The dream started with Ryo in my arms.
Not in a sexual sense. It was an intimate position, but the kind common to a master and pupil. Ryo was sitting in front of me and I was kneeling behind him, our bodies pressed together. I rested my cheek on his shoulder, as I placed my hand on his chest. As we sat together, meditating, I gently worked on the shards of Ryo’s soul. Some of them were static and hard to move, some slid so easily they were slippery as fish. It was so hard, but with my help, Ryo slid a few of them together.
“The Soul Healers can’t understand how you did so much damage,” Ryo said and I smiled to myself. Of course they couldn’t.
“Your karmic debt towards me was very great,” I said lightly as I tried to capture one of the slippery pieces. Ah, come here little fish. “Do you remember when you were just level fifteen? You competed in the Tournament of Alish-Ka and took first place.” Ryo was still manipulating his soul, but I could tell he was also listening carefully. At his tier, splitting attention was not hard. “Do you remember the party held by Royal Alish-Ka? Do you remember the inebriated level twenty, wearing a mask, who took your drink and finished it all in one gulp? Do you remember how shocked you were at his rudeness before he laughed and said he’d thought it was his, and offered you his drink instead?” Ryo was feeling very still in my arms. He remembered. “Do you remember how Pendel Zagha, Royal of the Zagha line, died so tragically only a week later?” I hummed softly, merging the little fishy with another soul fragment. Mmm, much better. “No one ever found out who poisoned him. It was all very strange.” Zagha had been second place in the tournament. He hadn’t taken his loss well.
“Zagha tried to poison me? And you stopped him? But… why?” Ryo asked and I hummed softly.
“I dislike it when bright lights are snuffed out too soon, all for the jealousy of others. Oh, do you remember that odd incident with the level twenty dungeon? You came out to find the trees broken and a dying wyvern surrounded by a dead level thirty party. You were able to finish off the wyvern and take his scales, you decided they must have fallen afoul of a wandering monster. A logical thing to think, as it would be quite insane to try introducing such a monster into a lower tier dungeon, wouldn’t it?” I asked, quite enjoying this. Ryo took a sharp breath. “A clever way to get around the prohibitions on attacking those below your level though, isn’t it?”
“You have been watching over me all my life?” Ryo asked, a strangely tight note to his voice. I thought I understood.
“Yes and no. I prevented many assassination attempts. But remember when those five physical cultivars jumped you and you would have died if not for your party? I did nothing, because you could handle it. I only stepped in when I felt it was necessary,” I said softly in his ear. Protecting Ryo too much would have stunted his growth, he needed to fight and risk death. I had only stepped in when I saw a threat that was truly unfair. That wyvern had been a level thirty beast, Ryo and his party would have been massacred. There was a long silence.
“I did not know.” Karmic debt didn’t care about that. “Why did you kill my fiance?” Now it was my turn to freeze. Was he serious?
“You got engaged to Spearwood?” I asked, shock cushioning my mind. Was Ryo mad? I drew my hand away, abandoning my work on his soul and Ryo turned his head to glare at me. There was a raw edge of pain in his gaze.
“Three days before you killed her.” I wanted to slap him. So I did. Ryo jerked away in surprise. “What?!”
“I was stalking her for two weeks,” I snapped at him. “You fool, she was an agent of the Hegemony! Her karma was utterly filthy!” A spy, a murderer, a monster as great as myself. Spearwood might have been a good woman, in her own way, but it was the way of the spy and saboteur. Her loyalty had been to the Hegemony and she would kill anyone who got in her way. “She was intending to subordinate you!” How had she planned it? Some method of brainwashing or something sweeter and more poisonous? I had made mistakes, I realized. Ryo had been listening to all the wrong people and I had just naively placed my faith in him, that he would make the right decisions. “Honey potted under my nose,” I muttered, more angry at myself now than Ryo. I had failed my young protege.
