Avram Boteza stood in a tunnel of swirling blue.
The ground was solid under his feet. Straight and even. Yet to his eyes it was as though he was standing in a tunnel of sea blue clouds, the walls and floor and ceiling encircling him in a spiral twirl.
It was discomfiting to the eyes.
What was I thinking? He panicked, staring wide eyed at everything.
He’d never been in a portal before. All his life as a Gifted had been spent in a Romanian lab. Even this particular outing he was on was not sanctioned. He’d snuck out of the lab for some fresh air after hearing a thing or two about this specific plan and had high-jacked it.
He’d found a particularly malleable guy connected to the plan he’d heard about and had been lucky to get far more information than he’d hoped for.
He held his hands up to his head, paused, remembering he was holding a gun and wanted to slip it back into his waist band when he realized that he had no gun.
It was impossible. He clearly remembered holding it in his hand when he’d run from the man in the suit. He couldn’t even begin to believe he’d actually met the man in the suit. In the Romanian lab, the man in the suit had been spoken off like a legend. The boogeyman hiding in the dark.
He was the reason Romania had been having a difficult time setting up an actual base in the whole of America. The funniest part was that nobody knew how the man in suit could sabotage all their plans all across America from just one location.
It was crazy and had been driving everyone mad.
And you get the chance to kill. But what do you do? You run away. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
He smacked himself in the side of the head with each thought.
You chose a portal over some asshole in a suit. Avram frowned. Not a man in a suit. A legend.
But did it really matter? What was a legend to a portal? Avram hadn’t even had the chance to check what rank the portal was. He didn’t eve know how to.
I’m S-rank, he reassured himself. Unless it’s an SS-rank portal, I should be fine.
But what if it was an SS-rank portal? They were rare but not impossible. He wasn’t even a combat class.
Avram shut his thoughts down as hard as he could until they were nothing but mutters and mumblings buzzing in his head.
The drug was messing with him. The drug he created himself. Yes, Danielle always said not to test your own shit, but how the hell was he going to know how effective it was if he didn’t test it?
Avram realized he’d been standing in place for a long time. It was stupid of him. What would he do if the man in suit was right behind, chasing after him.
He was already in the portal without a plan, and he sure as hell couldn’t turn back. All that was left to do was to just wing it. Hopefully something good would come out of it.
Avram moved to rush forward and stopped. There was a body right beside him, lying helpless on the ground. The swirling blue of the portal blanketed him like a misty duvet so that he was easy to miss.
Avram bent to look at the body. He turned it and wasn’t surprised to find that it was the C-rank weaver he’d shot earlier.
What was surprising, though, was that he had no bullet wounds. His shirt had holes where Avram had shot him but there was no blood. No injury.
Did he heal? Is he one of those weavers with super healing?
Avram doubted it. No one healed that quickly, not even an S-class. That was the purview of the SS-ranks. And even then, he wasn’t so sure of it. Gifted in that rank kept what they were capable of doing as close to their chest as they could.
Wondering how the child had survived wasn’t important. What was important was how he could use the boy.
Avram picked him up from under the arms and started dragging him deeper into the portal. It was a stupid plan but maybe he could use him as a hostage.
And where will you hide? He asked himself. You have no idea what you’re even walking into.
SHUT UP! This is not my fault. And I’m not stupid. I’m just a guy, for fucksake. A guy who made a mistake.
Snot gathered at his nostrils as tears filled his eyes and he sniffled.
He shouldn’t have left the lab.
But it didn’t mean he had to give up on surviving.
He had a hostage, now all he needed was a plan. But the boy was large, and he worked with the police.
Doesn’t that mean he’ll know how to defend himself? I don’t have a gun anymore, and weavers are fighters.
He frowned, his mind struggling to work. That’s it. I’ll break an arm and a leg. That should keep me stronger.
He held the boy’s arm in both of his and bent it in the elbow in the opposite direction. The arm refused to give, and he put his back into it. For all his S-rank, here he was breaking a child’s limbs just so he could be stronger. A C-rank for that matter.
Pathetic.
<>
Avram released the boy in terror and staggered away from the body. The words had echoed all over the place and yet had seemed to pierce his mind as well. And while they were not English or Romanian, he’d understood them.
He looked around, panicking. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”
For all he’d heard about portals, he’d never heard anything about voices in people’s heads. He turned, sitting on the floor, deep blue mist swirling around him as it continued its spiral.
