[Basic Healing Potion] = Lifeberry (0.4-0.6kg) + Herbs (Any, 0.1-0.2kg) + Water (Fresh, 0.5-0.75L) + Bonemeal (Level 6+, 0.35-0.5kg) + [Cauldron] (Any, 370-380°K)
----------------------------------------
Jay groaned, his head roiling. What happened this time?
The sun burned hot, and beads of sweat down his scalp. He rolled to his side to give himself the slightest bit of shade. The last thing he remembered was being attacked in that supernatural hellscape, his mind still raw from the experience. But now, he was free, except for the dull throb in his head from waking up to a brand new day. This is getting really old…
Water boiled nearby. A spoon clattered against metal.
And Jay jerked straight up, once again in attack mode. He blinked through blurred vision and took in his world yet again.
Though his log cabin stood tall and the lake was as calm as ever, the same could not be said for the area nearby. Viscera remained scattered about, drawing strange, alien symbols into the soil beneath. His campsite stood in the middle, with a fire roaring and clay cauldron on top.
“I see you’re finally awake,” Naomi said.
Her hood was pulled down, her hair was matted, and heavy bags dragged beneath her eyes. She clattered a spoon inside an iron kettle and took another sip.
“What happened?” Jay asked with a cough.
She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t remember?”
He did. The memories came flooding back at once. About the cairn, and the Wyrms, and his deal with an Eldritch monster, and the madness that came after… He remembered the rising insanity until he could no longer tell the difference between reality and… Whatever that place was.
And worst of all, he remembered that same sense that captured him. No, this wasn’t like a regular loss in sanity, but a sacrifice of his will altogether. The second he’d looked at that recipe, it had hijacked his thought process completely.
“Had a bad day, I guess,” Jay said, wanting to not think of that.
Naomi snorted. “More than that. You almost got ripped to shreds.”
“That was just a bad dream.”
She nudged over her shoulder. “You sure about that?”
Jay turned around and gasped. Even though the lake was serene and placid, its shoreline had been marred by grayed, cracked soil, and dead grass besides. Bodies lay above, their forms black as night and limbs bent and twisted at unnatural angles. Eyes sprouted forth in places where they shouldn’t, now empty of life in the light of day. Teeth lined their limbs.
But it was the composition itself that disquieted him most. Though these monstrosities were composed of hardened shadow, they were both there and not. Like the voidstorms he’d witnessed and the cairns themselves, they seemed to fade in and out of existence depending on the angle he looked at them. Solid as day, or just a faded shade. Both at once.
The same monstrosities that almost killed him.
“But that was just me going crazy!” Jay said.
“It was until it wasn’t,” Naomi explained.
“Huh?”
She shrugged. “Think you’d better let the Guide answer this one.”
He watched the book suspiciously as if it was about to leap up and lodge its teeth into his face.
Somehow, he no longer trusted it half as much.
Yet, the recent Updates contained it all, including what he’d ignored while trapped under the spell of his [Forbidden Knowledge].
Congratulations! You have encountered your first feral Wyrm. These creatures can create vibrant visions of nightmares and dreams, so you’d better be careful, Expatriate.
Congratulations! You have entered a Nightrealm Manor, Expatriate. These sacred realms belong to Higher Caste Wyrms. Enjoy your stay!
Congratulations! You have accepted patronage for a Wyrm. All hail Tül’Rah, Fifth of the Anlok Caste. May His bounties be vast and dreams large!
He flipped the page, his eyes fixed.
Congratulations! You have gained your first character Skill, Expatriate. These powers are unique to your soul, and do not grow stronger or weaker with whatever weapons or armor you possess.
Congratulations! You have gained access to [Forbidden Knowledge]. Your sanity will continue to plummet until this Cursed recipe is completed, so you better work fast, Expatriate!
Congratulations, Expatriate! Your Sanity has dropped below 20, and your soul is starting to slip out of Annwyn. Behold the Nightrealm in all its glory!
Congratulations! You have completed a Cursed recipe. These divine gifts will aid your survival. Treat them with care!
And at the bottom of the list.
Rule 5 violated. You will be punished.
There were more entries. About the alchemy he’d unlocked, and the potions that could be crafted, and the creatures he’d encountered, with all the details associated.
