“Health depleted by 99.37%,” came Wilkes’ voice. “Respawn imminent. Prepare to lose your memories and items.”
But Emma was no longer with Wilkes, nor in the mouth of the scorpion-panther which had very likely killed her again. Her mind was scrambling down long, white corridors which were opening and lengthening in her fading thoughts. Somehow she always ended up back in the memories of that hospital, in one way or another, in liminal moments between dreams and waking.
“Potion applied…” came a vaguely familiar, robotic voice. But it was far, far away from those hospital hallways. “Bleeding mended.”
The strange memory shifted. She found herself, now, in a familiar closet at her childhood home.
“Deep wounds paused,” said that dreamy robot voice again. “Health regeneration has begun at a rate of .06% per second.”
There was a second presence in the memory-closet, small and sniffling. It had been the first time she found Evan there, huddled between long coats, though it wouldn’t be the last.
The closet, for whatever reason, became his safe place, where he spent hidden hours crying or hunched over a handheld gaming system after their mother had one of her meltdowns, or came home drunk. Emma always found her brother there when he disappeared for long hours - unnoticed by their mother - and took care to comfort him. He had no way of knowing he was comforting her, too.
Following her father’s death, Emma had retreated to habits and coping mechanisms. Knowing Evan had fewer memories in which to find comfort, she began to sing him a lullaby their father had sung to her when she was young.
The memory of the lullaby was broken by the robotic voice again.
“Respawn delayed,” it said.
Emma had a suspicion the voice was significant, though she wasn’t sure why. She brushed it aside; there were more important things to attend to. She began to sing. The lullaby, though, was broken. She couldn’t remember the words, and the words she did manage to sing were discordant. Just as she began to panic, a soft, warm sound - a flute? - filled in the gaps where she forgot the words. Somehow, in the context of that melody, the gaps of forgotten lyrics became beautiful.
As though to punctuate the song, a freezing wind began to descend onto them. The music was growing louder, and Evan slipped from her arms like smoke. Two red orbs the size of bowls formed in the darkness.
For a moment her heart skipped, remembering yellow eyes from a nightmare - but no, these eyes didn’t have slits. That was relieving. Why?
The eyes disappeared.
“I’m not sure she’ll make it like this,” said an unfamiliar woman’s voice.
“I’m sure that baby scorpion-panther thought the same thing,” said a second voice, this time a man’s.
“Leave me,” Emma called into the darkness, though the words barely left her lips, and she didn’t know who she was talking to. “I’m not ready to go yet.”
There was a short pause. Emma thought she smelled chicken and vegetables cooking.
“Health regenerating at a rate of .9% per second,” came the familiar robotic voice again. Emma wasn’t sure if her association with it was one of calm or anxiety. Perhaps it was both.
“Timing is everything,” said the woman’s voice.
Let me die. I’ll die, over and over, just let me do it. It’ll be better that way.
As usual, Emma got the opposite of what she wanted.
With an explosive pain like nothing, nothing she had ever felt before, Emma opened her eyes, barely hearing her own scream as she did so through the immense fog of pain. The fog slowly lifted and she soon found she was laying on her back. She looked around as the world rendered and memories came flooding back.
The stranger in the bathroom - the orb - the loincloth - wait, the what? I thought we left those days behind - the scorpion-panther -
Emma thrashed and screamed for only a moment, the memory of those claws gripping her, before she froze up.
“Healing paused due to strain,” said Wilkes.
The first thing she registered was a youngish man with a thick head of slicked-back white hair and a long cloak. He was staring at her from beside a fire. He was holding a long, bone-white flute with an animal’s skull at the head just under his lips, which were parted slightly in surprise. A woman was holding a pan over the other side of the fire, though Emma couldn’t make out her features through the flames.
“You’re new here, I’m guessing?” said the man.
Emma felt frozen and confused, though certain memories of intentions were coming back to her. Hadn’t she wanted to go to a fire earlier? But how long ago was that?
The man blew a little on the flute, and a white finger of what looked like smoke snaked over his head. It twisted for a moment and then bent in on itself and formed the unsteady shape of a smoky, curious human eye, its lashes fluttering in Emma’s direction.
