Two months before Xin passed away I had gone in for laser eye surgery. Clients could walk into a kiosk-sized stall and place their head onto the chin rest. From there the process had been simplified to a machine that scanned through layers of skin and flesh before putting up the results. A series of polished glass globes would slide close to the eyeball, then the machine said ‘number one, or number two?’ Walking into the dungeon was a lot like that experience.
Number one belonged to a clear and sunny day above ground. Flipping to the second lense turned our surroundings sharper, but in a very disturbing way. Darkness swallowed us up. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. After a minute the pulses of light from above were visible. They dripped down like water or falling stars through the earthen walls. In the distance was the sound of a river, or something liquid traveling onward towards destinations unknown. The passageway wasn’t wide as it spiraled around corners and downward.
I liked the feel of this dungeon, but the two people in front of me were turned creepy by the pattern of light. Multiple shadows slid off both players, rolling in waves as the drops of falling starlight passed. Whiteness to their eyes and teeth seemed to glow. Viper’s serene smile sat off kilter. Squisks kept sending shifty glances back towards me where his eyes went from glowing white to pitch black instantly.
Briefly, I activated the [Sight of Mercari] and groaned as vision overlapped my senses. A month in Advance Online had been long enough to forget how this ability impacted me. Along with the grunt was a disconnection, like I was both myself, and a creature floating above my own head.
Before the abrupt vacation, I tried to stick to using it for seconds at a time, almost like a quick scan of the region where I picked out needed names. It allowed me to avoid asking strangers for directions. I also felt neat and mysterious using [Blink] to get into weird places and say ‘Delivery from the Voices’.
“You okay, Hermess? No dying until you earn uss pointss.” Viper didn’t sound concerned.
“An ability. Hold on.” All around was a map that displayed a lot of detail. This place was big enough to take days of game time to explore. A quick scan revealed an enemy group right around the corner.
“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked them.
“I haven’t been here before.” Viper hissed while looking around.
“Okay.” The throb in my head still hadn’t died down. This game already pushed mortal minds to the limit with time compression. Adding in extra sensory feedback that extended in multiple directions could easily overload a person.
“Have you been here?” The snake man asked me.
“No. I assume the final boss is down, and if we want that, we follow the path.” I waved a hand and tried to focus on how far away the other players were. There were so many possibilities to focus on, but none of them did any good without knowing how much time we had.
“Wait. Sshussh.” Viper said and put up an arm. “Sshit. Ssomeone iss close.”
“Three other players,” I muttered which caused Viper to look over at me. My shrug didn’t clarify anything. This ability didn’t show monsters unless they were intelligent enough. Treasure chests and floor slants were invisible. I got dots and relative distance, and colors.
One red person was moving rapidly towards us. Their speed didn’t show any enchantments or skills. Soon their footsteps could be heard thudding along the floor. Dirt shook from the ceiling.
“Don’t kill me! I’m not a convict!” He yelled with both hands waving.
The shout confused me, I didn’t think of myself as a convict either, so what was the point of yelling? Plus they were red while wildly waving us out of the way. I delayed a few seconds too long and nearly missed a stream of monsters chasing the player. This man was trying to pull an entire group of monsters into our path.
Squisks started running straight for the train of monsters while throwing rocks. They shifted targets while the guy who had been running smirked. I shook off a mild headache from [Sight of Mercari] and switched to [Awareness Heightening] and readied [Morrigu’s Gift] into a smaller sword form. Using the big two-hander would do more damage, but this hall didn’t have enough room.
Viper hissed and pulled a blade out of the strap across his chest. An arm pulled back to throw it at the running player. I went for Squisks, if he wanted to die, then I would make sure his passing got me an ally from group four.
Everything around us had slowed down. The other player's arms waved back and forth in a delayed dance. My heartbeat thumped at half time. A [Battle Hum] effect kicked in, helping my [Blade Dancer] with music. This messy scene of players running in different directions almost made me giddy.
Players, monsters, both of them were within my ability to solve now. Not like the me of months ago. Still, all of this would have been hectic to a normal person. In my elevated awareness, this was like a practice dance.
One hand yanked out [Morrigu’s Echo], the second shape-shifting weapon turned into a long spear that was promptly thrown towards the player with a train of monsters. There was a sickening squelch of noise that got buried under a disorienting [Blink] as I appeared in front of our third team member. Viper hissed in confusion but still loosed his blade that flashed with green.