Avram’s bladder gave out in fear and his pants grew warm and wet.
“S…stop playing games!” he shouted. “I’m an S-ranker I’ll kill you in the blink of an eye.”
<
A small thing, humanoid, and as tall as one foot, maybe two, descended to hover in front of Avram.
He stared at the creature in utter confusion.
“A... chibi?” he blurted.
It had proportional limbs to body ratio for its height but a large head. It looked very much like a chibi he saw in cartoons. But that was where the resemblance to being humanoid ended.
For one, it didn’t have a mouth. And its eyes… they were just short horizontal lines like someone was playing a sick joke and couldn’t be bothered with them. Its head was simply round and white and the rest of its body was black with purple stains for hands and feet.
Avram realized the thing didn’t have hands and feet. It just had stubs in place of hands and feet, purple stubs.
Yet, if he didn’t currently have its voice in his head, he would’ve found it cute.
<
Avram wasn’t sure what to say or do. So he did what he had control over. He bent down, abandoning the idea of breaking the boy’s arm, and started pulling him.
The moment he began, he realized it had been the wrong decision.
The creature’s eyes—if he could call them eyes—darted straight to the boy and Avram could’ve sworn its face twisted in an expression. But all his mind interpreted the expression as was wrong.
Simply wrong.
<
One of its?
Avram had no idea what was happening. Was some portal creature claiming the boy?
Why?
Even without an answer, he released the boy very quickly and backed away.
The creature cocked its head to the side. <
Avram did his very best not to answer. He inched deeper into the tunnel very slowly.
The creature took that as its chance to lower itself to the boy.
<
It moved its hand to touch the boy and paused.
<
What’s wrong with its speech?
The thing had been talking just fine until a moment ago.
No, Avram. This isn’t the time to be thinking about what doesn’t concern you. Just run. Let the man in suit deal with this.
He turned and fled into the tunnel. He’d barely taken three steps when the creature appeared in front of him.
<
Avram froze.
The creature pointed at the boy’s body. <
Fear held Avram tight, like an overbearing mother. Breathing became hard, and a manual task. Tears streamed down his eyes as he wet himself again.
If the smell of his piss bothered the creature, it didn’t show it.
“F… friend?” he stuttered. “Close friend.”
<
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
The blood drained from Avram’s face.
“Oh, God, please no,” Avram cried as the line that should’ve been a mouth split into something monstrous.
He stared at a sharp fanged mouth with nothing inside it. No tongue or gullet or anything. Just pure red depths.
<
…
Naymond walked into the portal very slowly. He watched his steps, not that he had to.
There was a loud chomping sound as he walked in, and he felt the emptiness of being unable to use his skills, but his perks as a Sage still worked and he wished they didn’t.
While most people would see the swirling blue of clouds all over the place, he saw those and more. He saw the monsters lurking beneath the cloudy exterior. Saw their forms, grotesque and inhumane. Nothing with forms so sick and disfigured deserved to be alive. And yet they were.
He closed his eyes to them and heard a sudden chomp.
Naymond took a few more steps forward before coming to a halt. He saw the source of the chomping sound and wasn’t surprised.
Of all the creatures he’d ever had the displeasure of seeing, these ones were the most disgusting. He remembered throwing up when he’d grown well enough as a Sage to see their form. If he had any regrets to growing stronger, this was it.
The creature stood in the air above him, chibi-like in nature. Its head was a pure white and it looked at him with two horizontal slits for eyes. The rest of its body was a deep black that ended as purple stubs at the limbs.
It stared at him and he looked up at it. These things never came down to human level. And they never spoke.
Naymond waited patiently, watching it as it watched him. He didn’t know if they were present in every portal or only showed up when someone that could see them appeared. Sometimes it spoke to Oaths, but even that was very rarely.
And Oaths knew to be wary of what laid on the other side of a portal when one of these things chose to speak.
It was a very eerie feeling to know that people walked into portals everyday with these things watching them while they couldn’t see it.
After a while, Naymond spoke. “Did you see a tall child come through here? As tall as me, maybe taller. He is young but not too young. A Faker.”
Even now, he didn’t know if these things could actually tell classes apart. But he knew that he was aware of it, that he could see it and knew it could hear him. So the silent treatment was intentional.
But despite their terrifying forms and eerie presence, they were not violent. He’d seen Delvers who’d had the fortune or misfortune of seeing them attempt violence only to be avoided and ignored throughout the entire process.
