Ray blinked.
It was the first sign to himself that not only was he not dead, but that he was in fact very much still in one piece. He wasn’t sure where he was exactly, but that seemed to be par for the course with these kinds of situations. At least he wasn’t unconscious.
“Not unconscious yet would be a more accurate turn of phrase,” chided a voice from behind him.
Ray spun, ready to fight even as his brain caught up to his actions. In front of him was a man who was wearing deceptively plain cotton clothing. Like something out of a medieval fantasy. His rough spun tunic was over simple brown pants, but it wasn’t the clothing that caused him to inhale. No. It was the vibrant black and red tattoo that covered part of the mans face, practically spilling out from his purple eyes and extending around his neck and behind the tunic to his back.
“Ah, you must be on a world that is still experiencing significant upheaval for that kind of reaction. That’s fine, that’s fine. Take your time,” the man said simply, closing the book that he had been reading. “We have all the time in the world here. A day here is… oh perhaps a second or two in your world. You will lose nothing by being here. Ah, you must be tired. Have a seat.”
With a wave of his hand, a comfortable-looking chair simply apparated beside Ray. Someone who could simply create things out of thin air had a level of power he couldn’t contend with. If this guy wanted him dead, then very dead he would be.
He sat.
“Good choice,” the man chuckled. “Sometimes they want to fight me, not really understanding who or what I am. Other times they try to trick me into some kind of contract, once again not really understanding who or what I am.”
Ray didn’t really have a response to that. He wasn’t sure where he was, why he was there, or who this guy was. All he knew is that the person in front of him absolutely radiated danger. On every instinctual level, he could feel it. This man was deadly dangerous.
“See? You already know. I can tell. Practice enough of anything and you will achieve mastery over it,” he said with a grin. “And I have observed a lot of people. Well, telepathy helps too. But that’s another point entirely. Still needed practice though.”
“Why am I here? And where is here?” Ray asked after a short silence.” Who are you?”
“Ah, it speaks. I was beginning to wonder,” the man replied with another grin. “Right now? We are hanging out inside of the Shard of Creation. Well, your soul is hanging out inside of the Shard at least. That should answer the Where. The Why? Well, that’s because something unexpected happened. That and I felt you were a tad different than the others, and now I can see why.”
He said a word, but silence rang out. He tried again, frowning. A strange feeling overtook Ray, as even watching his lips he couldn’t make out any letters or words.
“That’s fucking annoying,” the man grunted. “I bet I can’t tell you my own name yet either. Fucking restrictions, that was a stupid fucking idea,” he complained. “Let's try this then. The Administrator, there we go, really did a number on you. You have the ability to do really weird shit and apply that shit into reality directly from the System. What Class did you get?”
“Uh… {SYSTEM LORD}?” Ray said uncertainly, the very words themselves feeling as if they contained some measure of power.
The man howled with laughter. “System Lord? Man did Mr. Admin ever give you an arrogant and pompous title. That’s hilarious.”
For whatever reason, Ray felt a bit insulted by that. “Hey, I kinda like it. It lets me do a lot of things that I wouldn’t normally be able to do… even if it takes a shit load of Power.”
“Power? Ah yeah… that was a limiting factor wasn’t it?” he muttered, rubbing the stubble on his face. “Well, there had to be some kind of mechanic there to prevent abuse. That works as well as anything. Fuck, the previous iteration was utter garbage.”
Ray didn’t have the foggiest fucking clue what the lunatic in front of him was ranting on about.
“Hey. That wasn’t nice. I may have digressed a bit, but I am hardly a lunatic,” the man protested with a frown.
Ray held up his hands placatingly. “Sorry. Sorry. It's hard to hold back your innermost thoughts,” he apologized.
“Hardly your inner thoughts, but whatever,” he grunted, waving the entire situation away. “Look, you are here for a single reason. Your Shard and the fucking Nexus Node fused. That was… unexpected. And it gave me the ability to show myself to you like this. Normally I would be trapped in that pretty fucking jewel. Don’t mistake me, it's comfy in here, but it's still a gods be damned jewel.”
He watched Ray for a bit, but seeing he had no questions he continued. “Because this development is unexpected, to say the least, I wanted to communicate with you directly. That was the reason I burned some of my own… Power? Yeah, Power. I burned that crappy stat to prevent anyone but you from just waltzing down in here.”
