, like mist in the morning, a few more lines:
P.S. I would be glad to offer you some attacking spells, boy. But now it’s more important to cover your back. I’m glad to see that you don’t hide your head in the sand. I would have no use of such a “Follower”. You take risks, and that’s a good thing. However, you shouldn’t think that the ability to resurrect can save you from everything, boy. You can kill yourself, you’re right. But that takes not only iron will, but skill as well. If an enemy notices early that you’ve cut off your tongue, they’ll recover your health, but you’ll turn out to be the dumb one.
That’s why I’m being generous. Learn this skill.
P.P.S. You’re doing everything right. I might be watching you from the corner of my eye, but I’m still watching you.
P.P.P.S. In the near future, try to concentrate on activating the “Altar of Light”. You’ll need it.
I had hardly read the last word, when the postscript disappeared. I checked my faith points and sighed with relief — nothing had been spent. It looked like the Old Man was able to embed his message in the skill’s description. Well, thanks for the saved resources, old sport.