“Stop that,” the man said, directing the command at the batting eye. The smoke-eye turned its gaze to him, glaring. The man blew violently into the flute and it evaporated in tandem with the sharp note. He grimaced and turned his attention back to Emma, who was staring. “Well, try not to panic. I’m a Professor, albeit a magical one - hey, no screaming!”
Emma barely registered the strange man who had spoken to her.
Nearby, an enormous monster had raised its head to look at her and was now sniffing in her direction with its long, enormous snout, his ears perked.
Maybe she was still in shock from the fight with the scorpion-panther; or maybe seeing an enormous, half-human, half-wolf creature with plate-sized red eyes, slouching its muscled body around the campfire, could be expected to elicit panic from any reasonable person. Either way, Emma panicked, for whatever good it did her.
“Wilkes!” Emma cried out. She felt dumb as soon as she called out his name. What could Wilkes do? Bob on their heads? Even more surprising was the familiar glowing orb lifting from the ground in front of her like an incorporeal bubble. He could have just floated over from his perch nearby, but no: he needed to show off.
The orb halted about two feet from her face, which Emma realized for the first time was lying on something soft.
“How may I assist you?”
Emma opened her mouth, and then closed it again as pain suddenly snaked along her nerves, filling her imagination with long, sharp daggers and claws. Just as well, she thought through the biting pain, not like you’ve shown any fighting prowess.
“Who are these people?” she demanded of the orb, ignoring the stares from the small group surrounding her.
“I cannot tell you their identity,” he said, “but the man is a level 45 gold rank. The wolf-man is a level 78 gold rank. The woman is a level 32 silver rank.”
Well, at least she knew she was well and truly screwed if they were trying to kidnap her or something.
The pain eased somewhat, and Emma became aware of a slight numbness in her abdomen that seemed to be guarding her from the full brunt of the waves of pain assailing her. She looked up at the “professor,” who returned the look with his long, thin flute pressed to his lips.
He was playing a low, haunting song now as he regarded her patiently, as though waiting for her to calm down. As he played, many bright lines of smoke were weaving together like little threads produced from between the teeth of the flute’s head, which seemed to feature the real skull of a small, rat-like creature. They were many-colored, but they seemed to largely be red and pale. Emma watched, transfixed, as they slowly formed the likeness of a smoky, uneven face looking back at her.
The man smiled at Emma, whose open wonder had distracted her from her panic and pain. The face that had formed from the magical lines above his flute, though, was grimacing. There was something familiar about the way the smoke-face’s wild, shoulder-length red hair fell over its sharp eyes, as well as its freckles, wide-open ugly mouth, and a general air of uneasiness.
“Ah,” Emma said, suddenly realizing the man was “painting” a portrait of her. She felt dizzy, and the pain from her wounds stung her again. “Well, give me paint and an easel and I’ll show you how flattering you look.”
The man laughed, sounding light-hearted. That put Emma a little more at ease. Emma’s makeshift smoke-face disappeared into the night air as the man lowered the flute for a moment, his eyes thoughtful. Then he placed the flute to his lips again and began to play a new song, this one a bit brighter and more methodical. A second face began to take shape from the multicolored strands of magical smoke, twirling and tying around each other like threads being knitted by invisible hands. The face that eventually formed was a man’s, with a gentle grin and somewhat impressive, if exaggerated, mane of white hair.
“The cheekbones are his best feature,” said the man.
“What do you want?” Emma asked, as the portrait of the man’s own face dispersed into the air. She grunted and suddenly felt like vomiting.
“For you to live, mostly,” he said, lowering the flute. “The question is if our goals align on that particular matter, given how you’re struggling to get away from the only ones who can save you from bleeding out the rest of the way, or from succumbing to that leech poison. Did you know you would have died after less than three more hours if you were left untreated, and that the antidote is uniquely rare?”
