“Quarantine for the affected areas is proceeding as planned. We will do everything in our power to prevent a recurrence of past tragedies, but given enough time, it is an inevitability.”
– General Titus “Blitz” Blauzman’s testimony on Quarantine
The claw peaked above Owen’s head. The paw’s shadow shaded him, but the shade was not the source of the chill in his bones. Each claw looming over his head was bigger than him. Reflexively, Owen braced himself and held the dagger up in desperate defense.
The claw didn’t come crashing down. Owen glanced around. The juma held its strike poised, ready to end him, but the blow didn’t land. Its single massive eye fixed on the dagger, terrified.
The juma’s mouth opened wide to reveal rows and rows of serrated teeth and roared–the juma’s mouth emitted a thick smell of rotten meat. The juma, unlike its sloth cousin, was not an herbivore. Noted.
The force of the roar pushed Owen backwards, and the smell almost knocked him over. The beast dropped its arm, planting itself on the ground. The juma growled at Owen, but its eye remained fixed on the dagger, not him. The risk of possession by a demon was apparently a real threat–although as a sexless species, Owen couldn’t think of a safer place to put an STD demon. At least it couldn’t spread its ‘influence.’
The paw moved to strike from the side. Owen reoriented his dagger, warding away the paw. The force of a truck struck him from behind, smashing him into the ground. The well-trampled earth did little to cushion him, and his body again shattered.
Owen tried to rise but everything ached. Every sensation was pain, waves and waves of it that overwhelmed everything. He couldn’t even tell if he’d dropped the dagger.
With a massive effort of will, he gathered himself and the magic inside, already holding off death. He put every ounce of effort and spare bit of mana into his neck, lifting it off the ground and turning toward the juma.
“Balance!” Owen moaned. “I’ve improved your goods. I can take the cursed dagger as payment.”
The second juma had risen to its feet, its single gigantic eye blinking at the crowd and its enraged partner, which stood, bellowed, stomped and raged. If it wasn’t three times the size of a grizzly bear, it’d look like a child having a tantrum–too much energy and anger with nowhere to put it.
The second juma pinged Owen and the dagger. Dozens of pings went out, to the crowd, the orcs, and came back as it quickly assessed the situation. Its voice was somehow deeper and heavier with commiseration. “You can not endure the duty. Let him.”
Angry Juma glared at Sleepy Juma, but its rage slowed and the eye focused on the dagger again. Its massive bulk still heaved up and down. Deep calming breaths? Seething with rage? Maybe a giant just needed giant breaths? “Agreed.” A lopsided smile spread across the juma’s stomach–instead of ear to ear it was pec to pec. “The duty is yours.”
“Yeah, ok?” Owen managed. He eyed the knife like it was an armed grenade. Creatures like the STD demon were why the Quarantine had been imposed in the first place. Mundanes would be helpless if it escaped. The dagger contained the magical equivalent of a biological agent that could wipe out mankind.
On the other hand, an enchanted weapon might allow him to kill a player and ascend.
Owen sighed. So it wasn’t exactly a balanced risk and reward. Still, if he could find something neither alive or dead–
A rumbling growl built in the juma’s throat. It turned into a chuckle as it eyed Owen’s apparent vanishing enthusiasm.
The Saint returned, eyeing the juma warily, but it seemed to have decided to ignore him for now. “Have you got twenty mana to pay for a second healing? I doubt that beast will cover it this time.”
Owen hesitated, but the Saint was more a title than description. His eyes held no pity. Charity would not be forthcoming.
The Saint has invited you to trade.
The Saint offers healing. The Saint requests 20 mana.
He couldn't initiate a trade or barter, but at least payment was guaranteed. If he failed to heal him now, the system would force a refund for twice the cost.
Owen mentally agreed, and wispy, white mana drifted out of him into the Saint.
System Integration: 26.8%
Tears came to his eyes. He fought them back, but only some of it was the pain.