“Ok. But why? You still haven’t answered that?” Ray said, still utterly confused.
The man nodded. “Right. Confusion. It's going to happen. Look, the Shard and the Node fused. That means I can project myself wherever the Node can. I think. I am pretty sure that means I can actually fucking interact with reality for the first time in… a long time. I don’t know what kind of situation you are in, but I should be able to help considerably.”
Ray was instantly suspicious. A mysterious gem man offering to help him? In exchange for nothing? Yeah, there wasn’t a whole lot that was more suspicious than that. Hey guy, come look what’s in my trench coat. It's great, I promise.
“That’s… gross. Not inaccurate, but gross,” he admitted. “And I’m not offering for nothing. There has to be an equivalent exchange of services, or the damn fucking System will seal me back in here. If that happens I don’t know when I will get another chance to escape the bindings of the Shard. So I am offering my experience and knowledge in return for a bit of freedom.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“I don’t even know your name, but I am supposed to turn you loose in my home?” Ray responded with a hint of anger.
He just shrugged. “Fair enough. My name is-“ the odd silence and facial blurring happened. Once it was done the man came back into focus and grunted. “That is really fucking annoying. Look just call me… Merc. Yeah. That fits. Merc.”
“Merc? I mean, weird name but ok,” Ray acquiesced. “So Merc, you have to admit the whole damn thing stinks. I have a lot of questions. A lot. I need a bit more of a guarantee before I agree to anything.”
Merc sighed. “Fine. Here. That fucker Sam taught me a bit about contracts. Well, more like I ripped the knowledge out of him, but that’s not the point. Here’s a very, very simple contract through the System. The damn thing enforces these things like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Oh no, I would believe it,” Ray muttered as he looked at the System message that had popped up in front of him. It was a contract that was a single page. It expressed that Merc would faithfully serve as a regional manager for the Dimensional Node under Ray in exchange for the freedom to explore any claimed territory and speak to others at will. There were two clauses at the bottom that covered the breaking of the contract, in which Merc would be sent back to the Shard permanently, and another that enforced Merc’s loyalty and inability to do anything to harm Ray or what Ray owned.
“This looks… pretty simple actually,” Ray admitted. “I don’t see anything in here that actually weighs in your favor other than, quite literally, giving you the ability to help me and talk to people.”
The man shrugged, “When you get stuck in a tiny little space but have cosmic-level power, things get lonely. You appreciate the small things you had before far more than you did when you actually had them. Talking to people was one of those things,” he explained simply. “Besides, simple contracts are the best. You don’t need a lawyer. Lawyers suck. They suck terribly. Fuck lawyers. If the law is so complex you need one of those fuckers then it's not a law worth following.”
Ray snorted, then hit the accept button on the contract. “I couldn’t agree more with that. Just don’t make me regret this.”
“You won’t. Not in the slightest,” Merc assured him. “See you shortly.”
Ray was about to ask what that meant, but suddenly found himself once more standing in the circular room in front of the Dimensional Core. Blinking, he refocused on a System message that was in front of him.
{DIMENSIONAL NODE}
“I… still have no idea what that means damnit,” he angrily muttered.
“It means,” said Merc popping into existence behind Ray and scaring the shit out of him, “That the Node is capable of connecting multiple dimensions. There are twelve primary and fuck knows all secondary and tertiary universes, realities, planes of existence, etcetera.”
Ray just stared at the man blankly. That was a lot to take in. Then he looked down and saw Merc didn’t have any legs. His lower torso just kind of… tapered off into a thin wisp of smoke. In fact, now that he was observing the recently freed man more closely he looked a bit see-through as well.
“Still telepathic. Thanks,” Merc said sarcastically. “I’m not physical. More of a… friendly ghost. Yeah. One you can’t exorcise. Yay, go me. I know that was a lot to take in, but you can get used to that later. For now, I see that you have a shit ton of work to finish. Hexes? Fuck that’s complicated. Wish it was just a normal territory System like... normal. But no. It had to be complicated.”
“Isn’t life complicated? When is it ever simply?” Ray quipped, causing Merc to snort.