He blew a few notes into the odd, bone-white lute, and a few sparks flew out of the end of it. This apparently surprised him, since he looked at the flute and tapped it a few times with his fingers as though it were a malfunctioning flashlight. “I see you’ve already got some of your energy back, which is good. With tenacity like that, it’s easy to see how you managed to kill that baby scorpion-panther - which, by the way, severely outclassed someone of your rank. Nice. But the job isn’t finished yet. Not if you’re fond of your current body.”
Emma stared at him, careful to appear neutral despite her beating heart. This self-identified professor was the first person she had met in Hell. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but it wasn’t a fairly normal-looking and slightly annoying academic with a magical flute and pet werewolf.
“And what happens when it’s finished?” said Emma.
Before the man could answer, someone else laughed. She had forgotten about the woman.
“This one’s got some awareness,” said the female voice, and the man stood aside to let the woman, who was somewhere behind him and the flames, address Emma directly. “You remind me of me when I first ended up here. Much younger and less pretty, of course. You’ll do fine, dear. I’ve got a nose for these things. Unfortunate, since I travel with this one.”
The woman, holding a pan over the fire, scuttled cartoonishly around the fire to where Emma could see her. She had a kind smile, a long brown ponytail, and a pale face. She seemed close to middle age, though her outfit of loose-fitting robes made her appear older. A thick, blue bandana was tied tightly around her forehead. She was smoking a cigarette as she bent over the fire, stirring the sizzling contents of her pan with a stick. Her smile, like the man’s, also put Emma a bit more at ease.
Nearby, the large monster with red saucers for eyes sulked through the shadows. Its presence didn’t seem to bother her saviors - or captors - so she ignored it for now, despite every nerve in her body signaling for her to run.
“How long was I unconscious?” Emma asked the strange group at large. “I don’t mind telling you I’m, er, a little frazzled.”
“Long enough for us to carry you back to the fire,” replied the woman, who was blowing on a spoon filled with soupy liquid. “You’ve got quite an impressive set of pipes, if you don’t mind me saying. You should join Bartok’s troupe back at the University.”
The man, who Emma assumed was Bartok, stowed his flute somewhere inside his long, flowing blue travelling cloak. Emma caught an impressive flash of armor as he opened the cloak. She also saw a heavy, bright-gold medallion and a long knife. The medallion was like the bronze one Emma had woken up with around her neck, but larger and more ornate.
Emma looked down and realized she had been covered with a blanket. Feeling grim, she peeled the covers back a little so she could see her wounds in the firelight. Thick bandages were wrapped around her torso, but she didn’t seem to be bleeding. Further down, a lighter bandage was tied securely around her knee, covering the bite of the leech.
“We heard your scream from all the way up here,” Bartok said. He stood and slowly walked up to Emma, who had just begun prodding her injuries through the bandages, and held out his hand.
Ah, what the hell? she thought as she took his hand and he pulled her unsteadily to her feet. Emma clutched her sides where the beast’s claws had cut through her, the pain alighting with the renewed pressure. She could always go with her original plan of jumping off the cliff and respawning elsewhere if things went south.
“Now that you’re looking less squirrely - not that anyone could blame you - I suppose introductions are warranted,” Bartok said, taking a seat by the fire and gesturing for Emma to sit closeby on a flattish stone. “I’m Albert Bartok, a professor at the Pandemonium Academy.”
“Hell University, as some call it,” the woman offered, still fervently stirring the contents of her pan over the fire.
Emma stared blankly. She wanted to be surprised to hear about University in Hell, but her surprise reserves were finally starting to run dry. Sure, why not have a Hell University while we’re at it?
“And this know-it-all creature,” Bartok said, nodding at the woman, “is my graduate student, Barb.”
The woman nodded matter-of-factly at Emma and set aside the pan. It was then that Emma noticed a pot of what she assumed was stew featured in the center of the fire.
“And him - er - or her?” Emma said, nodding in the direction of the wolf thing. It was prowling around the edge of the dancing light, sniffing along the ground. It was the size of a car, rippling with muscles and hair and a long snout set in the middle of its uncannily human-like face. Its long, muscly limbs seemed very crooked on its body, and its feet - both front and back - seemed more like hands with shortsword-like claws at the tips of the fingers than paws. “Your familiar or something?”