“I can make decisions with my own life!” Ryo was furious now. “What if I decided to defect to the Hegemony?” She had already brought it up, I realized. Very daring, but Spearwood probably hadn’t known Ryo had approached me. She certainly wouldn’t have known I’d had my eye on him for so long.
“I would kill you first. My loyalty is with the Emperor,” I said with a deathly calm and Ryo faltered. He knew I was in the right here. He had been contemplating becoming a traitor. Most likely he’d justified it partly because we were not at war with the Hegemony and actually mostly allies. Still, from my perspective, that excused nothing.
“I just… she understood what I wanted. She had the same dreams.” Maybe she did. But for the Hegemony, not for the Empire of Endless Stars. “Then you killed her. It was like seeing those dreams die… I thought you wanted it too, a rule of law for everyone.” Yes… but…
“Ryo, such laws cannot be imposed by the Emperor. Because of how the Empire is structured, much of it must come from the Kings. The Emperor is trying to reform, but it’s very difficult. You can’t just give up. Walking away to join the Hegemony is the same as giving up,” I said, hoping he could understand. “As a level forty-nine of the Empire, my loyalty to the Emperor comes before all else. A foreign spy trying to subordinate a vassal… of course I had to kill her.” It wasn’t just lawful, it was my duty. The lives of foreign spies were always forfeit. I had been a spy myself, I knew that quite well.
“I can’t accept that. I can’t accept you!” I lowered my gaze, feeling a pain deep in my heart. Well, it was not surprising Ryo felt this way. “You took away my hope of happiness! Damn you damn you damn you - “ Ryo moved with speed I could not even see and I felt fingers suddenly dig into my rib cage. They penetrated me with ease and then there was a brutal shock. Ryo released his energy, the strength of a level thirty-two, into the unprotected body of a mere level six. Blood exploded from my mouth and over his chest, but it wasn’t just blood, it was a slurry of my lung tissue. I fell against him, my eyes wide as my body tried to comprehend the violation it had just experienced. Ryo said something but I could no longer hear, a buzzing filling my ears. It seemed that even in my dreams, I was still only level six. That was odd, I had been soul healing him like a level forty-nine. Ryo lowered me to the ground and my chest shook as my animal hindbrain tried to breathe, but there was nothing to breathe with.
Then, in my dream, I died.
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I rubbed my face as I ate a bit of breakfast. Just a hand pie from a cart, it was almost tasteless but it was warm and filled my belly. Honestly, the problem wasn’t the food, it was me. I had no appetite this morning.
“Hey, you look like death warmed over. Drink this,” Dahgon shoved a cup into my hand with a rough sort of sympathy. I looked at the steaming, dark red liquid and took a sip. It was nothing I’d tasted before, some kind of fruit and herbal mixture that was not tea? But it tasted good and slid down my throat easily. I quickly finished and wondered if I could get another. “Vendor’s right over there.”
“Thank you so much,” I said with a small smile, hidden by the mask. Dahgon really was a nice man, despite his rough appearance. And this drink was giving me energy, bringing me back to the living. It was odd, I felt almost like I had a bit of mana exhaustion from using too much [Soul]. I clearly remembered my dream, but how could that cause mana exhaustion?
Putting it all out of mind, I went to get another cup. We were waiting for the Adventurer’s Guild to open up so we could nip in right at opening and hopefully grab a quest. Then we’d dump half my crap on the Guild, to enter into the next auction. That would be the barrettes, a few rings with required level twenty, and a bat wing cloak made of spider silk that was enchanted with [Minor Flight]. Required level fifteen, or we might have kept it. It should fetch a very nice price without getting us in trouble, though, so off it went.
Once that was done, we’d head off to sell my random junk before completing the quest. My random junk consisted of the broken wires and gears, a bejeweled but utterly mundane mask meant for Royal masquerades, some monster fangs, the pelt of a shadow puma and a vial of rotten filth that would actually be very valuable to a necromancer. Would any of it actually get a good price? Who knew.