“That’s fair I suppose,” he admitted. “Anyway, I’m going to go through all your territory information and figure out what the hell is going on. I will probably have some information for you. Depending on what the System and fucking… the Administrator lets me share.”
Merc reached down and grabbed Ray’s face in both hands, his purple eyes staring intensely into Ray’s own. “One thing I will tell you now, however, is the most important thing I will tell you period. That little glass ball over there? If that breaks you are fucked. Immediately. You will die. This planet will die. This fucking universe will, eventually, die. Do. Not. Let. Anyone. Access. The. Node. Period. Not your friends. Not your family. Not your allies. And certainly not your fucking enemies or any monsters. Only you. Period. That Node is the center to everything.” He pushed off Ray and hovered nearby. “Now, seal this bitch up tight. I will pop up after I do some research.”
Ray wandered out of the room in a stupor. He wasn’t quite sure what to think. He used the walk back up to the top of the tunnel to sort out thoughts and feelings. Merc was, if not being upfront with him directly, at least marginally helpful. That bit about the Node was extremely concerning, but he needed to find Gale before he could really make any final decisions outside of expanding and looking for everyone.
Nodding to himself, he came to the top of the ramp. Derrick, Nyx, and the goblins saw him coming and focused their attention on him.
“Well? Find anything interesting?” asked Nyx, coking her head to one side. “Don’t tell me there’s another issue we have to handle because you now have access to this Node thing.”
Ray shrugged. “Yes and no. We have nothing but issues and a very short list of applicable solutions. What’s one more universe-ending problem?” he said sarcastically.
Derrick nodded along then froze. “Universe?”
“Yeah. Apparently, if anyone gets down to that Node we are, as it was simply summarized to me, fucked. As in, colossal level ending all life in existence fucked,” Ray confirmed with a grim smile. “So I am going to seal this thing up tighter than a nun's backside.”
The Goblins looked confused at the phrase and Nyx only sighed at his bad humor. Derrick, however, burst into laughter. Laughter that promptly turned into a girlish scream as Merc floated out of the wall.
“What did I miss?” he asked, looking at Ray. Then he threw a thumb at the still-screaming Derrick. “Is he ok? He doesn’t seem ok. Hey. Screaming man. What’s wrong? Ever seen a ghost before? Boy, you need to live a little more.”
Ray shook his head and ran a hand down his face. “Everyone, this is Merc. He’s a… spirit thing I made a deal with in the basement. Consider him some kind of semi-intelligent advisor… or something.”
“Hey, I resemble that remark,” Merc replied hotly, still eying Derrick who was now recovering from nearly wetting his pants in fear. “Anyway. I figured some stuff out. Not a lot, and some of this crap you have to work out on your own, but I can share a bit. Why don’t we head up, you can introduce me to your crew, and we can talk. I need some context as well as knowing where you are at before I can properly advise you.”
Ray agreed with that. “Right. System shenanigans. Got it. Let's go people. I’m sure Rivea has tried to eat at least one person since we’ve been down here. I swear that woman eats’ her weight in food.”
“If you talk about a woman's weight again I may have to bite you,” quipped Nyx, reminding Ray she was just as much a woman as anyone else in his group.
He nodded nervously, “Right. Sure. Just don’t go full Nemesis on me again.”
“Oh, I won't do that. I can’t, even if I wanted to. But I can certainly help Rivea and the others get a bit of vengeance if needed,” she said slyly.
“Hah! I like your dog. Reminds me of a pet bird I had once,” Merc said. He tried to say something else, but no sound came out and his face went all blurry.
Derrick looked concerned for a moment. “Is that… normal? I mean, he just kind of went out of focus. Like someone hit the mute button.”
“Some kind of System restriction or something. I don’t really understand it,” Ray explained. “He can only advise or talk about certain things. Not sure why.”
Merc came back into focus again as they entered the lobby of the building. “Damn, that’s annoying. Ah well, got to practice this new style of advising to master it I guess. Anyway, introduce me to your friends here… I’m dying to get to know them.”
Ray just groaned. His newest companion was as annoying as anything he had run into at this point. Maybe even Jalla. Only time would tell if he was as helpful as he claimed to be.
Or if he was just another threat they hadn’t identified yet.