“Not exactly,” Bartok said with a smile, as the creature glanced over at them curiously. The creature appeared to be partially human, and so Emma wondered whether it could understand speech. The feeling of the group also seemed to shift a little, and Emma wondered if she’d inquired about a sensitive topic. “His name is Patrick. He’s my best friend. Now, then,” Bartok said, moving as though that explained matters, “have you asked your Orb about the details of our little playground, or was it one of those unfortunate situations where you nearly became dinner right after you finished waking up?”
He began to rummage through his cloak.
“I had time to ask him a few things, but the answers only raised more questions,” Emma said, feeling anxious about the prospect of receiving more information about her situation. “A lot more, actually. The fact that I appear to have been dressed by a weirdo didn’t help my mindspace.”
“The questions multiply like a hydra,” said Barb, as she rustled through a cloth bag near the uneven rock she was sitting on. At length she pulled out two wooden bowls, ran a finger across the inside of each of them, and tipped them over. Apparently satisfied with their cleanliness, she began to spoon ladles of soup into each. “The good news is even hydras can be slain. Just ask this one,” she added, and she nodded at Bartok, who was bent scribbling with great concentration over a notebook that Emma assumed he had produced from within the ruffles of his cloak.
Barb finished filling one of the wooden bowls with soup and approached Emma with it held towards her and dropped a spoon inside. It circled listlessly around the soup, its handle scraping the edge of the bowl.
“Thanks,” Emma said, accepting the meal gratefully, suddenly aware of how famished she was. And thirsty, too. And tired. She picked up the spoon and prodded at a few of the chunks floating around in the broth, which smelled a little like chicken. She lifted a little bit of tough-looking meat out of the liquid and used the spoon to poke what looked like a purple root vegetable against the edge of the bowl. The rest of the contents of the soup were similarly reminiscent, but barely, of things she’d eaten on Earth. That didn’t help her feel better, but she could hardly complain.
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“New item acquired: stew,” said Wilkes unhelpfully. “Useful for replenishing stamina and energy stats and mixing with certain ingredients to make a potion.”
She spooned a bit of the tough meat up to her lips. It tasted like salted pork. She became hungrier as she ate more, as though the food were expanding her previously shriveled stomach. Barb, whom Emma was sure had seen her wet eyes earlier, was standing by to refill Emma’s bowl as soon as she’d emptied it.
“24.19% stamina restored,” said Wilkes, a hint of pride in his voice.
“Any way to shut this thing off for a bit?” Emma asked.
“Entering silent mode,” Wilkes said, before the others could answer.
When she’d finished with the second bowl, she handed it to Barb, who already had her hand held out, another cigarette in her mouth. Feeling a sudden chill, Emma pulled her blanket tighter around her body, sleepy.
“Thanks,” Emma said. “I don’t know how to repay you.”
“Don’t worry about it just yet,” Barb said. Leaving it at that, the group fell into ponderous silence, as though the early hours had finally sunken in. Emma, feeling awkward, couldn’t help but wonder if they were deciding what to do with her.
The silence was disrupted by the sound of a closing notebook just as Emma thought she might fall asleep, despite the persistent pain of her wounds. She looked up at Bartok, who was looking at her in kind. She had to admit his gentle smile was disarming. Still, she had to remain careful until she knew she could trust them.
Emma had already located a cliff nearby, about a dozen steps away, that she could throw herself off of.
Apparently sensing Emma’s remaining distrust and possible death wish, Bartok shifted to face her better and said, “I really am a professor, you know. Barb and I are out here on a very particular mission, but it’s not uncommon for us to find people who have recently spawned. There’s protocol involved for such instances. It’s understandable that you would be careful, though. Is there anything we can do to earn your trust?”
“I don’t know,” Emma said, erring on the side of truth.
Bartok picked up the closed notebook from his lap and held it out towards Emma, who flinched. Embarrassed and frustrated at her instinctual reaction, she accepted it. Its blank cover was some sort of blueish leather, and its pages seemed heavy. The weight of it was oddly comforting.