I had plenty more items, particularly things that could go to auction, but we all agreed we couldn’t just flood the market. The prices would go down severely and it would look strange, it was better to drip feed the contents of my storage onto the market. And while money was nice, we really needed to kill monsters for cultivation. Money was a second rate power at best, in a universe where levels were king.
Felir and Circe came to join us, carrying their own mugs of liquid and handheld breakfasts. Felir had picked a sausage roll while Circe had a sweet bun. They were finished and just brushing away the crumbs as a woman in a neat uniform of white and black briskly walked up to the door and unlocked it.
We weren’t the only ones with this idea, but we were among the first in as she unbarred the doors. It did us no good.
“WHERE ARE THE FUCKING QUESTS?!?” You speak for all of us, random man in full plate armor. Dahgon swore at the nearly empty board, while Circe looked resigned. Felir’s face was hidden behind his mask but his golden eyes gleamed with frustration and rage. The woman in black and white turned to glare at us and I noticed she looked tired.
“Most of them have gone to the newly formed player Guilds. Take it up with management, or go join a Guild.” Player guilds? I looked at my new employees but they all seemed as confused as I felt. Felir went up to the desk and the woman scowled at him, likely anticipating more rudeness.
“Forgive me, we’ve been out of town for a while. What are player Guilds?” he asked nicely and the attendant’s scowl weakened before she heaved a sigh and then tersely explained.
“The Deathless are forming Guilds of what they call ‘players’. They are being allowed to take first pick of the available quests before they are put on the board, in exchange for a discount.” So they were quite serious about running the local adventurer’s out of business. “You can apply to join these Guilds if you wish.” Really.
“Do they take non-Deathless?” Felir asked as the man in plate armor grabbed one of the few quests on the board and stormed out. He moved surprisingly easily and I cautiously felt him out before deciding he was likely level thirteen or fourteen, a powerful adventurer. The woman looked ambivalent.
“I really cannot say.” Wonderful.
“Well, we don’t have to make a decision right away,” I said, gently reminding them that we had a war chest. Maybe not as deep as I might like, but I had high hopes for those barrettes. “Let’s see if there’s anything worthwhile.”
There really wasn’t. A quick perusal of the quest board showed that the man in plate had actually had a better time than the rest of us… higher level quests still existed. For our level, which ranged from six to nine, there was nothing. The only exception was an open advertisement to raid the wolf dungeon and a newly opened elemental dungeon, with the note that the latter was extremely dangerous. The WARNING symbol was etched in bright red and I wondered what had happened there.
“We could go check out the wolf dungeon,” I said after a moment. Dahgon grunted.
“It’s a long trip and it will be a zoo.” Yes… it would be a long trip onto the plains. “You wouldn’t know, you’re new, but they’ve closed the undead dungeon and the rabbit dungeon.” Rabbit dungeon? That had to be a baby dungeon for levels one through five. “They’re being monopolized but the Deathless. All we’ve got left in easy distance is that elemental dungeon.” We all looked at it and the bright red warning on it.
“We need more information. We need to find out about the Deathless Guilds, see if they take people like us and what the terms are. We also need to know what’s wrong with that elemental dungeon,” I said in a low tone. Felir nodded, but then added something.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“We also need to get your things submitted for the auction. Hand them over, I’ll take care of it.” Oh, right! I passed him the bag of items for sale. Felir had a lot of experience and he went to the attendant, who suddenly smiled widely as he began displaying the items for her. Did she get a commission or was she just glad to not get yelled at?
Another attendant showed up and while Felir was taking care of the auction listings we got the information on the elemental dungeon, sparse as it was. It had opened up just a week ago and already two teams had gone missing in it. The first had raised no alarms, but the second had been a strong team of three level nines and one level eleven healer. They should not have come to ruin in that kind of dungeon and the rumor was a challenge dungeon might be present. I licked my lips at the thought. That would be amazing, but I was just level six.
“Forgive me, but I cannot advise going in at all at your level,” the man we were speaking to said, eyeing me critically. I nodded, pretending to agree but actually quite intrigued. I wanted to see the dungeon, although I wouldn’t be doing a challenge dungeon in it. That would be madness.
