Sam came to. He was incredibly uncomfortable as he lay on the ground with his face in the grass. It took him a moment to remember where he was, or at least where he thought he was. Adrenaline shot through his body as he tried to activate Stealth.
Pain wracked his head, and he puked.
“Hey, watch where you’re hurling that crap,” someone nearby called out before the same voice yelped as Sam heard the sound of flesh on flesh.
“No talking,” A gruff voice called just before Sam felt a tug on his arms, which he now noticed were tied in front of him. The voice spoke again. This time, his speech was directed at Connor, “None of that, Boy. We know you’re new to the SYSTEM, so you get that one for free,” a gruff male voice called out, “You’re collared. You can’t use any of your abilities, talents, perks, skills, or spells while it’s around your neck, so don’t try, or you get that nice little zap to the brain.”
Sam kept his mouth shut and opened his eyes. He was surprised to see what he could only describe as a green-skinned orc with tusks looking at him.
“Get your ass up off the ground and prepare to move out!” The orc-looking creature yelled into his face.
Sam looked around, confused. He was in the clearing they’d all appeared in. All the people that were left, who had been trying to kill each other only a little while ago, were lined up, shackled, and guarded by a variety of races. He saw reptilian humanoids as well as some short and stout people who looked like what he’d expect dwarves or gnomes to look like. There were also some humans and elf-looking humanoids who weren’t shackled.
The people who weren’t prisoners were rushing to and fro, checking on the prisoners and making sure their charges weren’t trying to escape. All were armed with both ranged and melee weapons and didn’t look like they would put up with crap from anyone. As he watched, a male elf in a tan robe with golden lace trim walked over near a pile of weapons that had been gathered from all the prisoners. He started chanting and making gestures with his hands at an area five feet in front of the weapons at the center of the clearing. As Sam watched, he worked on freeing his hands from their binding while everyone, including the guards, paid attention to the elf. Just as he freed his hands enough so that he could slip free when he wanted, a flat plane of darkness appeared and then opened into an area filled with large cages that were definitely not in the forest he was in. Was that a Portal?
Sam watched as line after line of prisoners were led through the portal until his line started moving. It wasn’t long before they reached the portal and stepped through. There had been a slight tingling sensation as he’d stepped through, but that was it.
Sam found himself in a clearing. To one side was a cliff face. Outside of the clearing were bushes and trees of all kinds, though to say it was a small clearing would be incorrect. The cliff rose at least 100 feet vertically, as did most of the trees around the clearing. As he looked around and tried to measure out distances, he figured that the tree line was at least three football field lengths distance from where he stood in all directions. The clearing was huge. As he took in the sights, he also noticed that the air was dryer, and though it smelled like pine and oak and a few scents he’d never smelt before, it all smelled of sweat, blood, and all the other smells associated with an outhouse.
Once everyone was through, the portal closed, and a notification appeared in his vision.
You have exited the Tutorial prematurely. No rewards awarded.
When he closed the notification, a woman who had been standing behind the portal was revealed. She looked vaguely human with a few alterations. Her skin had a blue tint to it, and her eyes were bright fluorescent green, almost like the color of the blood of that alien in the movie Predator. She waved her hands, and a ripple of energy exploded from her hands and moved through everyone in the clearing. She looked around with obvious disdain, which was evidenced in her voice when she called out loudly, “Do Not Speak! “
She paused and looked around as if daring anyone to speak. When no one did, she continued, “Good, you can follow directions. Keep doing that; you get to live; fail to do so and die!” She said as she pointed off to the side where a being was shackled to the wall. A humanoid figure in a black robe, who wore a faceless black mask, stepped forward and touched a crystal to the prisoner's chest. The prisoner's mouth opened as if to scream but released no sound. Sam heard a sucking sound and could have sworn he heard a scream as the color in the prisoner's skin faded, and the corpse became desiccated and dehydrated in a moment. As the sucking sound stopped, the almost skeletal figure against the wall seemed to flash for an instant before it turned to dust, which was also sucked into the crystal. Sam’s attention focused on the Crystal, which now glowed with a white pearlescent light.