Images, memories battered his mind. The mana drained from his body as he paid a traveling healer to fix his leg, eaten by an adlet, a ‘meat tax.’ White mana soaking his blood as the vampire’s leach body clamped onto his neck. Crushed under a wall by an enterprising ogre, cheerfully extorting him while gleefully adding its own weight as incentive to pay quickly.
The panic attack rose up out of nowhere–he knew he had some kind of PTSD, piles and piles of it actually. The only real issue with the diagnosis was the ‘post-traumatic’ part. As best he could tell, the trauma never really ended.
Usually the magic held it in check, but when his body was too busy staying alive his mind filled with so many horrors, reliving a year’s worth of suffering and terror over and over.
He glanced over at Rebecca. Her eyes were full of pity. He could feel her need to do something, anything to help, but she shared his own impotence. She knelt and took his hand. Owen wanted to pull away, but he couldn’t. He might kill her, but he couldn’t deny her this little gesture, as much as it filled him with disgust.
The hyper-ventilating shifted to seething rage in an instant.
He couldn’t fight, couldn’t move. But the well of anger refilled, and the pain dimmed. He’d sacrificed everyone to escape this hell, not just escape, but to burn it to the ground. And he was back to this. Raging and impotent, drowning in pity.
What more could he do? Life had become a god-damn–and he meant that literally–game, and he was constantly in the loser’s bracket. He looked at the pity in her eyes, and knew he’d sacrifice her. The pity in her eyes made it easier, somehow. If nothing else, he’d stop being a burden on her.
There had been more there, but now it was empty. Somewhere in the hole in his memories, the reason had vanished. The desire hadn’t dimmed. Only the why was missing.
The Saint’s spell poured healing into his body, and Owen screamed as his bones pulled themselves together and then realigned. The flickering memories faded. Things made sense again. Owen closed his eyes to catch his breath.
Rebecca gave the Saint a thin smile. “Thanks for the discount.”
The giant man sneered. “Standard price for a fellow human. You just make sure when you ascend, you stay human. You might get a better aspect, but it isn’t worth your eternal soul.” He wagged his finger at her. “Remember that or remember this. Either way–stay human.” The man patted the sword at his side. It wasn’t thin and elegant, like Nikolai’s sword, and it didn’t look enchanted–the thing was heavy and brutish. Rumor had it the Saint had melted down a car’s fender, hammered it into the rough shape of a sword and then sharpened it on monster bones.
When Owen climbed to his feet, the Saint stared at the table of enchanted weapons, hunger in his eyes. His little church group was influential with the mundane masses but poor. His eyes played over the three guards, both juma, and the orc patrol. He spat at the ground. “Filth.” The man stomped back into the crowd.
Owen recognized he could trade the dagger with the healer, but the dagger was too powerful to hand to a self-righteous self-proclaimed soldier of god. Who exactly did you trust with that kind of power? No one. Certainly not himself.
He slipped it into his pocket while he failed to look even remotely casual.
Owen stared at Rebecca, worry painted across her face. He sighed. More pity. He didn’t need it. He considered leaving her here. She wouldn’t be much good in the Suburbs. Why exactly was she his bodyguard anyway? He didn’t expect kung fu skills, but some capacity for self defense should have been a prerequisite, right?
Unless her real purpose was to spy.
He wished he knew how to be clever. Could he ask her the right question? Trick the information out of her? “Are you okay?” Brilliant.
Rebecca smiled warmly back. “Are you? What is a carnal retribution demon? It sounds horrifying. Why didn’t you ascend? Where’s the mana?”
Carnal Retribution Demon? That was clearly a better name. Was everyone’s interface cooler than his?
Owen nodded. “The mace absorbed most of the mana. It was enchanted, so it got priority, I guess. I got some, but we’re going to need more.”
“Or–hear me out–we go back to hiding in the outskirts for six months absorbing ambient mana.”
Owen checked his own mana again. “Eight months at least. More depending on how far out we go. And we’d need food, or we’d lose more mana from starving than we gain.” He was already shaking his head. Maybe someone out there had managed it, but he’d tried it out there once. There was never enough ambient mana to keep your head above water.