Everything with the auction sorted out, we left to sell my junk to a few vendors. We visited a special blacksmith, who was known to enjoy experimenting, and sold him the junk ore for a sadly low price. We sold the rest of the materials and the pelt did well, but the price offered for the necromancer materials was so insulting I put it back into my inventory. I was not going to be screwed THAT badly for something I KNEW was very valuable.
Then we got a mask. A simple wooden half-mask, it wasn’t as concealing as I might have liked but it was also gear. Giving a simple +1 toughness, it had a few tiny buds and leaves on it, making it rather pretty. Deciding it would do, I gave Felir back his spare mask and put on my new one. It did feel very comfortable against my skin.
Tallying everything up, we had made 4,000 knuts and 3,000 of that had been from the pelt. We had just spent 500 knuts on the mask, so we now had 3,500 knuts. That would last us roughly a month. I quickly paid my companions this week’s wages and saw them all smile as they accepted it. It was good to know we had money, if not nearly enough to completely relax.
“Is it even worth checking out the Deathless guilds? They’ll treat us like expendable trash,” Circe said and we all looked at her, except Dahgon. He just nodded, putting an arm around her waist.
“One of the fuckers asked me if she was for sale,” he growled and I blinked. That was… completely insane. “They’ll never find where I put the body.” Uh, right.
“Won’t matter if they do, it’ll just be another skeleton. We should at least find out what terms they’re offering but you’re right, Deathless look down on regular adventurers. They often act like we’re stupid,” Felir said, reaching up and rubbing at the skin around his mask. “They call us NPC’s. I don’t know what that means, but they say it like an insult.” My mind went back to the two Deathless I’d met on the road. They hadn’t said it like an insult, I thought, but it had seemed derogatory. Like a noble might refer to a commoner. “I even heard a rumor they’ll sometimes use us as ‘bait’ in dungeons.” What? I frowned, because I knew about things like that and even considered them normal but… there was usually consent involved.
“By bait I assume you mean they cut them a bit and chain them to something to draw out the beasts?” I asked and Felir nodded, his golden eyes flashing. Circe’s lips tightened as Dahgon growled softly. “We did that where I came from, but it was only to slaves. Doing that to a party member was treachery of the highest order.” And when higher levels existed, what happened in a dungeon did not necessarily stay in the dungeon. Many delvers had learned that the hard way, when an outraged relative paid for a scrying to see what had happened to a beloved grandchild. “We also had runner teams. Is that a thing here?” I asked, genuinely considering it as a possible career move. Being a runner was dangerous, sure, but what wasn’t?
“What’s a runner team?” Felir asked and I thought of how to explain.
“Do you have super large dungeons here? They’re like regular dungeons, just bigger.” They all shook their heads. “Well, a runner team usually consists of two or three people. They’re low level but have high agility and very high constitution. Their job is to ‘run’ into the dungeon, sometimes wearing attractants, and then run back to the delvers with a good number of beasts chasing them. It’s a dangerous job but it pays really well.” It also made clearing those dungeons less of an absolute nightmare. No one wanted to spend months on a super large and a good team of runners could easily cut the time in half.
“You know, the more you say about your past, the worse it sounds. What kind of a shithole did you grow up in?” Dahgon asked and I had to laugh.
“It was called the Kingdom of Moliva and it was widely known as the biggest shithole in the Empire. The only good thing about it was that we were constantly at war, so commoner children like me got a genuine chance in life.” I smiled, and it was a bit lopsided. “Mostly a chance to die young, but still a chance.” None of my childhood friends had survived the crucible of war. I was the only one.
“Well, we don’t have super large dungeons or runners,” Felir said, bringing us back to the main topic. “And damned if I’ll volunteer to be bait. Why don’t we call it for today and spend some time shopping before going to eat? We could use some supplies if we decide to take on the elemental dungeon.” Ah, that sounded good and honestly, I was pretty sure that was where we were going.