The prisoners around him gasped, but no one spoke as the woman addressed them again, “The glowing crystal in my Acolytes hands is called a Soul Crystal. It can do many things, None of which you need to know about now. All you need to know is this. You are all slaves. Slaves who will do as they are told. If you do, You will be fed, and you will have a place to sleep. If you do not work, We will trap your souls, and you will work for us anyway. Today, you begin earning the right to die without being turned into a Soul Crystal.
With that, she turned and walked down a passage directly behind where the portal had appeared. Other slaves, because he knew what to call them now, came and directed everyone toward the various cages around the open field. His group was led to a cage, where each person was uncuffed from their shackles or untied and guided inside. Everyone remained quiet, most of his fellow prisoners looking shell-shocked.
Sam, however, paid attention to everything. He also looked at the collar on one of the other prisoners' necks and noticed that it was just a piece of leather with what looked like a small black gem embedded in it. A moment later, he learned what happened to those who tried to take the collar off.
One of the older prisoners, dressed like a biker in a nearby cage, reached up, undid the collar, and removed it. Immediately, a red crystal on top of the cage flared to life. The guards in the area rushed to the cage with their weapons drawn. Sam knew that if he had any chance to get out of this, he needed to do so now. He moved over to one of his fellow prisoners whom he had seen kill someone in cold blood when this all started and moved up behind him. As everyone was watching what happened in the other cage, including the guards, Sam pulled the collar off the asshole in front of him and dropped it to the ground while simultaneously pulling his collar off and storing it in his Common Inventory. Once done, he stepped toward the middle of the cage and activated Stealth. He used the crowd of bodies to break the line of sight for anyone outside of the cage.
As he suspected, the red crystal above his cage activated as he stored his collar in his Inventory space. Once Stealth was active, Sam moved over by the door into their cage. Shortly after, their cage was surrounded as the guards rushed in and checked every prisoner they could see until they found the patsy he’d created with his missing collar. A moment later, they found his collar on the ground.
Once the guard touched the collar, the red light above the cage winked out. Sam had been right; the cages couldn’t detect a collar that had been removed and was inside an inventory. The man he set up looked down at the collar and began to deny that he had taken it off. As they led him out of the cage kicking and screaming, Sam followed closely behind, trusting in his skill and ability to help him remain undetected.
He found a place by some crates that were being filled with the weapons and equipment that had been recovered from the Tutorial area. Sam decided to help himself to a few of the guns and ammunition since no one seemed to be watching the area. He also watched as the man from the other cage and the patsy he had set up were approached by two men in robes and turned into Soul Crystals. Most of the prisoners gasped, and Sam realized these assholes weren’t fucking around. If he was caught, he knew he was dead.
As he quickly, but very quietly, looked through the weapons and equipment, he remembered that his Inventory Skill only had 10 slots. His sword and dagger took up two slots. The pack he’d been given when he accepted the Rogue class took up another slot. The collar took up the fourth slot. Two of the Handguns he’d picked up of the same model, a 9mm Browning, took up the fifth slot, and the 10 clips of ammo he’d found for that specific model took up the sixth slot. He considered taking another weapon but knew that he needed some space for more food and water.
As Sam went through the weapons, he was cognizant of anyone who came too close. When a couple of the guards or slaves did venture to close, he paused. While he waited for a pair of orcs to walk by, he noticed men and women being taken from the cages and led to another area of the clearing where they were stripped and examined, almost like livestock. Ironically, after the deaths of the last two who had removed their collars, no one else did so, and no one else argued with their captors.