“We can buy whatever we can carry, and you can scavenge. You were an expert scavenger.”
Owen shook his head. He wasn’t going to run and hide anymore. He could feel the need to kill Nikolai like a weight on his chest, and patience would only put him further behind. He ground his teeth. He had to be honest, even if it was painful. “No, we need to end this now. We’re falling further and further behind.” But he didn’t have to share everything. Best not to risk that. “I know I’m betting your life. Sorry, I don’t regret it.”
Her face was a mask of confusion. She stared into his eyes. What did she see there?
“Fine, The only way to get mana that fast is to hunt. But first, shopping.”
Owen nodded. She put on a brave face. It was admirable. “We need to meditate too.”
Supplies, meditate, and hunt. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was a start.
First shopping.
Rebecca had almost two mana. It bought them more than he expected. Prices had dropped a ton. It turned out that several merchants had arrangements to smuggle goods past the Quarantine in exchange for mana. As a result, prices for everything had dropped–or more accurately, the value of mana had soared. They got food for three days, a few camping supplies, and backpacks. The backpacks were especially good. They were scavenged goods, meaning they’d been soaking in magic from the start. Now they had absorbed enough mana that their repair rate was exceptional. The shopkeeper had split the backpack open with a knife, and they’d watched it self-repair in seconds.
Owen didn’t offer any of his own mana to help equip them. He needed to save every last bit to ascend.
“Let’s meditate before we leave.” Rebecca was already settling into the grass.
Owen glanced over at the orc patrol. They still seemed to be keeping half an eye on them. On the other hand, they were surrounded by danger. Anyone around him might attack him for the dagger, drain his mana, or just try to enslave the pair. The orcs were a deterrent, but they weren’t safe.
On the other other hand, he hadn’t meditated in two years. If he had any chance of defeating Nikolai, then he needed to protect his development, particularly in regards to developing his secret weapon. That decided it. He needed to meditate, but he could at least do it sensibly.
“Fine, we meditate, but not here.”
They found the Church of the Rising Man’s table easily enough. The Saint wasn’t around, but they had a woven banner with his face on it hanging off the table. It read. “Humanity Ascends, Monsters Descend.” A little image of a devil tormenting a pixie made it clear exactly where monsters were descend to.
“Excuse me, ma’am. We’d like to meditate, but we don’t feel safe in the crowd. Could we find some space back there and rest up for a bit?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Phyllis Diller (public alias) - Human - Lvl 7
Aspects: [Silence]
In stark contrast to her publicly displayed aspect, the old woman was explosively friendly. And chatty. And accommodating. They refused food, folding chairs, ‘religious’ literature, and a group prayer. Even then it took several minutes to drive her away.
“Alright you sit and meditate. Lord knows, we need more wizards. They’re one of the Lord’s strongest weapons against the demons. We’ll be nice and quiet.” She turned away but turned around as she reached the table. “Just call if you need anything.”
Plenty of people made the mistake of thinking meditation nudged you toward becoming a wizard. Neither Owen nor Rebecca bothered to correct her.
Owen glanced around at the church members. They seemed happy. Maybe he should have joined them. The church was a small and weak alliance, and couldn’t really prevent their mundanes from harassment, but the human centric church had protected and nurtured a few talents into ascending.
That should have elevated them to at least a minor clan. Except the church disavowed changing your nature. Which left them underpowered and prey to anyone hunting new players for more power.
Upon ascending, most people had two to four aspects they could choose from. Each choice resulted in getting a magical attunement or ‘aspect’ and a corresponding spell or ability. The most powerful option was almost always a change of ‘nature,’ which in addition to granting an aspect, changed your species. So an ascending player might get the option of a werewolf with a lunar spell or a human with a solar spell.
In addition to missing out on all the advantages of a new species, the spells were often a crap shoot. Some people developed phenomenal cosmic powers, others got old lady librarian powers of hushing.