So that was what we did. We picked up all the food we would need for a dungeon run, which was more elaborate than my comrades had expected. But I had a dimensional storage and I’d been around the block more than a few times, living for months in those super large dungeons. I considered dry wood, fire starters, pots and pans, a nice kettle and various food ingredients to be a must. It all would be fine in my dimensional storage, which stopped the passage of time.
“Why don’t we just buy meat pies or something, if your storage holds things perfectly?” Felir asked, which was an interesting question.
“Because it doesn’t. Don’t ask me why, but fully cooked food gets a really weird flavor after a while in there,” I said easily. “I suspect it might be something else in one of the other compartments, managing to taint it. Ingredients don’t have that effect, as long as I don’t try to store anything liquid like milk. I can put water in here, and maybe I should, but expect it to taste weird.” I had no idea why liquids were like that. The main exception was alcohol, probably because it was bottled so tightly.
“Huh, this dimensional storage of yours is pretty useful. How big is it?” Dahgon asked and I wasn’t going to answer that. ‘The size of two kickball fields’ wasn’t a measurement they would understand anyway.
“Big enough that I once put an entire ship in it.” That was a thing that had happened. The Emperor had been very pleased when I gave it to him. “I am going to have to get this thing to a space mage though, immediately after the auction. It’s not in good shape,” I warned them all and Felir tilted his head.
“Do you know how much that might cost?” I shook my head. I had no idea, other than a lot. “You might want to think about trading something instead of using money, if you have anything a space mage might like.” Hmmm!
“I’ll think about that. Did we need any sleeping bags?” We bought those too and by the time we were done, we were down another thousand knuts. Well, we would be able to use all this for any dungeon delve so it was a good investment. I checked the storage again and it was still pretty stable. I really wanted to get it fixed though.
For supper that night, I decided to splurge and asked Felir to take us to his favorite place. That turned out to be a lovely little place that specialized in cuisine from a far country across the sea. It was nothing but fish and noodles, all in a sweet and savory broth and I deeply approved of it, slurping it down. It rested easily in my stomach and was also very filling. As I ate, I happened to notice golden eyes looking at me, and met Felir’s gaze for just a moment. His eyes slid away but I smiled to myself. I knew that look, even with a mask in the way.
After that, we went back to the inn to retire for the night. That was where I ran into trouble… I didn’t want to dream. My time with Ryo was over and done with, I had no idea why my mind was tormenting me with dreams of him. I wanted to leave it all behind me.
As I struggled to sleep, I was unaware of golden eyes watching me in the dark.
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“This will make an amazing commercial!”
Engineer SooHo Huen swallowed nervously and pushed back his glasses as the lovely Jae Park waxed eloquent over their creation. She didn’t know. She was part of the marketing team so she thought what she was viewing was the creation of a hyper advanced AI, beautifully deciding the actions of each non-player character with incredible precision and lifelike fidelity.
She doesn’t know that we are watching actual people who are about to die. SooHo wanted to be sick, but held it back. No one but the engineering team, and a select few of them at that, knew the truth of what they were doing.
The last twenty years of research into quantum physics and alternate dimensions had finally borne fruit, but in a very strange way. They had learned how to project the consciousness of explorers into different plains of reality, expecting to find incredible things. Instead, they had found various ‘worlds’ filled with mixtures of technology and magic! It really made very little sense, they were still trying to understand it.
The problem was, they’d also needed to monetize their discovery and that was where things became troublesome. How did you make money off this? No items could be brought from the other ‘worlds’ they touched. They could only explore. What value did that have?
The solution was creating a ‘gamified’ experience. They used special VR rigs - that had to be purchased for exorbitant rates, and would only work with THIS game - and projected the users into other realities. As time went on, they learned how to gain control over the alien realms and ‘program’ them. SooHo shuddered at the true nature of it - was this a crime? - but they could convince the inhabitants of the other world to do certain things. They could modify some of the dungeon creatures. They had set up the respawn points for the players, and appointed administrators to manage the natives.
