Upload

by Matthew Siege

  Despite how unsteady the surface was, I didn't feel like I'd break through. Whatever I was standing on was tough, and a quick jab of my bow into it showed me that the thick skin holding me up wasn't about to be damaged by something as minor as a human walking across it.

  When I got close enough to the walls to see them clearly, I watched them do what looked like breathing. They swelled and deflated in an easy, predictable rhythm that started somewhere up ahead of me and rolled on into the distance.

  That was my only clue as to what direction to head. I turned and started toward the source of the movement, hoping that I was guessing correctly.

  I kept going in that direction. The way the path snaked to and fro, doubling back and forth on itself told me that I must have been walking down the middle of an ancient riverbed. As if to prove me right, over the next few minutes the ground began to get soggy. It started off as merely damp, but ten minutes later I was up to my ankles in a clear liquid that, thankfully, looked and smelled like water.

  Travel became a slog, and soon it was at my knees, swirling around just below the bottom of the quiver hanging against my thigh.

  There were no shadows, and the light appeared to come from everywhere at once. The strange walls of the canyon were far too high to climb. Even if they weren't, the idea of trying to scramble up the pulsating sides made me shiver in disgust.

  Up until now, I'd been more interested in making sure I wasn't walking into an ambush than pushing the pace. I wasn't in any hurry since part of me was still hoping that I'd begin to recover hit points on my own, though that was increasingly looking to be nothing more than wishful thinking.

  Stopping to rest might change that, but I didn't feel safe enough yet to attempt it.

  The farther I went, the more frequently the winding riverbed doubled back on itself. It got to the point where the straight parts were almost nonexistent as I found myself constantly zigging one way only to be forced into an arcing zag as one turn bled into another.

  Maybe that was why I walked straight into the force field. Of course, it didn't help that I couldn't see it, at least not at first. Once I'd bounced off its rubbery surface and landed on my ass, I studied the way forward more carefully and noticed that everything on the other side of it was oddly distorted.

  I got back up and approached the impediment once more, this time holding out Warpthrower ahead of me like a staff. I'd decided to name the weapon, since I intended to use it for a while. Sure enough, after a couple of steps I felt the other end of it bump into something, though once more it reminded me of something organic.

  Unwilling to put my face any closer to it than I already had, I settled for leaning forward slightly and narrowing my eyes. Something was different on the other side of this wall, if a wall is what it really was. Whoever had built this thing had designed it to be an incredibly massive structure. It reached all the way up to the top of the canyon, at the same time being at least a hundred yards deep.

  And beyond it was the strangest thing. Despite the odd refraction the light took on as it passed through the otherwise clear force field I'd inadvertently face-planted against, I was pretty certain that I could make out a huge amount of water.

  I was standing at the foot of a dam.

  "No thank you very much," I said to myself, gingerly withdrawing Warpthrower. I held my breath, worried about puncturing the strange material, although it looked like my concern was unwarranted.

  Still, I had no way of climbing it and no desire to breach it. The only thing I could do was retrace my steps. Hopefully I'd simply guessed wrong when I picked this direction, and instead of going toward the source of the unsettling ripples that the walls of the cavern still insisted on making, I was meant to be moving away from it.

  There was no denying that I was shaken by the sheer size of the thing I'd just run into. I couldn't even fathom its method of construction since the surface had no way of concealing seams or slats. Whoever had built it appeared to have carved it from a single piece of some unknown substance and set it into place without damaging it.

  It was far beyond the capabilities of anything back on Earth. Even though just about everything I'd seen in the Citadel was, there was something so unsettling about that almost-clear slab of whatever-it-was that it made me have to fight not to jog away from it.

  It was only when I was beyond the first rounded-corner of the riverbed and couldn't see it any more that I felt a little better. Having that thing at my back still bothered me, but with every step I found myself able to breathe a little easier.

  I was assuming that the sun would go down by the time I got back to where I'd started, but the light never changed. The corpses of the Anulkin were gone, and despite the fact that I had no idea how much time had passed, I was getting both tired and hungry.

  Most of my stints in the Citadel had been either too frantic to worry about little things like that or too short to make it a pressing concern.

  Now though, my stomach was growling and my feet hurt. I ignored my body's complaints, reminding myself that I wasn't even in 'my' body anyway. I was hurting something else, some clone or nano-forged organism that was built from the ground up to look like me, sound like me, feel like me and, now, grow stronger or faster or better able to use magic if and when I selected those abilities.

  So what you're saying is that it's better than what you left behind, yeah? That doesn't sound too bad...

  At least I could take care of the thirst, since I was splashing through as much water as I could ever want. I stopped and scooped some up with my hand, smelling it before bringing it to my lips. I didn't sense anything strange about it, and so I took a tentative sip.

  Rare Water

  Otherwise indistinguishable from Hydrogen Dioxide, the creature that Rare Water has been filtered through adds a highly sought-after healing property.

  Effect: Allows the imbiber to regain hit points.

  Effect: Heals wounds on contact.