Vaporous Phantasm (level 11-50) – A coalescence of negative thoughts commonly drawn to Interstices in upper Nightrealm planes. This phantasm will attack Expatriates on sight.
Contains a Nightrealm core.
No research? he noticed. Strange.
Jay turned the page, remembering those cores as well.
Nightrealm core – A core from monsters found in the Nightrealm. This monster core variant will enhance physical attributes for equipment beyond their normal infusion levels, but they cannot be used to draw upon for crafting level ups, and contain a reduced skill energy well.
And then he flipped further into the Miscellaneous section until he reached the corresponding entry.
Nightrealm – The planes beneath realities, composed of pure thought.
That little information for such an unreal place. Jay could still picture it all… It was as if he was walking around the jungle normally, when all of a sudden, he was somewhere else. A deeper, darker place. One where the rules he’d grown accustomed to ceased to exist. Only in the thinnest sense imaginable could he compare what he faced inside there with everything he’d ever known or loved back on Earth. Like reality itself had been transformed into a nightmare, Jay had wandered through an inconceivable land.
He once again looked at the dead bodies, still trapped in their unreal state of existence.
“How could that have happened?” Jay asked. “I mean I get it from my perspective, but how did it look to you. Was there a portal or something?”
Naomi shook her hood. “You were right here, trying to make whatever you were making in that cauldron. But you also weren’t. Same as the cairns or voidstorms. When you get that low, you start fading out yourself, still trapped between here and the Nightrealm. I could see those creatures coming for you, so I did what I could to get you out.”
He gaped. “Why?”
“Because of what you said before. You were right. You’d only fallen behind because of me, so you deserved this single chance out.”
“Won’t that make the night harder?”
“Already did.”
The wind fluttered, and her blue leather cloak fluttered. Jay’s heart skipped a beat.
Though her cloak only had some wear and tear, everything beneath seemed to have shattered entirely. Her boots were missing, her leggings were no more, and her arms were exposed completely, with nothing to cover her skin but a tanktop and underwear. Only her satchel remained in place, undamaged.
Jay blushed when his eyes fell on her breasts, but they soon got lost in the tangle of blood-soaked bandages and splints running around everything else. She’d gotten messed up hard, with skin bruised and broken, and wounds that hadn’t healed.
He turned around and watched the sun in the sky. It was on the opposing horizon, rising when it had been once falling. Just how long was I out?
“You handled Natura for me?” Jay asked.
“Don’t get any funny ideas,” Naomi said. “That was a one-time favor. I won’t be going through that again.”
He didn’t know what to say. Up until now, he’d been happy doing this fight by himself. Hell, his first encounter with Naomi had led to him getting knocked out, and he hadn’t planned on meeting anyone else since, content to walk away and let it be.
But she hadn’t forgotten, biding her time in the shadows until the right moment came. Jay might have been knocked back a peg through her interference, but it was clear that the balance had been restored through this act. He would have never stood a chance of surviving against Natura in that reduced state.
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All for that damned bag too. He could see his coveted prize sitting next to the campfire.
The Bag ‘a Mats looked no different than an ordinary backpack, at first glance. Thick, weathered leather wrapped around a regular hide chassis, with wooden splints jutting out for support. It was as rugged as it was plain.
But the more he looked at this thing, the more he could feel some ominous energy radiating out. Like the cairns he’d encountered, a form of fell magic existed between its seams, defying the logic of this world. He opened it, only to see nothing but an empty, vacuous space.
The Inventory page explained further, now that he had it in hand.
[Bag ‘a Mats] – A backpack made of leather and trapped spirits. This object can hold 10,000 kilograms of unprocessed materials in its transdimensional compartment, but will reject anything that has been crafted by an Expatriate. Simply imagine the material type before reaching into its magic compartment, and it will be found.
WARNING – Do not mix this [Bag ‘a Mats] with any other similar item that contains transdimensional space. Both items will be destroyed in an intraspacial explosion, along with anything nearby.
He blinked at the strange backpack. This had been his dream. His nightmare. The fixation of the day before, driving him to the edge of utter madness by the [Forbidden Knowledge] he employed to gain access to it.