It sailed towards Squisks but instead embedded itself into a monster’s hide. Seal like barking echoed through the room accompanied by a player's shout. I retained a sense of awareness and looked towards the third party member's legs. Shadows cast from the rolling lights didn’t line up.
I closed my eyes briefly and activated the [Sight of Mercari] again. Squisks in my head didn’t line up with the fleeing goateed man and his illuminated eyes. I adjusted rapidly and swung [Morrigu’s Gift] straight into a seemingly empty location. A largely camouflaged body that felt unreasonably solid went flying towards one wall.
* [Weapon Focus: Bladed] Rank 4 adds 40% Damage
* Defender failed awareness check, dodge check, reaction check: [Unexpected Strike] Adds 150% Damage
* Attacking weapon exceeds defending armor value
My eyes drifted to the weapon briefly before sliding to the crumpled body of Squisks near a cavern wall. We were lucky this room had opened up a little. His health bar was flashing red and critical. The Traveler's autopilot symbol came up quickly, meaning our sudden shattering of his skills caused the man to log out.
There were two more Travelers slightly further in, no doubt waiting to pick up the pieces after this train of monsters killed us. They would be in for a surprise at this rate. [Awareness Heightening] kept running as combat continued. I glanced at Viper for a moment. His mouth opened in slow motion as he gaped at the suddenly appearing body of Squisks.
My hat tilted back and I put out a free hand to grasp [Morrigu’s Echo] as it [Recall]ed. The spear melted down to a shorter sword and got tucked back into my belt. Two weapons were really hard to wield effectively for a man like me.
I leapt towards the gathering of creatures that had been led into this room. They looked like shuffling zombies that were half broken. Huge arms pulled them along the ground. Bits of bone and detached eyeballs illuminated their bodies. They were slow but both arms could easily crush the life from a player.
An arm twice the size of mine clawed out as my shoulder rolled down. One elbow slammed the creature in its face. Viper's body moved amid the half rotten creatures. I yanked out [Morrigu’s Echo], in dagger form, and slammed it into the creature's face. The monster barked once like a seal then gurgled as [Morrigu’s Echo] extended just enough to ruin its brain.
“What are you doing?!” Viper’s voice was louder than the monsters being rapidly destroyed. Worst of all, he sounded so annoyingly slow. Each word threatened to escape notice due to their drag.
My latest victim tried to roll over onto me. I let [Morrigu’s Echo] go and spun onward towards another creature. [Battle Hum] kept me happy, a waltz tune carried through. Four beats per second for normal fights, under [Awareness Heightening] the tempo was closer to eight beats per second while still being functional.
I turned, found a new position to be in, and [Blink]ed above a monster’s back. [Morrigu’s Gift], one of the only two weapons Hermes had ever earned as a character, pointed downwards. Both arms jerked to a halt as the sword slid through the beast's body and dug into the dirt.
Touchdown!
Total Health Remaining: 80%
My leg slipped and thudded hard on the kneecap. Landing wasn’t a skill I was good with. I abused [Recall] again and shifted a giant blade to quickly swipe at the nearest half a shambler that was crawling towards me. A ripple of force vibrated my arm as the blade got stuck around halfway through the creature's neck
The fight kept going for another handful of scrambling seconds. These monsters couldn’t be the toughest beings down here, none of them were bosses or [Elite]. My count ended up being both Travelers and six monsters, against Viper’s two.
The worst part of monster fighting was getting blood all over the new clothes. This game liked to bathe its players in sensations of gooey liquids getting into every crevice. Moments like this made things feel real.
I cleaned the edge of both Morrigu weapons off on Squisks dead body while Viper moved closer. The man could move quietly, but [Sight of Mercari] gave me full vision at the cost of mental focus.
“We’re clear, at least from the other teams,” I said through grinding teeth. My knee throbbed and the rush of using [Awareness Heightening] left me doubly drained.
“You make no ssensse. Thosse, sskillss sshould be impossssible.” The player said from behind me. His feet were kicking at various corpses to ensure they were dead.
“Yeah.” I hadn’t found many players like myself either. Two shapeshifting weapons? Goodness no, there hadn’t even been one other player yet. Most couldn’t switch weapons in battle, yet with these, I could cruise through nearly any playstyle but a caster. Though, my [Bow] skills were super low.
“You don’t look like a warrior or whatever that wass.”
That made me smile. I didn’t feel like one either. [Battle Hum] was still active as one finger poked through the combat log. The battle had been hectic and fast paced. My mind could handle everything moving at just over ten times normal speeds but only because there was a lot of support from the game. I honestly didn’t do much more than pick a target and think of an ability. It was like dancing, one motion rapidly flew into the next.