“You can look inside,” said Bartok. Emma opened to a random page, and was surprised to find a very detailed pencil drawing of some kind of plant with hundreds of tiny words scribbled around its edges. The plant seemed normal at first glance, until Emma noticed the eyeballs hanging from the stem and leaves.
“It’s a documentation of unusual new wildlife and plantlife in the region,” Bartok said. “The Hinterlands - where we are now - aren’t very widely explored, but there’s more than that going on. It seems as though some kind of disease is spreading, starting at the edges of our known maps and drawing closer inland. The result - as far as that hypothesis goes - is the spawning of strange, undocumented new life. Strange even for this world, that is.”
Emma flipped to another page. This one was just filled with words, and a few doodles of musical notes in the margins.
“My songs are spells,” Bartok explained. He pointed at a string of notes along the side of the page. “That one I’m working on is supposed to help plants grow, though I haven’t found the right tunes yet.”
“So you’re a sort of bard?” Emma asked. She suddenly remembered the melody that had joined with her lullaby in her near-death hallucination. It had filled her with warmth and hope. Was that what had really saved her? “They have bards in Hell?”
Bartok laughed.
“They have lots of things here. I’ve been here for decades and I’m still surprised by the things I learn every day. We may be in Hell, but it’s no less full of mystery and even beauty than Earth. More, perhaps. That’s why I became an academic. You must have a lot of questions,” Bartok said, shifting his tone towards something more professorly.
Emma, unsure if she was ready for more madness just yet, closed the notebook and handed it to him wordlessly.
“We have a little time left to fill in the blanks, if you like,” the Professor continued. “Barb and I have to return to our mission when the sun rises, but we can also give you a sense of direction of where you need to go from here.”
Emma hesitated. Well, this was probably her only opportunity to get any decent answers for a while. From a real, “living” human being anyway.
“Well, what is this place?” she said at last.
Out of the edge of her vision, she saw Bartok exchange a glance with Barb.
“The nature of this world is mysterious, even to the brightest minds at the University,” Bartok said carefully. “Most agree, since we have memories of a past life, that this is a realm set outside of that previous world. Chronologically speaking, it seems most of us ended up here after our death. Consequently, Aporia is largely considered to be the afterlife. Some disagree, though mostly on philosophical grounds.”
“To beat around the bush slightly less,” Barb offered from the campfire, where she was holding her hands towards the fire to warm them, “the Orbs basically say we’re in Hell. Does Occam’s Razor apply here, Professor?” she added, turning to Bartok with a pointed look.
Bartok shifted uncomfortably and looked towards the sky, where the clouds were tumbling darkly over the high, black horizons of the mountain.
“It appears,” he said carefully, “to my perception, that this world is designed. There’s no way around that conclusion.”
“Was creationism still en vogue in your previous life?” Barb asked Emma, with all appearances of sincerity.
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Emma said, though she barely registered what she had been asked. Something about Barb’s question sent shivers up her spine. While she was trying to process the implications of what Barb had said, Bartok turned his attention towards Barb.
“We’ve been over this!” he said, throwing his hands up. “The Orbs come with the gift of speech and information. They’re like little manuals. They had to have been coded that way.”
“And those things could apply to humans, too,” Barb retorted a bit off-handedly, as though they’d had this debate many times before. “And lizards, for that matter.”
Bartok rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, but in a friendly way. Disagreements aside, there seemed to be real respect between them.
“In any case,” Bartok said, returning his attention to Emma, “this world isn’t so different from the way things were set up on Earth. There are still systems, jobs, subsistence, society. The major differences are the intense, quantified nature of the achievement system, and the fact that there’s no escape.” His chortle sounded a little strained. “Have you had time to talk to your Orb about the Acquisition System?”
“A bit,” said Emma. “We went over inventory, equipment and stats.” She hesitated and pulled the blanket over her. Heavy though it was, she was still basically naked underneath, and the temperature had dropped even further. “Seems like Hell is set up like… a video game? Or something?”