Natures, on the other hand, offered guaranteed power. A werewolf was simply naturally superior to a human, whereas spells and abilities often took practice and leveling to become powerful.
So an organization like the church kept rolling the dice, hoping for a supremely powerful aspect and spell. In the meantime, they banded together and managed to keep anyone from eradicating them so far.
For Owen, it was a familiar strategy that brought back memories of living a life soaked in fear.
He forced those thoughts away. He needed to meditate on more recent memories.
He started as far back as he could, as he ended his last meditation. He recalled the pain and terror as he was dragged up the stairs by his heels, impaled on the meat hook, and tossed off the side of the roof, hanging there both in plain sight and too far up to be clearly seen. It hit him hard when he came to his first big realization, based on his first lesson about the magical system.
It’s not a game. It’s life reflected back and enhanced. In life, you are what you do, not what you hope, not what you dream, thoughts are ephemeral, actions change who you are.
He hadn’t really done anything. He’d just sort of hung there…existing. He’d suffered, but he hadn’t acted, that was his problem. Two years wasted. Never the one taking action, always the one acted upon. This time with a meathook. All for nothing.
Meditation was about taking your experiences and nudging your attunement in the direction you wanted. Though the effect for a mundane was minimal, it was better than nothing.
Except he’d done nothing.
Your attunement has been altered.
This universe has been determined to have aberrant conditions. Assimilation process has been altered: aspect shifts are inverted, nature shifts are doubled.
* Endures Unfair Punishment:
* Contentment, Forgiveness, and Psychopathy related aspects increased.
* Resentment, Vengeance, and Empathy related natures increased.
* Time Spent On Border of Life/Death: +2.13 years
* Living, Dead, and Liminal Existence related aspects increased.
* Living, Dead, and Liminal Existence related natures increased.
The notifications settled into his mind like old memories dimly recalled. He could feel how they resisted reinterpretation now. He wasn’t so meditating his way to better results as he was tapping into old notifications and learning what had happened to his attunement. Still it was important information.
* Endured Life Altering Pain: +2.13 years
* Karma, luck or equivalent stat improved +10.
* Pleasure related aspects increased.
* Pain related natures increased.
* Inanimate for +2.13 years
* Motion related aspects increased.
* Static related natures increased.
Bonus luck would be a fantastic windfall, but it wouldn’t unlock until he was an actual player and his stats had unlocked. It was the last message that forced Owen to pause. He reread it with growing trepidation before he brought his will against the notification, trying his best to reject the change in himself.
* UPDATED: Inanimate for +2.13 years
* Warning: The impact this will have on your nature is potentially debilitating. Impact on aspect reversed.
* Changes rejected. Impact slightly reduced.
If his nature became attuned to the inanimate, what species would he be offered? A gargoyle? A rock? Were there mythical rocks? Probably. There was probably a magical sword out there that needed a stone while awaiting a long lost king. Probably not a path to power though. He took a deep breath. He needed to be more careful.
He resettled into his meditation, revisiting each experience. Common knowledge said that if you ignored the notifications, then their negative effects never went into effect. Owen had it on good authority that the opposite was the case. Learning from your experiences reduced the negatives and boosted the positives, even before becoming a player. Self awareness and self control are the only rudders of destiny that lie in your own hands.
* Rescued: No personal contribution
* Potent related aspects increased.
* Impotent related natures increased.
That wasn’t true. He’d helped unbalance the Orc. He tried to leverage that, but nothing changed.
That wasn’t right. Sure, his overall impact may have been minimal, but he’d contributed that last bit that tipped the orc over the edge. Plus he was a mundane, theoretically powerless compared to the orc. In proportion to his own level, any contribution to escaping imprisonment by a player over level fifty was impressive.
* UPDATED: Achievement: Kill an Orc: (2/10)
* UPDATED: Rescued: (Proportionately) substantial personal contribution assessed.
* Impotent related aspects increased.
* Potent related natures increased.