“Me? No. I’m a lover, not a fighter.” I said while walking over to Squisks’ body. The two handed sword version of [Morrigu’s Gift] drove downward with all the strength my excessive [Brawn] could manage into Squisks' body. This time, a very clear icon appeared denoting the man’s deceased status.
* Rank 8; Path Pervert killed - 20 [Redemption]
* Rank 5; Path Luckless Fool killed - 13 [Redemption]
* Teammate killed - 50 [Redemption]
* Combat Contribution +15 [Redemption]
Voices above, that one scuffle barely made me gain any points. Plus we wouldn't get anything for these items if we didn't and couldn't bring them back up top. We didn't have enough time for me to sit around and calculate the numbers. I pulled out my paper and ink tied to the [Messenger’s Tube] kit and scrawled a message for Big O.
“What’ss that?” Viper hissed. The poor guy seemed so puzzled.
“Proof, and maybe an ally.” I closed my eyes and briefly said a prayer to the Voices. Hopefully people honored deals down here, but there were ways to survive even if they didn’t.
The snake-eyed man started laughing in that weird drawn out manner. He sounded delirious about our thrown together group. We had maybe twenty more minutes before the next group came in behind us. Two people from group one were much further in the dungeon according to [Sight of Mercari]
I stood up with a final shudder before trying to put my [Acting] skills to the test. “Still think you could take me out?”
“Maybe, I can ssee that those movess left you drained.” Viper’s eyes pointed in different directions. The idea that any player could handle double vision threw me off.
“Yess.” I accidently hissed back at him before feeling sheepish. “You can loot anything you want. Take first dibs, take it all. I don’t really care.” My hand waved at the pile of monsters and two dead Travelers.
“You ssure you’re willing to trusst me?” He asked.
I shrugged. Too many abilities that required a low weight in my inventory. Continue Online let us put everything into a magical pocket or flip through character screens on our display, but there was still a value assigned.
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Viper looked away and my chest lifted in the effort to take in steady breaths. A muscle in my shoulder screamed about how out of shape this virtual avatar was. Virtual sensations were powerful. I let myself express the discomfort for only a moment before trying to get back under control.
There was no time to really take care of it. I had to figure out the means for summoning Dusk forth. The sooner my [Messenger’s Pet] and I were reunited, the quicker events would be easier to survive. Though thinking of him as a pet was weird, he was half friend, guide, lifesaver, and critter destroyer.
Trait: [Messenger’s Pet] – [Companion, Exotic] Rank: 4, Unique Variant [Messenger’s Pet] Details:
Monster Companions are far different than a captured and trained Monster. Having one requires earning the trust of a creature and being patient. This process is not achieved overnight.
Travelers with a Companion pet will…
* See increased growth stats in the Companion [10% quicker gain to character points]
* Receive additional information and prompts regarding the Companion
* May receive ‘Blessings’ or other ‘Gifts’ depending on the Companion type. Not all changes are beneficial.
* Companions also have the following differences:
* Buffs are not shared between the Traveler and Companion. They are separate creatures
* Companions may choose to ignore or even leave the Traveler depending on performance
Reading the Continue Online floating box confused me for a moment. This trait hadn’t been at rank four last time. For months of game time it had been completely stuck at two, but now it had increased.
There was a button under the journal entry that would initiate a summon. Dusk, would he be okay returning to Continue? Last time we had been together the small critter was a four-armed space raptor with an insanely long tail.
I punched the button for [Summon: Companion] and got a system message. Most of my abilities were activated with mental imagery like [Blink] or my shapeshifting weapons, but calling Dusk back down seemed more complicated. This was the first time he had actually died in game in our months together.
My head turned to look at the other player. Our small room was safe enough for the moment. Viper was cutting away at one of the corpses behind us and grumbling. I watched him pull out a small crystal and wave it over the corpse. A stream of light briefly transferred to the hand-sized shard. It was the first time I had ever seen anyone gather monster essence. Even Shazam never bothered.
Viper could have all the loot, especially if doing so kept him working with me. I read through the messages presented by Continue Online’s game system.
System Help!
Summoning a companion requires use of [Lithium] circle casting. Ritual assistance display is being provided to assist with the learning process. More complicated [Lithium] spells require memorization until rank four mastery of each individual spell is demonstrated.
I had decided a long time ago that spells could be left to Beth and other players who cared to go that route. Still, the Voices above saw fit to help the clueless like me with a guide.