“Be careful with that warning too,” Naomi said, nudging her head to that last entry. “I know a guy who once tried to run an experiment with a couple bags like yours, and it left him and his home in a crater big enough to see from miles away.”
Jay gulped, trying to fathom that level of destruction.
And yet, this backpack still seemed so ordinary. So normal for here.
“How could yesterday have been real?” he asked out loud.
Naomi sighed. “How can any of this be real, you mean?”
He met her gaze, lips furled.
“I used to ask myself the same question,” Naomi continued, “back when I woke up on Annwyn, all those months ago.”
Jay studied the dead bodies of the phantasms, their unreal shapes still shifting under the midday sun. “But how? How can this be happening?”
“Because we don’t belong in this world, Jay. That’s why our minds are always rejecting it. Unlike Earth though, the more you lose your grasp, the more it literally disappears. When your sanity dropped too low, it wasn’t that you could no longer tell the difference between fact and fiction. The two started blurring together into one. And when we start to slip out, that creates holes for other things to come through.” She swirled her kettle and averted her gaze. “Trust me, I know.”
That was the Nightrealm then. Jay could have guessed as much, but hearing someone else say the same thing confirmed that he hadn’t gone completely insane.
“What happened to you?” he dared to ask.
Naomi sighed. “I went into a place I shouldn’t have, armed with no more than my crossbow at the time. Next thing I knew, I was somewhere that got even wilder than I could have imagined. Killed a lot of things and tried to get out, but it just kept getting worse and worse. But then I found my way into somewhere else, run by a creature I’d never seen before…”
“A Wyrm,” Jay filled in.
She nodded. “Got given a choice from there. Either I go back to Annwyn with nothing to show for it but broken bones and gear, or I become a patron and accept the gift and curse that came with it. You can bet which decision I made.”
Exactly the same as me. Were they all just puppets to these higher beings?
“The Wyrms don’t care about us, Jay,” Naomi continued. “They just want to see their influence grow in this world, and we’re the easiest, most desperate marks. People willing to do whatever it takes to avoid death.”
“It’s been that way the whole time,” Jay deduced. “They didn’t just trick us when we were weak here. They lured us from Earth the second we were inches away from death.” He still remembered those voices in his head. Wish granted, they’d said. “We’ve been pawns this whole time.”
It all made sense. The circumstances of his rebirth… The way he interacted with the world… The very language in the Guide… It all pointed to the same set of facts.
The Wyrms were the ones who gave them the Grand Bargain.
“Why?” Jay asked. “Why would they do this?”
Naomi frowned. “Is it even worth trying to figure that out? Those things are gods. They have more power than we can comprehend. We’ve only ever experienced a smidgen of it. The rest has been from Natura. Their enemy.”
“Between a rock and a hard place,” Jay echoed. “Like hell itself. Maybe that’s where we are?”
“I’d say hell is the place you just got out of. At least in here, we have a chance.”
He looked around his lake, along with all he’d managed to build, and the calm moment of peace that had been gained. He watched the woman at his camp, nursing her own wounds while she waited patiently to recover.
“Thank you, Naomi,” Jay said. “I don’t know what would’ve happened without you.”
“Don’t thank me. This is just another day in this world.”
The two spent some time relaxing, with Naomi munching on the meal in her kettle, while Jay made a snack of his own. Thankfully, not all of his meat had been destroyed in his delirium, and he could still make a little meat stew to get his vitality in a better place.
“You said that you met a Wyrm,” he pointed out after some time. “Does that mean you’ve been cursed too?”
She nodded. “Not like Desmond though. Mine doesn’t drain my sanity or affect my Stats in any way, except when I use my Cursed item.”
She pulled the satchel from her waist. “This is how I got out of the Nightrealm the first time. It’s a ‘Satchel of Infinite Smoke’. Like your Bag ‘a Mats, it contains a bottomless compartment. Every time I reach in, I pull out a new smoke bomb, but it drains my vitality as a result.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad as a Curse,” Jay said.
Her dark eyes flashed rage. “That isn’t the Curse. Mine comes when I go to sleep, night after night.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shit wasn’t great for me back on Earth. My husband, Darnell… He was bad news. Used to do a lot of things when we were alone. The kind that I should’ve reported a long ass time ago. But I wasn’t the same there as here, so my Expatriation came of my own free will…”
“Oh,” Jay said with a frown, catching the implication.