Once the examination was over, the slaves were given a simple white robe and led to an area where they were provided with a bowl of stew and told to sit. After an hour, Sam left the area near the pile of weapons and began looking for what passed as a latrine. He didn’t have to go far; There was an area that looked like something out of the Roman era. The ground was lined with buckets set on the ground where various people were doing their business into said buckets. There was another area with sectioned-off areas where people could do their business privately. He found one of the empty, cordoned-off areas and snuck in. He chose an area that was a bit farther back from the other private areas and quickly took care of his business.
As he left the area, a collared, elvish female slave rushed in with an empty, clean bucket. A moment later, she left with the bucket he’d just filled. How had she known he’d been in there? After a bit, he had his answer. Like the cages, a crystal above each private area had a yellow crystal that lit up when someone went into it. He watched as the slaves waited for a few minutes and rushed over to change out the buckets. As he watched, he noticed that another group of slaves was rushing down a small corridor that had been cut into the rock face to the side of the main tunnel that the green-eyed female had walked down. Slaves were heading into the corridor with the dirty buckets and coming back with clean buckets.
If they were taking the buckets to a stream to clean them, that might be a way for him to get out of his hell hole. Sam followed the next slave that headed down the tunnel. As he made his way forward, the corridor he was in dropped away, and a small stream came from his right, flowed about fifty feet in front of him, and continued off to his left before it turned back to the right and moved directly away from the outcropping of rock he had just emerged from
Sam could see guards stationed around slaves that were working near the stream, though they looked more like protection detail that was keeping things from coming in after the slaves. The slaves were rushing around, washing clothes upstream from where the buckets were being cleaned. As he looked back to his right he noticed that three streams of water were rising from the river up into a…
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Sam froze. There was a floating wooden ship in the air above him. A floating wooden ship with sailing masts and a crew running to and fro. It was floating over the river and pulling water up into it. A wooden boat was floating over the river, and a couple of streams of water were rising, unaided, up to the ship hovering just above the trees.
Sam also realized that from the clearing, the trees would have blocked any sight of the floating ship. Another thing that had caused him to freeze was the two moons he could see hanging over and above the boat. It was the middle of the day, wherever he was, but he could still see the two moons easily as the sun reflected off their surface. What was more impressive was that the moon, which looked closer, had areas of blue and green with clouds on it. The second moon was smaller and either orbited the moon he was looking at or had a similar orbit around the planet he was on unless he was on a moon and all three were orbiting…
Sam stopped himself from getting lost in his thoughts. No matter what, he knew he was on another planet and that he needed to get away from these slavers. Sam stayed on the path as he made his way down to the water. He could have stepped off the path, but he figured the slavers probably had traps, detection devices, or magic that would light up if they detected someone. The path and the stream should be relatively safe.
Sam reached the water line, stepped slowly into the stream, and, keeping his feet in the water, moved with the flow until it was deep enough for him to lower himself into the water and float downstream. He made sure to keep his mouth closed, as the nastiness being dumped in this river was disgusting.
Sam made sure that his Stealth skill remained active as he allowed the current to carry him downstream. When he came close to the guard line, he let half the air out of his lungs and sank until he glided along the bottom of the stream, which was only five feet deep. He held his breath for as long as he could, which was right around two minutes. When he surfaced, he was past the guards and surprised to find the blue woman from before and the figure that had caught him standing on a disc of energy over the water 10 feet in front of him, looking at the water and glancing upstream as if waiting for someone.
Sam wondered what they were waiting for when he passed through something that tingled, and an outline of blue fireflies surrounded him.
“You were right?” the woman said casually as she pointed at Sam,” You, get out of the water now!”
As he made his way to the shore, the woman handed the man beside her a gold coin. The disc that carried the two of them floated over next to Sam and stopped 10 feet from him. The woman and man stepped off and looked at him.
Shit, Shit, Shit, were the only thoughts running through Sam’s mind as the woman and man looked at him. That’s when he noticed that neither of them looked angry. In fact, the woman was looking at him with something that Sam could only describe as interest. Once she saw that Sam had calmed down, she spoke again, “We need to talk,” she said.