In front of me was a slightly blue glowing circle on the ground. The circle vanished, then started redrawing itself. The hint was obvious enough for me. While Viper looted, I followed step after step to create a circle on the ground.
Resummoning Dusk would not be a simple process while being rushed. The outside circle, an inside one, seven triangles and very careful squiggles were all reproduced from the instructions. Acceptable lines turned up green, poor ones were yellow, and the worst were red.
“What’ss that?” Viper got far too close while I was lost in tracing the images.
I ignored him and fixed one line with [Morrigu’s Gift] in staff form. This felt a lot like what TinkerHell had done months ago while we were trapped underground. This was kind of neat, but also a terrible time to learn.
Words appeared on my screen citing the closing part of the ritual. I tried not to laugh then repeated the words.
“I promise a dozen cupcakes at my earliest convenience.” The words came out simply and without excessive volume. My mouth lifted to one side in a smile. I didn’t know which Voice, or if Dusk himself, had created this requirement. The AI was insanely sophisticated so both were possible.
Everything dimmed and the walls shook. There was a pit of golden illumination pouring outwards from the spell’s center. My arm came up to reduce the glare.
“Sstay alive!” Viper hissed at me in a panic. He had another blade in his hand quickly. Without [Awareness Heightening] the man looked insanely fast.
A much larger than expected creature appeared. His body was now on par with a bobcat, instead of half the size of any normal housecat. Everything else looked the same. Obsidian colored skin, golden flecks running a stripe down his chest. Even the wings felt nostalgic after my time in Advance Online.
“Dusk, thank the Voices you’re alright.” I tried not to get too excited. The bigger [Messenger’s Pet] wasted no time and ran over to me.
He purred and drove his head into my side. Things felt better by far, despite the disorienting fact that he had almost doubled in size.
“Yeah. I missed you too.” I said. The little guy could have visited me in an Atrium if I had accessed one, but Mother had rather firmly suggested I avoid logging in an ARC until last night.
“What’ss that?” Viper looked extremely disturbed and had backed up to one of the dungeon walls. It took all my [Acting] skill along with [Act: Straight Face] to prevent laughing at the man.
“A friend, and maybe our way out of this mess,” I said.
Dusk tilted his head and looked around at the mess of bodies. The not as small head pulled out to the side and sniffed around. I was happy to have made progress in completing my mental checklist for this first day in the dungeon. Next would be finding a safe corner to pull out the [Messenger’s Tube] and check for those promised communications regarding Xin.
Where was she? Was she in the game? Waiting for me to press yes and let her into the Atrium? I shook my head and tried not to be upset. Everything that had happened was a result of my own choices, the best way to handle things involved moving forward one step at a time.
“Alright, Dusk. I’m not sure how much you’ve seen, but I’ll talk anyway.” I missed the little guy, he was a great sounding board.
A small question mark appeared about Dusk’s head as he looked at me. One cheek pulled back in a vague imitation smile. Even the imitation dragon’s tail looked to be wagging just slightly, where most of the time he looked indifferent while searching for creatures to fight.
Voices above, with his new size, the range of creatures to hunt down and maul had increased. I pitied the next nest of [Coo-Coo Rill]s we came across.
“Why are you wassting time with a pet? We need to hide, or prepare an ambussh.” My teammate sounded nervous and his eyes glowed in the dungeon light.
“This little guy is probably smarter than both of us put together, trust me.” I ignored anything further from Viper and started explaining to Dusk about our situation. “Let's finish looting while I catch Dusk up.”
The other player huffed and moved onto searching both players for gear. They were convicts like us, but they might have some items for us. He two pieces of plate gear from the guy who had lured us down here. I came behind him with my poor skinning skills and tried to gather materials.
We managed to clear all the bodies except for Squisks. A man who was willing to try and bring us down with him deserved to be cast aside. He was left there to rot.
During Viper's loot fiesta I tried to whisper to Dusk about the dungeon. All attempts at explaining things came with a confused series of exclamation marks that were visible even down here. Going further into the dungeon amplified the odd blacklight feeling to everyone.
“So can you find us a safe spot?” I asked him at long last. “Something better than a path to the Grand World Crossroads this time.”
Dusk looked around. Viper turned his mostly white eyes towards the shorter creature. We both watched as he stood on hind legs and sniffed at the air. He looked around a few more times.
“Usselessss. I sshould jusst kill you now, and find a place to hide.” The other Traveler's neck bent too far to the left.