“Exactly,” Bartok said, at the same time that Barb said, “Don’t encourage him, please.”
“It’s even got a sort of video game progression system. Every citizen of Hell is divided into six ranks,” Bartok said, holding up his fist. “The first,” he said, sticking out his thumb, “is Bronze, which is where all new spawns or respawns begin, and where many people end up stuck for one reason or another. You probably noticed the bronze medallion around your neck when you woke up. You’ll be given a new one when the time is right. The second -” he held up his index finger - “is Silver. There are far fewer Silvers than Bronzes, though they are by no means particularly rare. Most people who graduate from Hell University achieve Silver rank.
The next rank,” he continued, erecting his middle finger, “is Gold. These are extremely powerful warriors. Like with Bronze to Silver, there are considerably fewer Golds than Silvers. Gold is a very highly esteemed rank associated with Professors and Captains; even many graduates of the University fail to ever reach it.”
Emma remembered the flash of gold on Bartok’s chest when he’d pulled his cloak back.
“After Gold is Platinum,” he continued. “Platinum ranks are extremely rare encounters. Most normal people only ever see a couple dozen in their lives. They are elite bodyguards and units, heads of departments, powerful politicians, and so forth. There are extra trials associated with Platinum ranking which contribute to its rarity in addition to the experience required. These trials are quite deadly, which dissuades most from trying.
“After Platinum is Diamond rank. There are only about sixty or seventy known Diamond ranks, though there are likely more located in the farther reaches of Hell where the University’s influence wanes or disappears totally. It is said that a new Diamond rank emerges every five years to ten years.”
“I see,” Emma said, rubbing her thumb along her bronze medallion. “And the sixth?”
“The final rank is Legends,” said Bartok, his voice dropping as though confiding in her a secret of great importance, though Emma suspected he was about to say something he didn’t want Barb to quip at. “There are only five known Legend ranks in the modern world, and about one hundred throughout the recorded history of Aporia. This is because those who are killed, of course, lose all of their rankings, and Legends are high-risk, high-reward targets. Killing them is nearly impossible, though it has been done. Extensive research has been done on Legend rankings, mostly in secret, but it is still uncertain how exactly one ascends to Legend rank.”
The weight of the challenge ahead of Emma was finally settling on her shoulders. Wait, I have a challenge ahead?
It seemed she had made some subconscious decision, while listening to Bartok talking, that she needed to ascend the rankings, though she of course had no idea how she might go about that. But it seemed important.
“This may be a stupid question,” Emma said slowly, trying to reorganize her thoughts, “but is there any way out of this place?”
“No,” said Barb, at the same time that Bartok said, “Well…”
Emma looked at Bartok, who was clearly about to offer an answer closer to what she wanted to hear.
“Look,” Bartok said, glancing at Barb, who shook her head, “there are a lot of unexplained things about this place. All I can offer is that certain people have disappeared in the vicinity of certain magical nexuses. Most never come back. At least one has claimed to have returned to the ‘real world.’ One such nexus, the main one known by the University, is unlockable only by the Queen of Pandemonium. Some speculate that they bring one back to Earth, though it could just as easily teleport you to a deeper, ah, circle of Hell. And the only person who claims to have returned to Earth is, well, indisposed.”
Figured. Well, Emma was already feeling fairly well indisposed, so she didn’t have much to lose from trying.
“I don’t suppose there’s any way I can access a Nexus, is there?” said Emma.
“It is possible, in theory,” Barb said. “Though every path is extremely difficult - and for no guarantee of getting what you’re hoping for.”
Emma pulled the blanket tighter around herself and looked into the fire. A vague plan was forming, stupid thought it likely was.
“Well I don’t have anything else to do,” Emma said. “I just want to see my family again. I owe it to them to at least try to escape whatever this place is.” Emma shrugged. “Especially since I’m stuck here forever, anyway. Right?”
The mood around the fire shifted perceptibly. Bartok and Barb looked down awkwardly for many long moments, as though something exceedingly interesting had sprouted from the dirt. Emma thought that she knew what they were about to say, but she was resolute. She had nothing left to live for, and so she would make her way back to Evan - no matter how long it took, no matter how many times she had to die, because nothing else would give her the motivation she would need if she was going to be forced to live for something like eternity.