Of course it would credit him with the kill now, when the mana had already been awarded to Frank.
Suddenly Owen regretted the change. He wasn’t against having a powerful species, but the most powerful species were also the most restrictive–vampires and sunlight for example. Not to mention that certain species were too horrible to select. He’d take magical hushing powers over becoming a zombie or a Mongolian death worm any day.
Changes rejected. Impact slightly reduced.
He could sense the impact. It didn’t really change much.
He carefully touched on each time he spoke to Frank or Nikolai. He worked hard to avoid telling even a small lie. Each instance made the most minute change. But it added up. He accepted those changes without reading them. Then he revisited them as a whole.
* UPDATED: Radical Honesty (Others): Streak of radical honesty +2.13 years
* Deception related aspects increased.
* Honesty related natures increased.
Changes embraced. Impact slightly increased.
He grinned. His own contribution was negligible, but two years of avoiding telling lies felt like a massive accomplishment. He let himself grin and soak in the satisfaction. Joy had become a rare sensation. He had to savor it when it came around.
Then he moved on, moving as chronologically as he could.
* Adopted by City Lord
* Karma/Luck or equivalent -5.
* Adopted by sworn enemy
* Karma/Luck or equivalent +8
According to his teacher, there were hundreds of micro-shifts like these each day, especially in luck, but he could only view the changes that he noticed and contemplated. Big shifts like an official adoption were obvious. Becoming aware how every choice improved or impeded progress was the key to consistent growth. Meditation helped, but it was hard to guess what he might be missing. He embraced the bonus and discouraged the loss of luck. But no notifications came.
Rare Achievement: ‘We Walk Alone’ - Friends Remaining (1/1)
Well, that was a surprise. There was no indication of who it might be, but he had an idea.
Owen opened his eyes to peek. Rebecca was deep in her own meditation, so he closed his eyes again. Berating himself for interrupting the notification. Now there was almost no chance of revealing the consequences of the achievement–good or bad. He began focusing on the more specific parts of what he remembered, grabbing memories at random and pulling them apart in case there was a reward inside.
He remembered falling down the pole.
* Falling Time: + .74 minutes
* Flight related aspects increased.
* Falling natures increased.
It had been a controlled fall. Though how much he’d managed to slow his fall he couldn’t be sure. But he skimmed past that realization in case the alignment update. Flight would be rare and powerful. Even if he didn’t want it as his first Aspect, powers like that could turn his life around. That led to the brief temptation to practice falling, repeatedly falling to control his attunement.
Plenty of people had tried to nurture and guide their attunement and results were mixed. Some considered it pre-game grinding, like running a bunch of silly quests to unlock a secret or rare class. Others thought it was cheating and such manipulations would be punished, either immediately with a deliberately substandard outcome, or long-term when the person’s “true self” and their powers didn’t synergize properly.
Most people thought the last group gave the magical system too much credit, treating it like an omnipotent and vengeful god. Such “paranoid whackos” were easy to dismiss, except they had a point. No one could estimate the kind of power and intelligence that could just impose new rules of physics on even a few scattered sections of their planet. Owen could understand not wanting to underestimate that kind of power.
He could recall a friend–he frowned remembering his new rare achievement–a former friend, who had carefully meditated and altered her life to awaken a Fire Aspect. She’d swam in water, drank only water, meditated in water. She’d tapped so heavily into water that she became a naiad, a water nymph. Now she lived in a muddy pond and leveled by purifying the water and hydrating people for bonus mana.
It wasn’t the worst of fates, but nothing to aspire to. Maybe the magic alleviated her boredom as thoroughly as it did psychological trauma. Of course, someone had killed her for her mana. So it didn’t really matter if you were happy. The new world required power.
He flowed through his memories, accepting and rejecting minor changes. He received another boost to luck from banishing the demon. It apparently counted twice.
His hand wandered into his pocket to feel the knife. The blade slid against his leg, scraping against his skin. The wound burned with the enchantment, but it was only a small cut. What froze his blood was the demon. He could sense a surge of mana rising out of the blade. He pinged the blade for its notifications.