It was enough to distract Dusk. He looked at my makeshift partner and actually curled back both lips in disgust. The two of them stuck their tongues out at each other, which made my face freeze and hands drift towards weapons.
“I would prefer if we got along, at least until we’re out of this dungeon.” I had seen Dusk die in that other world. Now I knew he wasn’t immune to pain or fighting others. He had a character stat window just like I did.
“What then, can you offer, worth my continued attentionss?” He asked before tensing up towards Dusk.
Dusk was still making his standard mixture of animal noises. Part snake, cat, and bird. I put a hand on his much higher head and scratched between both ears. The motion distracted him from the hissing match.
“You implied players like to hide goods for other people, as payment, right?”
“Yess.”
“What do you say we steal them while they’re unguarded?” Both Dusk and I pulled back our cheeks in equal smirks.
“I’m lisstening.” Viper tilted his face towards one side to bring us into focus. The narrow slit of his eye widened to take in more light.
“Dusk, do you think you can find some treasures for us?” I said while thinking about my own [Treasure’s Gift]. Hopefully we could get one small pile of items squirrled away by other players. Once Viper was on board I could get breakfast and take care of real life needs.
Dealing with Dusk had grown a lot easier months ago. Now, most ideas in his head came with comical thought bubble projections. Above his head, two cupcakes showed.
“Yes, of course, I’ll get you cupcakes.” I said.
Viper muttered to himself in confusion while Dusk turned towards me. His eyes looked into mine, then back towards the path we had arrived by. Both my eyes closed briefly to drown out the visual overlap of [Sight of Mercari]. According to the sensations, team four with Big O was already on the way down. After that would be Andriod Seven and his partners. I longed for a quiet corner of the dungeon but based on Dusk’s sniffing, that wasn’t going to happen.
“What’ss that?” Viper asked.
“Fellow Travelers on life’s road,” I muttered.
“Sshit,” He said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
Team one seemed intent upon moving towards the west. The last members of group one were moving in another direction. This place was almost big enough that three groups could fit fine, but once the other three started we would be hard pressed to avoid each other. Viper and I had to contend with too many factors for other players to be our only concern.
Dusk sniffed again, then an exclamation mark appeared in the thought bubble above his head. A treasure box showed shortly after complete with golden coins. Using the [Messenger’s Pet] to hunt down treasure was certainly a new application.
“Lead the way,” I said to the large cat-sized dragon. He was too big to hide in my hood anymore, and that made me kind of sad.
“You got a pet bribed with cupcakess?” Viper fell into line behind me.
“What do you use?” I turned to check on him. The man seemed completely perplexed by our situation.
Part of me couldn’t help but smile. Sure he wanted to get the most of this dungeon, but so did I. I was easily willing to work with someone for safety and split the resources. Logging out left an autopilot active in dungeons, that’s how they all worked. Players could go in, but none of us would be allowed to log out to safety.
Often times autopilots were prone to stupid actions too. Mine had eaten a slew of [Ghost Mushroom]s and ended up seeing sound as splashes of color.
There were additional monsters like the ones prior, but with Dusk helping we made even quicker work of them. Viper insisted we stop and gather their energy or whatever that crystal of his did. After a while, he figured out which question to ask.
“You. You’re an Ultimate Edition Usser, aren’t you?” He said.
I shrugged but didn’t answer out loud. It always sounded like an excuse compared to the months of work I put in learning new skills and changing from a passive depressive man going through the motions to a person that defeated monsters in rapid succession. Almost a year's worth of game time, months of real world time. I had changed dammit.
“That explainss the weird itemss. You got ssomething during your trialss. Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling annoyed that all my efforts were boiled down to ‘pay to win’ gaming.
“Ahhhhh.” He let out a long hiss. We fought another small pack of the legless creatures with monstrous arms. Bits of blackened blood stained the leather armor given to me through King Nero’s pity.
As we traveled on my irritation started to grow. All my own efforts being discounted hurt, but we weren’t finding a safe spot to hide fast enough. My bladder was full and belly rumbling. To top it off, the [Messenger’s Tube] practically glowed with communication from the Voices above. Hopefully soon Dusk would reach his destination, and I could set about getting things sorted.
Snake eyes followed along behind us, gathering loot while my own inventory stayed nearly empty. The price of loot was small for a measure of freedom and cooperation. One that didn't hurt to pay.
Coldly inflecting mental pain two other players without hesitation, that was another issue entirely. I tried not to let the worry about what this place might do to me cause problems. There were still two items to open and get straight before I could let myself reflect completely.