After a very short moment, the creature moved to the side.
You’re done with me, huh?
Naymond didn’t like this. He didn’t know if Melmarc was dead or alive. He couldn’t go back out there and say he couldn’t find Melmarc without giving it his all. The boy’s father had a knack for knowing when a person was lying. With his expressionless face and dreary eyes and…
Naymond shivered just thinking about Melmarc’s father.
“Forward it is,” he muttered, walking on. “Please don’t be dead, kid. Please don’t be dead.”
There was also the Crafter to worry about, but the man wasn’t capable of anything Naymond couldn’t deal with.
He rushed down the rest of the portal until he came out on the other side, missing the small puddle of blood that had been on the ground covered in swirling blue mist.
Behind him, the creature watched in amusement. Though only a handful of Gifted could recognize the expression.
…
Melmarc woke up with an aching pain all over his body. It felt like he’d hit the gym after two years and done all the reps for all the body parts. He could barely move a muscle.
Still, the pain in his body beat all over like a headache.
He groaned, and even that was painful. His mind was also hazy, unable to recall what had happened. All he could remember was the pain.
Around him was an unfamiliar room of blue and green and a vague touch of yellow he couldn’t quite place. It was like lying down in a cloud house with too many colors. There was also a weight on his stomach.
<
His ears perked up at the child-like voice and he stared at the creature on top of him. It was a chibi and it stared at him with two vertical slashes for eyes. And while he’d understood it, he was sure it wasn’t speaking in any language he’d ever heard before.
Except for the eyes, there was nothing on its face. But why does it feel like it’s excited… smiling.
Melmarc had no idea what it was. Then he remembered.
He’d fallen into a portal.
“I was shot,” he blurted out and his lips hurt like someone had taken a knife and draw a clean cut along them
He winced at the pain and the creature on top of him shuffled up his body to sit on his chest.
<
Melmarc wanted to struggle but he hurt too much. Also, for some reason the creature didn’t feel strange or unfamiliar. If anything, he was getting a friendly feeling from it.
The creature stood up then placed a hand on his chest. It looked as if it was making a superhero pose.
Melmarc’s interface appeared in front of him.
[Unstable Existence Detected.]
[Mental Instability imminent]
[World Protection detected.]
[Initiating World Protection.]
[Status World Buff is in effect.]
…
[Unauthorized intervention detected.]
The creature frowned, yet its expression didn’t change.
It took its hand from his chest, scratched its head, tapped its face in thought, then put its hand back down.
It was a weird feeling. Throughout the entire process of actions it had carried no expression, yet Melmarc had felt different expressions from it. Confusion. Worry. Frustration. Satisfaction.
A new notification appeared.
[Effect of August Guest disabled]
The pain doubled. Tripled. Then it subsided.
[Catalyst has been introduced.]
[Unknown possible effects detected.]
[Anomaly detected.]
[August Guest and Intruder Buffs detected]
[Existential anomaly detected.]
[Rectifying anomaly.]
[Termination of anomaly in progress]
Panic flared in Melmarc’s chest
<
For some reason, Melmarc couldn’t shake the feeling that this was not how the creature normally spoke.
<> It continued in a hurry, turning its hand one way. <
What rise to power?
Did the thing mean ranks?
[Catalyst detected.]
[Termination terminated.]
[World Synergy detected.]
[Synergizing.]
The creature got up and wiped its brows that did not exist. It was a very human-like action.
It’s faking it.
Melmarc wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was sure of it.
Then the creature jumped, pumping its hand in the air. <
Melmarc was about to ask what was happening when his interface notified him of an update.
[New identity detected.]
…
[World Buffs and Debuffs have been disabled.]
[Existential Buff is now in effect]
[Existential Designation: August Intruder]
August Intruder
A Sapient life form representing its world has been detected.
Effect: +3% Mastery to all skills.
Effect: +2% Mastery to all skills on active quest.
Welcome.
Melmarc stared at the notification in front of him in confusion. What the hell was an August Intruder?
He wasn’t complaining, though. He would take all the skill mastery he could get. But what worried him was the description. While he’d been under the [Intruder] and [August Guest] buff and debuff, he’d been referred to as a Sentient life form. Now it was calling him a Sapient one.
All sapient life forms were sentient but not all sentient life forms were sapient. Another thing he realized was that everyone was wrong about how the interface worked.
Melmarc’s mind was running through the motions when something jumped at him from out of the corner of his eye.