Naomi closed her eyes and shivered. “These Wyrms are bastards though. They know how to fuck with us most intimately, and they get off with our misery. Ever since I took the deal and became a patron, every single night, I dream that I’m trapped back there, stuck with that monster at his worst.”
A tear sprung free. Her voice cracked. “I swear, it almost makes the rest of this easy in comparison. I’d finally gotten away… Finally found a place where he couldn’t hurt me. And now? I still deal with him every night. Every single fucking night…”
She sobbed as Jay watched on quietly, unsure what to say himself. The moment dragged on as she let it out.
“Sorry, it’s been a long night,” Naomi said at last, wiping the tears away. “What about you? How’d they get you?”
Jay frowned. “They forced me into a maze I couldn’t escape, same as you. Then, when I got to the other side, I was left with that same impossible choice. Either bend to him and live, or be free and die.
“I managed to make a deal which I thought was great, but after this past day, I realize I’ve just been screwed over again. You saw what happened when I tried to make this bag. It’ll happen whenever I try to do the same thing.”
Naomi tilted her head. “That’s your Curse?”
Jay nodded. “You’re right, these monsters know how to hit us where we’re most vulnerable. I’m already struggling to survive without an Expat core, and now, I’ve been given another power that could kill me as easily as save me. They know the type of gamer I am, so they know how much it will bother me to have an overpowered skill that I can’t even use.” He curled his fists. “How am I supposed to keep going now?”
But Naomi’s pierced deep. “You’ve got to be kidding me… I’m here talking about shit – and I mean real shit – and you’re whining that you can’t use a skill? Are you out of your fucking mind, kid!?”
Jay blinked. “No, I didn’t mean it like th–”
“You know what? You’re a fucking asshole, Jay.” She stood up and scoffed. “I swear, everyone here is all the same…”
She zipped off before Jay could say another word.
Jay grimaced. He shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d always had this problem before. Speaking instead of thinking, not picking up on the social cues until it was too late. Sometimes, he felt that his brain wasn’t wired the right way to always screw these moments up. He liked being alone for this reason. Why risk hurting others or being hurt himself, when solitude was so much easier?
But as he watched the space where Naomi had once been, he couldn’t help but acknowledge one fact.
Rules or not, they were all in this together.
Name: Jay Reis (Copper Age)
Vitality – 31/42 (Wounded+3 (Treated+3))
Hunger – 55/72
Thirst – 24/24
Fatigue – 43/48
Sanity – 78/100
Main Crafts: Alchemy 1, Armor Crafting 2, Base Building 2, Cooking 1, Medicine 1, Tailoring 1, Tool Crafting 2, Weapon Crafting 2.
Weapon Crafts: Axes 3, Bows 4, Clubs 3, Daggers 3, Spears 5, Swords 5.
Armor Crafts: Heavy Armor 5, Light Armor 2, Medium Armor 0, Shields 5.
Character Skills:
[Forbidden Knowledge]
Armor Skills:
Heavy Armor: [Push], [Stampede]
Light Armor: [Dash]
Shield: [Brace], [Track]
Weapon Skills:
Axes: [Chop]
Bows: [Sharpshooter], [Longshot]
Clubs: [Bash]
Daggers: [Slice]
Spears: [Thrust], [Sweep]
Swords: [Power Attack], [Slash]
Cursed Items:
[Bag ‘a Mats]
Armor:
[Lizardscale Helmet+2] (Hardened+1), (Reinforced+2)
[Lizardscale Leggings+2] (Hardened+1), (Reinforced+2)
[Scaled Roundshield+4] (Hardened+1), (Reinforced+2)
Weapons:
[Copper Sword] (Hardened), (Reinforced+1), (Stable)
[Wooden Bow+3] (Reinforced+2)
[Basic Leather Quiver]: Contains 20 [Flinthead Arrows]
[9mm Semi-Automatic Pistol] (Accurate+2), (Quick): Contains 5 [9mm Cartridge] (JHP)
Tools:
[Copper Knife]
[Copper Axe]
[Copper Hammer]
[Copper Pickaxe]