Having no choice but to see where this went, Sam stood quietly and waited.
The woman turned her attention to the man beside her, “So, he escaped the cage, took the time to recover weapons, used the latrine, my latrine area, and then made it all the way to this point without any of our guards detecting him?” The woman asked the cloaked man.
“Did you see him before your barrier of fireflies detected him?”
The woman smiled, “No, I did not. Something that should not be possible from someone from a newly inducted world.”
“Exactly, Even I was lucky to capture him. If he hadn’t climbed into the tree, I never would have been able to catch him in the time we had,” The man said.
“Fine, what do you want to do with him?” the woman asked.
“Recruitment?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. When I’m done here, explain it to him,” She said to the cloaked warrior before she turned to Sam, “Human, today is your lucky day. Understand, if you run again, I will not kill you and use your energy to power a Soul Crystal; I will instead mount you, like a prized kill, trap you in your stuffed body, and place you on display in my home. You will be fully aware of everything going on around you without the ability to move or do anything about it until the vessel you are placed in is destroyed. How long could that be? I don’t know. What I do know is that my magic is very good at repairing corpses.”
Once she was sure that her message had been fully understood, as the look of horror and shock crossed Sam’s face, she nodded and vanished. The warrior chuckled as he pulled back his hood and removed his mask to reveal a very lithe human male, “She can be a bit intense, but never make the mistake of thinking that she cannot carry out any threat that she makes. Now, let's get a look at you. Drop your Stealth skill now. Do not activate it again until I say you can, do you understand?
Sam dropped his Stealth skill and nodded.
The warrior smiled, “Good choice. Like she said, today is your lucky day.” When Sam didn’t respond, the warrior leaned forward and whispered, “You get to join a secret order of Assassins.”
***
Connor floated above the river as he followed it away from where he dropped on down to this Uncommon area, tier? This could be the World of Tiers. What an awesome book. It was one of the first fiction/fantasy books that he’d read. However, it didn’t look like this was technologically driven by narcissistic creators who had nothing better to do. Then again, maybe?
As Connor floated above the river, he saw fish and other creatures in the water, as well as various creatures along the riverbank. The smaller creatures would dart in, get a drink of water, and then dart away quickly. After a little while, he found out why. Something that looked like a cross between a hippopotamus and an alligator launched up out of the water, grabbed a gazelle-like creature and retreated into the water. A few minutes later, the typical pattern of the river returned. There was no evidence of the gazelle-like creature or the monster that had attacked it.
Connor was never able to get within 10 feet of the creature, so he never learned what it was called. The gazelle-like creatures were common, ranging in level from 1 to 30. The area he floated through reminded him of the pictures of the African Sahara he’d seen. There were even monkey and baboon-like creatures in the few trees he saw that were a bit farther back from the river.
After three hours of following the river at 100 miles an hour, the area in front of him changed. He had been constantly traveling downhill at a very light slant and watched the river empty into a huge body of water. In the distance, though, he could see a slight haze on the horizon. Connor rose above the ground to see if he could see over the mist, but it blocked his sight in an area that had to be at least five miles wide.
Connor flew toward the mist until he was only about a mile from the edge of the drop-off, which created a waterfall into a void he couldn’t see the bottom of. He flew over the hole and noted immediately that it was spherical, like a drain in the world, that disappeared below with water falling off the edge of this level at a steady rate. As he flew over the hole, the only question he had was whether he would go down the hole.
Connor flew until he was level with the waterfall when unexpected Notifications appeared.
Congratulations! You have vanquished all members of the Tutorial
Error: No members of the Tutorial were defeated by your hand.
Congratulations! You have Earned the Title Resolved Pacifist.
Resolved Pacifist – Out of 1,000 Tutorial Participants, you defeated them without killing a single one. Your dedication to your path garners a clarity of mind and spirit that should be emulated by many.