  I watched my hit points tick upwards. On a whim, once I'd swallowed some I brought even more to my arm, splashing it liberally on the arrow wound I'd picked up in the forest. The damage washed away.

  Now that I had no fear of the consequences, I dropped to my knees and used both of my hands to bring as much water as I needed up to my mouth, gorging myself until my hit points were back at full. I even took the quiver off my thigh and held it underwater, hoping to bring some of this miraculous cure with me when I left this place.

  I don't think it worked, though. At least, I couldn't summon it the same way I could the arrows, but I decided I'd messed around here long enough.

  I sighed. Whenever I wanted to stop and enjoy the small things, I felt the enormous weight of the ticking clock of mortality above my head. Any time I wasted, I could never get back. Every second I squandered was gone forever, though I couldn't help but smile when I thought of the hell the Evvex currently rampaging around in my body must be going through right now, on Save Point Station.

  Served him right. I wasn't going to spend an instant feeling sorry for him. He and his race had humanity by the throat, and if the only hurt I could throw at him was remotely, via the cancer in my brain, then so be it.

  It was a fucking shame that I couldn't do anything tangible to stop them, but even Toot had acknowledged that the Evvex would own the Citadel long after I was gone.

  The only thing that dragged my mind away from the galactic struggle Earth found itself embroiled in was the abrupt end of the riverbed ahead of me. Even though the flowing liquid was still up to my ankles, I heard no roar from the waterfall that stopped me in my tracks.

  Curiosity overcame caution, and I picked my way to the edge of it. Once I was there I carefully peered down the length of the cliff as best I could, though I couldn't see the bottom. The water simply fell, breaking up into a mist as it dashed against the vertical wall on the way down.

  I was trapped. At least, that's what I would've thought if I didn't know that this was a test of some kind. It was a p
uzzle. It had to be. The Yvarre'en had put me through a trial by combat and now they wanted to see if my brains matched my brawn.

  It was as simple as that.

  Except it couldn't be, because I remembered that when I had started in this area the ground had been spongy, but not damp. There had certainly not been water up to my ankles until I was much deeper into the canyon, and now that I knew what to look for I could see it slowly rising all around me.

  I was unwilling to take a leap of faith off the waterfall, and so I turned back upstream and darted along the riverbank. Yet again I was in a situation where my low Stamina was getting ready to bite me in the ass, but at least this time I could do something about it.

  I dragged out my stats and looked over them, trying to decide where I should sacrifice a point to swap it. Nothing looked good, though that may have been because I prided myself on my Intellect. It had taken me years of practice to build up my Dexterity as well, but something was going to have to give. I was hardly happy about finding myself in yet another position where I needed to run for my life.

  I was able to concentrate on my statistics primarily because of the width of the riverbed. Yes, the water level kept climbing but at least I didn't have to worry about navigating the—

  I hit the nearly invisible wall of the dam at a dead sprint, even though I was at least a mile away from where I'd left it.

  It had moved.

  I'd struck it with such force that I was partially submerged in the thick, viscous ooze that made it up. Even though I could see, I was unable to breathe or hear. If Warpthrower had sunk in with me, that might have been the end of me right there. It hadn't though, and I was able to use it as leverage to pull myself free.

  I peeled myself off of the wall and staggered backwards, watching in wide-eyed horror as the entire dam slithered inexorably toward me.

  The Citadel had tried to warn me. This was a game, and it had made a point of healing my injuries and restocking my gear. In my experience, the only thing that could possibly mean was that there was a Boss Fight up ahead...

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  I hovered my hand over the quiver and summoned an arrow. I didn't think it would work, but I aimed and then fired it into the massive ooze anyway.

  It didn't slow down, but at least didn't speed up either. The inexorable press of the massive gloppy thing slowly bearing down on me meant that I didn't have a lot of time to make any more mistakes. I needed to either kill it or get out of its way, and fast.

  The arrow had penetrated almost fifty feet. That told me that the inside of the entity was probably just as weak as the exterior had been, not invulnerable by any means but possibly blessed with such a huge pool of hit points that it could shrug off whatever attack I launched at it.

  Think it through, Adam, I reminded myself. You might already have the tools to beat this.

  I hoped that was true. If not, Toot's little side quest had been yet another way of showing me how far I had to go before I measured up.

  I made a concerted effort to mentally step away from the attack and instead made a list of my options. It was a short one.

  I could stab it with the Miskatric Dagger. The message I had gotten when I picked it up had made it clear that it would shatter upon penetration, with each shard making its way to the heart of the enemy.

  There was always the Summoning Stone too, though I couldn't think of anyone in my faction with an ability that would be able to bring this thing down. I wasn't willing to waste it, but if I couldn't work out how to hurt this thing I would have to.

  But I'd ended too many games with backpacks full of potions and stockpiles full of ammunition. That wasn't the way to play in the Citadel. Here, you used what it gave you, or you didn't live long enough for it to give you anything else.

  The arrow hadn't hurt it, and no amount of loophole searching was letting me think of an imaginative way to use the quiver's Phasic Field to my advantage.