He rolled away from it in panic, accidentally knocking over the creature that was still standing on his chest. When he came to a stop, the creature was floating in the air and there was nothing in the direction he’d fled from.
Melmarc nodded hesitantly. “What are they?”
He looked around but saw nothing. But they were there. He could see them if he wasn’t trying. Just there, hovering at the edge of his periphery. He had no other word to describe them except that they were monsters.
<
Melmarc got up, happy that the soreness and all the pain were gone. “Failures at what?”
The creature paused, face actually squeezing in thought. <
“Okay.” The question had been a reflexive one, not necessarily important. But he did have an important question. “Alright. What of you? Can you tell me what you are?”
The creature’s face lit up. <>
Melmarc ws very sure he wouldn’t remember the numbers. “Can I just call you Veebee?”
The creature nodded. <
Melmarc wasn’t sure who else he was possibly going to call Veebee. “So what’s a Void-beast?”
<
Melmarc looked around him, taking in the entirety of the tunnel. It was all blue now, the other varying colors of green and yellow gone as if they had never been.
“Is an existential life form different from a sapient life form?”
Veebee scoffed condescendingly. <
“And sentient life form?”
<
Melmarc nodded. That made sense. He opened his mouth to ask another question when something in Veebee’s expression changed.
He couldn’t quite say what it was if a person asked him, but he just knew.
<
“Okay but I need to know something,” Melmarc said in a hurry as Veebee started floating away.
<
Was it reading his mind?
“What if I don’t know how?”
<
Melmarc moved his arms at Veebee’s words and was happy to find them intact and fully functional.
<
“And what did you tell him?”
<
That was rude. So it did consider them to be something of lesser life forms. And it was definitely reading his mind. That worried him… a lot.
Veebee’s eyes turned to two dots. <
“What’s that?”
<> Veebee answered, a hand swiping through the air. < Melmarc wasn’t sure if he would be able to remember all of that. < A part of Melmarc was happy to hear that even though he had no idea what was really going on. If he was getting a quest for himself, did that still mean he had to also complete the portal quest? < Again, Melmarc was sure he wouldn’t remember the number, but he promised himself that he would try. Veebee remained hovering in the air, legs crossed and arms folded as if lounging on a chair. He stared at Melmarc as Melmarc went towards the end of the portal. When Melmarc got to what looked like another portal, he turned back. “Why do you talk that way?” Veebee said nothing. Melmarc got the feeling it was hesitating. “I know you can talk normally. At least I think I know.” < Melmarc wasn’t sure. He could see it as cute on a child, maybe a three-year-old or a four-year-old. But he wasn’t sure. He shrugged. “I think it’s okay. When you said you took care of the friend that tried to break my arm, what did you mean?” Veebee paused, slightly confused. < Melmarc raised a finger, mouth open, then dropped it. “You don’t have a mouth, Veebee.” That was definitely not what he wanted to say. Veebee, however, seemed to take offense. < Then Veebee opened its mouth and Melmarc wished he hadn’t said anything about mouths. With an awkward wave, he stepped through the portal, hoping Veebee didn’t notice his fear. When Melmarc stepped out of the portal, it was into a large meadow with massive trees and what looked like ruined castles and small buildings in the distance. [Welcome to The Ruins of Caldath] … [Portal Quest: Ruins of Caldath.] You have walked upon the ruins of Caldath, ancient city of debauchery and hate. Its inhabitants have sold their soul to Caldath and have lost it eternally. Only their servants, too unimportant to be granted such misfortune, remain. Conclude the ruination of Caldath and free these innocent servants from their unfair damnation. [Portal Objective: Find the orb of Caldath.] [August Intruder detected.] [Personal Quest: Ruins of Caldath.] You have walked upon the ruins of Caldath, ancient city of debauchery and hate. Its inhabitants have sold their soul to Caldath and have lost it eternally. Only their servants, too unimportant to be granted such misfortune, remain. Conclude the ruination of Caldath and free all from their eternal damnation. [Quest objective: Defeat Demi-god Caldath.] [Reward: +5% Mastery.] “How the hell am I supposed to kill a demi-god?” Melmarc muttered to himself. If this was Veebee’s definition of easy, he didn’t want to see what the creature considered hard. At least it was a good thing that the August intruder quest was optional… It is optional… right? Melmarc really wished he had asked the creature this question when he’d had the chance. … Alone again, Veebee turned to one of the monsters in the wall. <