All Resource Pool Regeneration Rates are increased by +10
Congratulations! You have earned the Title Last Man Standing.
Last Man Standing I - Out of 1,000 Tutorial Participants, you are the last one alive. Endurance, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Willpower, and luck +10
Congratulations! You have been offered a quest, Thwart the Slavers.
A Group of Slavers is attempting to abduct all newly integrated members of your Tutorial.
Task: Remain free until the end of the Tutorial
Rewards:
Automatic Transportation to your Planet of Origin at the End of the Tutorial, regardless of location within this dimension.
New Title:
New Uncommon Tutorial Skill Crystal, which can be used to upgrade one Common Tutorial Skill to Uncommon. If Skill Points are not available, a Skill Point debt can be taken to utilize this Skill Crystal immediately. The first Skill Point earned will be utilized to offset this debt.
Slavers? Connor hadn’t even considered that someone might be trying to track him. He turned back toward the direction he’d come from and saw three small flying craft that looked sort of like the skiffs from Return of the Jedi rushing his way. With his high perception, he could see a robed man holding a green crystal on the bow of each skiff.
Connor took in their positioning and flew across the hole in the world. As he suspected, when they reached the hole, they veered to the left and right, staying over the water as they made their way around the outside of the hole. Connor smiled; this was going to be fun.
Connor summoned Fang into his hand and moved back to the other side of the hole just as they reached his position. The three skiffs paused for a second as the three mages looked at their green crystals and then continued around the hole along the outside again.
Connor did this three more times before one of the skiffs decided to brave the opening in the world and flew toward Connor across the gap. So these slavers wanted to play, huh? He couldn’t use Fang. It hadn’t had a chance to recover the durability Damage he’d inflicted on the poor blade. Currently, Fang is at 39 of 100 durability. The strike against the Vesnar had done 67 points of Durability damage to it. Fang needed to continue recovering that durability. At one point of durability per hour, it would be two and a half days before its durability was back to normal, two days before he could use it once at full strength. He needed to find a blade that could handle his strength or upgrade Fang. Connor stored Fang in his Inventory and decided to take care of them in the old-fashioned way.
Connor flew toward the mage and flipped in mid-air so that he could hit it with his feet. At least, that was the plan. Instead, Connors's right foot led the way as he looked like some idiot kung fu hero flying in slow motion toward his target. Also, the mage had a barrier that took a significant portion of the damage.
Connor suffered 266 points of damage to his leg, which was reduced to 253 points due to his physical damage resistance. 100 points of that damage were absorbed by the mage's physical shield, which his foot continued through and slammed into the man's chest as a surprise attack. That attack inflicted 332 points of damage on the mage as his invisible foot went through the mage's chest, which kicked the mage's heart into the void below as the mage's now dead body hung from his invisible leg.
During the attack, Connor sustained 585 points of damage to his leg, which shattered his bones and turned the inside of it to jelly. The mage slithered off as Connor lost control of his flight and began to fall toward the waterfall, coming over the edge. The damage and shock to Connor's system were so significant that he also lost his concentration, as both Stealth and Flight failed.
You are in Agonizing Pain
You are Stunned for 114 Turns (18.9 Minutes) or until fully healed.
Stunned, You are unable to maintain concentration. You cannot activate or maintain any active powers.
Connor only had enough presence of mind to notice that he’d fallen into the spray of water and began tumbling with the water flowing down and away from the edge of this level of the world. While he found it impossible to concentrate and activate Flight to slow himself, he had enough presence of mind to pull his shirt up over his head and create a place where he could breathe as he tumbled through the water spray while he every ounce of his willpower to keep from puking.
The last thing he saw as he tumbled down into the darkness below were two notifications that lit up his vision. It took him a couple of tries, but finally, he was able to read and understand them.
You are exiting the Uncommon Tutorial area. Rare Challenges await.
NOTE: You must return to the Common Area before the 30-day Tutorial Limit expires to return to your Planet of Origin.