  Perhaps attack was my best option after all. I slid the Miskatric Dagger out of my boot and took a couple of steps forward. The ooze was already ten feet closer to me than it had been when I'd backed away from it. At this rate, it would shove me unceremoniously down the waterfall in a couple of minutes.

  I'd been hoping that it would show me a sign of weakness when I approached, dagger in hand. If it'd quivered or tried to recoil at least I would know I was on the right track, but it either didn't know I was about to stab it or it simply didn't care.

  "Here goes nothing," I muttered, darting in and jamming the blade into the nearly invisible exterior. I'd already forgotten just how forgiving the outside of it was, and instead of stopping at the hilt, I ended up plunging in up to my elbow.

  The suction was ever-present, but I was ready for it, this time. As promised, the Miskatric Dagger exploded in a shower of slender, black shards. Each of them moved independently in the ooze's homogeneous internals, some diving and looping wildly while others spun in lazy circles, the way the needle of a compass will if you put a competing magnet too close.

  I could sense the weapon's frustration. I didn't think that it was doing any damage at all, and after a few seconds of speedy meandering, even the most optimistic piece of the dagger stopped trying.

  I was still standing there like a fool, my arm inside the jelly. The blade reformed and snapped back into place, and I took that as my cue to retreat in search of a more effective strategy.

  While I did, I dragged up the description of the Miskatric Dagger one more time. It said that each shard would separately make its way for the heart, which was clearly the problem. I could see right through the thing. If it had a heart, I sure as shit didn’t see it.

  I tugged the dagger free and returned it to its place in my boot, an action which made me marvel at my own optimism. After all, I wasn't bonded with the weapon. The only way I'd be keeping it is if I found a way not to die in here, and that sure wasn't looking likely.

  I needed to get out of the ooze’s way. Up until now I'd tried to stay away from the walls of the canyon, but the mere fact that they grossed me out wasn't going to stop me from seeing if I could scale them.

  I hurried over, more and more aware of the approach of that massive, gelatinous beast. I could hear it now, slurping and sloshing over the ground. Those sounds made me hurry, and when I got to the side of the canyon I immediately reached out to find a handhold.

  The entire section of wall shivered, and before I could react it recoiled and then quickly swelled, pushing me away. I tried again, only to be greeted with an even more violent reaction. There was no time to be careful or cautious though, so I backed up and got a running start. I was hoping to be able to use some of that hard-earned momentum and a little bit of magic to let me scramble up the side of the canyon.

  The wall puckered and shoved, launching me into the air and sending me splashing to the thankfully soft ground at the base of the encroaching ooze.

  There had to be a way out of this, but whatever it was I just wasn't seeing it. I got back to my feet and turned away from the quivering mountain that threatened to engulf me, almost tripping over the answer to all my problems.

  They hadn't been there before, but they were sure there now. Thirteen black, baseball-sized orbs, each of them with a single, recessed button.

  It was obvious what they were, even to me. "So everybody's grenades look the same, huh?" I reached down and picked one up, enjoying the heft of it even before the Citadel's message lit up my brain.

  Veldan Exploder

  Crafted in their millions, these elegant weapons feature a core of Pyrik swimming in a stable solution of saturated Nucleons. Eight seconds after the button is pressed, the membrane that separates the two components will dissolve.

  *Additional Information*

  Pyrik is renowned for its explosive ability to be effectively enhanced by Magic.

  I'd played a little ball growing up, and I hadn't been lying to the Anulkin archer when I'd told him that one of my most cherished Absolute Realit
y memories was pitching for the Cubs.

  Better yet, holding this bomb in my hand felt right. It was perfectly weighted for the task, and I had no trouble imagining it sinking far enough into the ooze's flesh to do some real damage. If I pushed enough magic into the Exploder, I had no doubt that it would make a big enough crater to gut the thing. Hell, with the concussive force trapped in the thick fluid, I might not need more than one to take it out.

  I planted my feet and shook off a couple of the imaginary catcher's signs, just like when I was up on the mound at Wrigley. The ooze was no more than thirty feet away. The waterfall was starting to roar at my back as the torrent rushed into the oblivion beyond, but it didn't take much for me to pretend that was the sound of the crowd cheering me on.

  Here goes nothing...

  I put my finger on the Exploder's button, though in the end I turned and chucked it over the edge of the waterfall without pushing it. Even that motion was practiced and smooth. My virtual opponents' base runners had learned to stay close to second base, lest I pick them off.

  Before I could second-guess myself, I kicked the rest of the ordinance after the first.

  "That's the answer, right?" I called out, hoping for a response. My voice didn't echo. "This whole thing's a trick. The ooze is the only thing holding back all that water. If I blow a hole in it, the dam will break. I'll be swept over the cliff and die. I was supposed to look past the easy answer to find the hard one, yeah?"

  The enormous mass kept pressing forward, but I held my ground.

  "You're not going to get me to second guess myself, so quit trying."

  I may have been talking tough, but I still backed up until there wasn't any more real estate behind me. I'd have bet quite a sum that the trial would have ended when I called their bluff, but I was starting to think I'd have lost my money.