“Do you mind if we ask how you… you know?” Bartok said.
Emma looked at him, surprised. “I would’ve thought that would be taboo to ask.”
“Why?” said Bartok, looking at her with all the curiosity of an academic.
“I… don’t know.” Because I haven’t processed, or even thought about, what happened to me yet. Emma felt strange. Yet she also felt, somehow, that this was an important moment, so she took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. “I was murdered. I don’t know by whom, or for what purpose. That’s all I’ve got.”
There were a few moments of respectful silence. Emma wondered if they would share their stories with her. Come to think of it, this seemed like a good bonding exercise, in a horrible sort of way.
“Emma,” said Barb gently after some time had passed, “you’re not the first to try to get out of here, and you won’t be the last. We all have people we left behind. People we can’t live without. But we learn to live on, anyway. It’s what they would want. My own mother, who I lost long before my own passing, told me on her deathbed that chasing her ghost would only lead me to her grave.”
Emma nodded, but said nothing more. She had no other reason to go on. She was sure that if one could somehow return to Earth, it would be common knowledge; yet she had nothing else to work towards.
In the distance, an orange-red light was seeping over the tall black mountains, purpling the sky.
“It’s almost sunset,” Emma said, standing. To her right, Patrick lifted his head and blinked at her through his bleary, monstrous eyes, and yawned. With his mouth that could swallow a small adult whole. “I’ve got a long, long way to go, and you two have a job you have to complete.”
Barb nodded, her expression flat, but she didn’t argue further. Emma thought she even saw a little approval in the upturnedness of the lines around her mouth. Bartok, who had listened quietly and intently to Emma and Barb’s exchange, waved his hand.
A glowing ball exactly like Wilkes lifted from the solid dirt around the campfire as though it were water. Bartok reached a finger out and touched it and a large menu popped out along the orb’s surface, displaying a large collection of creeping souls of strange monsters she didn’t recognize, colorful items, weapons, food, and other things Emma couldn’t yet identify.
He reached towards the menu and pinched at something disc-shaped and bluish that reflected silver in the campfire light. It followed his fingers out as he pulled away, becoming larger as it did until it was about the size of a human head.
Well, that makes no sense.
He held the disc out to Emma, who hesitated a moment before taking it. The strange metal thing, more advanced-looking than anything Emma had expected to encounter in Hell, was surprisingly light and smooth. When Emma looked up again from the disc, Bartok was holding out a silver daggers, hilt first. Some kind of blood-red jewel with two lines crossing each other was inlaid into the hilt.
“I couldn’t take that from you,” Emma said out of politeness, ignoring the frisson of excitement she’d felt upon seeing the blade.
Bartok chuckled. He pulled his cloak back and it slid from his body, revealing heavy-looking reddish armor, spiked stylishly along his shoulders and hips - from which hung no less than four daggers. Emma looked up, and was surprised to see an additional enormous broadsword hanging from his back.
“I don’t think I’ll miss this one,” Bartok said, smiling. He held out the dagger again. Emma took it carefully and held the steel up to her eyes: the edge looked remarkably sharp, and the folds in the steel implied great strength and durability.
“He’s showing off,” Barb said dryly, now smoking another cigarette.
“Correct,” Bartok said. He grabbed his heavy, crimson cloak from the ground and held it, too, out to Emma.
“I couldn’t possibly - !”
“We want our blanket back,” Barb said.
“The professor will be cold during the day.”
In response, Barb clapped her hands together and breathed loudly and heavily into them. A moment later, a violently bright red flame snaked out of the hole she’d left between her clasped palms. Emma’s jaw fell. The flame writhed like a snake for a moment as more of it coming from her fists like a long rope, its light cutting into the darkness like a knife, and then the rope of flame lifted and began to form a spiral around Bartok, who batted in its direction like a bothersome fly.