Strike successful. Demon released.
That notification faded and was quickly replaced.
Target is neither alive or dead. Demon retained. Irregular surges of magic have damaged the enchantment. Further aberrations may disrupt the enchantment. Enchantment damage: 13%
Owen sighed in relief. He’d never been more grateful to be furniture. He needed to find a sheath for the dagger before they left. The dagger was his most valuable possession. If he could figure out somewhere safe to put the demon, then he could sell it for a fortune, maybe even enough to ascend straight to level fifteen.
Owen realized he’d lost the thread of meditation and forced himself back into it. But his mind wouldn’t settle. Instead of moving chronologically. He began mindlessly grabbing sensations from his past and sifting them for insight. After a while he had unlocked several negligible changes, but one knocked him completely out of the mindset, even before he could finish absorbing the notification.
Travel between planes: +5211 Shifts
Owen could recall the feeling of staring at his own body. He’d not really remembered it until now, and he was tempted to label it a classic near-death experience, albeit rather drawn out. The experience would be revelatory to someone who denied the existence of the soul, but a rather uninspiring phenomenon for someone who lived in a world of demons and ghosts.
He tried to grip the sensation again, but it had already settled into his attunement. It had been a massive shift in his attunement. Enough to displace his plans for a deception path? Hard to tell. There wasn’t exactly documentation on this.
Owen’s fists began to ache, and he forced himself to unclenched them. It was fine, he told himself. He couldn’t possibly confront Nikolai until at least level fifty. He had two more chances for a deceptive aspect. He’d just need to double down. Yeah, no problem. He just needed to plan a coup while being completely honest and open.
At least he had time. It was the one benefit of a powerless immortal’s existence.
The notification came too conveniently to be anything other than deliberate.
A Filial Son - Quest Updated
The ambassador will enter the mana zone in 22.34 hours.
Owen let himself roll back into the grass. His head collided with a box. He puffed out a sigh much louder than necessary.
He pulled himself to his feet and tapped Rebecca’s shoulder to get her attention. She looked at him, and it twisted in his gut. He could feel her concern. He’d traded her life for his advancement, and she was worried about him.
He quashed his growing sense of how much of an asshole he was being. He felt a flicker of something in his mind. He closed his eyes and groaned. It felt like an attunement update, but his residual sense from his time meditating was only enough to catch it in passing.
Somehow he was sure his nature had moved that little bit closer to being an asshole.
There was probably an aspect for that.
Rebecca still looked at him, waiting.
What did she expect from him? How could she expect him to ascend in less than twenty four hours? Every time he’d gotten close, something had robbed him of everything he’d achieved. He didn’t owe her anything. If he earned his power from killing her, it wouldn’t be any different from anyone else. Power came from exercising it. Power yielded more power. It was the inexorable nature of the world.
How could she--
She smiled at him, jumping up to her feet, and the resentment evaporated. He could feel that he was making excuses.
He tried to prepare a lie, but nothing came to mind. He was grateful for that. Honesty. Openness. Truth. They were the key to unlocking deception. Deception was the only way he could defeat Nikolai. Unless being an asshole held mysterious and overwhelming power. God, the world had gone to hell.
He needed a new plan. No, the hope of earning enough mana through hunting had now become a sliver. He felt the fight drain out of him again. Last time he’d paid everything he had for an opportunity. If he didn’t sacrifice again, then that opportunity would go to waste. It would all be a waste.
He looked at the girl. She sat waiting expectantly, sat through his little mental vacations as he tried to sort everything out. Maybe it was just a feeling, maybe it was the traces of his meditation leaving him more connected to his attunement, but he could almost feel his soul dying.
He ignored it. He didn’t deserve a soul in the first place.
“Come on. We have less time than I’d hoped.” Owen sighed wishing yet again he could lie, but his powerset was a demanding mistress. “The ambassador arrives tomorrow.”