The problem was that they were working with real people, not AI projections. SooHo had already objected several times, but no one wanted to listen and the only effect was that he was on thin ice with management. Now he was watching some poor team of youngsters about to die, and seeing his colleague in marketing practically drooling over it. It made him want to chug pepto-bismol.
It’s not that bad. They knew the danger when they entered the dungeon. They knew the danger of a secret dungeon, SooHo thought, trying to convince himself. And it was true, it really was, but… they hadn’t known they would be facing a souped up boss designed for people who could die and come back. SooHo rubbed his chest, feeling his heartburn churning. “Poor kids,” he muttered to himself. They weren’t really children, but SooHo was in his forties and they all looked so young to him. None of them could be much past twenty.
“Oooo!” SooHo made the mistake of looking at the screen and saw the tank had gone down in a welter of gore. “You know, we should tone back these effects, that’s really disgusting.” Yes, the… the sight of brains was indeed disgusting. SooHo gave up and pulled out his pill box. He needed something for his stomach. “Ah, this is so incredibly dramatic!” Wondering why he was torturing himself, SooHo looked at the screen and saw the healer, a blonde haired young man in a white robe, desperately healing a slender spearwoman who was trying to take over from the tank. The mage, another woman, had been hit by the bosses AOE and was dead and twisted on the ground. This was a party of four, which was pretty standard for the natives.
It couldn’t last long with the tank down. The spearwoman did her best, even slicing the arm off the rock golem, but then he brought his arm down and invoked his AOE. The healer managed to leap out of it but the spearwoman staggered and was hit. With her low HP pool, it was an instant kill and SooHo watched in horror as a spear of stone hit her right in the gut. It practically split her in half and the two halves of her body hit the ground, connected only by a thin thread of tissue. There were multiple views and one of them became a close up of the healer’s face. SooHo wanted to vomit again as the young man fell to his knees, tears flowing down his face as he stared at the fallen women, his expression utterly desolate. That was his lover.
He just stayed completely still, looking at the corpse as the boss raised its fist and brought it down. Blood and guts sprayed in a massive circle and then the boss lifted its fist, leaving nothing but a gruesome, broken thing behind. Then the golem shuffled back to its position, blood dripping from its fist as the broken arm began to regenerate. Swallowing, SooHo checked the damage readings. The party of natives had brought the boss down to thirty percent. If the tank had been able to hold out a bit longer, or the mage dodged the AOE properly, they would likely have won. So for their purposes, the boss was almost perfect.
I wish I could quit. I hate my job. SooHo was genuinely afraid to quit, though. The last person to quit, HaJoon, had suffered a strange accident only a month later. Whispers said he had been going whistleblower. SooHo didn’t want to be a whistleblower, he just wanted to get away from this place but he was a senior engineer who had been with the company from the beginning. They KNEW how he felt about this. He didn’t think they would let him go.
“Well, that’s perfect, we can use it in the merchandising materials once we clean it up a bit. SooHo, does everything really need to be so hyper realistically violent?” Jae looked at him, mildly disapproving as she saw he was taking pills again. “Those are bad for your liver.” SooHo gave her a damp smile before popping them. “Also, that sweating, have you been to see the doctor?”
“It’s just anxiety, don’t worry about me,” SooHo said, reflecting on it. Jae really was a very kind girl, she just didn’t know. “And unfortunately, the violence is part of the AI’s programming. Changing it would be harder than just cleaning things up in post.” That was the approved line. SooHo didn’t mind parroting it, when it came to their own players. It was the natives that hurt his soul.
That night, SooHo took all his pills and had a nice, healthy supper of a rice bowl with vegetables and fish. It was good food, healthy food for a healthy life, but it still sat uneasily in his gut and his mind kept going back to the horrors he had seen. That last group wasn’t the first, not at all. So much death he had seen, and there was no one he could talk with about it.
That night his dreams were haunted by images of death and the feeling that someone was watching him with angry eyes.