“We have many resources at our disposal,” Barb said. She released her palms and the flame disappeared, leaving stains of light in Emma’s watering eyes. Emma noticed, for the first time, that Barb was wearing what looked like metal gloves perfectly tailored to her hands. “Not to mention we have entire inventories. You really think we brought only one?”
“Plus you’re practically naked,” Bartok offered.
Well, he did have a point there.
Emma took the cloak, feeling blood rush to her cheeks. She had also begun to shake a little around the knees, though out of excitement, fear, or sheer awe she couldn’t say.
She had just witnessed magic. Honest to god magic. Her imagination alight with possibility - should she ask Barb if she could teach her that spell? - Emma set the dagger and disc at her feet, turned around, and began the awkward ordeal of putting the cloak on while trying to not let the blanket slip from her shoulders.
When she was finished, she turned to the professor and his student. The cloak, which was heavier than it looked, broke most of the cool early morning breeze against its leathery exterior, and (she had to admit) produced a stylish swish as she turned around.
“Why are you being so nice?” she said, genuinely surprised. She felt her eyes prickle wetly again, but banished the budding tears by force of will.
“I said we had protocol,” Bartok said, beaming. “Speaking of which…” he gestured at the disc laying at Emma’s feet. “That’s a very special item, and the most important one we can offer a new spawn at an encounter.” He hesitated, looking closely at Emma, who got the impression that he was now choosing his words carefully. “It’s called a Respawn Disc. It’s a very rare, one-time use item that, when used closely enough to one’s spawn, returns lost items to the deceased.”
Emma stared at him blankly. She had heard and understood the words, but how could they apply... to…
“So are you suggesting,” Emma said, her insides suddenly icy even through the warm embrace of the cloak, “that I could have been here before this spawn, died, lost all my memories of this place, and woken up thinking it’s my first time here?”
Somehow Emma had never considered that, even though Wilkes had told her that she would lose her memories on death.
A long moment followed, during which Emma tried to organize her thoughts. What would she do if an item appeared out of that disc-thing? What would it imply? Had she already died before in Hell, possibly many times?
“I understand if you don’t want to use it in front of us,” said professor Bartok, “but it may prove -”
Emma shook her head, a little more violently than she’d intended. “Just tell me how to use it. I want to get it over with.”
The idea that her saviors could in fact be bandits trying to inveigle her into producing her respawn items, after which time they could freely kill her and leave her and everyone else none the wiser, did occur to her. But she trusted them well enough and, at the moment, it didn’t particularly seem to matter.
“Okay,” professor Bartok said. He approached Emma, knelt down near the disc, and flipped it over to its other side, revealing a blue circle in the middle of the disc. “Put your finger in the middle of this circle for a few moments,” he said. “It’ll feel weird at first, like your body is filling up with cool energy. It will last only a moment.”
Emma picked up the disc and did as she was instructed. The disc was cold. After a moment, the coldness spread up her finger and then, in a heartbeat, gripped her completely, as though she’d taken her first drink of the day and felt its coldness splash down her throat - except it was her entire body.
A strange, dim light rose from the circle on the disc like a projection, but nothing appeared. Relieved, Emma began to lower the Respawn Disc back towards the ground - but then something dark and square-shaped materialized at the bottom of the blue circle. In a moment it grew twice the size, and then four times, and then a hundred times, and finally Emma was no longer holding a disc, but a heavy book.
Its jacket was made of green leather and its pages looked burned and crisped along the edges. Strangest of all, in the middle of the front cover, a human-sized eye stared back at her, its slit-pupil swirling around a pool of blood-red conjunctiva. It vibrated a little as Emma moved her fingers along it, as though it was responding to her touch.
Emma tossed the book away from her as though she’d grabbed a spider, fell to her knees, and threw up.
“New class assigned,” came Wilkes’ voice, apparently overruling his mute command. “Class: Spellcaster. Subclass: Eldritch.”
She didn’t know what she expected when she looked back, wiping her mouth and gasping, but it wasn’t the look of wide-mouthed terror that Bartok and Barb now shared.
The Professor’s eyes narrowed at her as he took a step back.