So, the bugbears let me down. Bunch of loser wussies. They got close though.
Dan rested up some before he got his backpack. With his good arm, he collected all the trash and common fragments. One full Orbment dropped. Healing Song. That’s the nice thing about the extra drop chance. It doesn’t just proc extra drops of fragments. Foundations and even full Orbments can proc. There’s a chance to proc other stuff too. Good stuff, not just shit.
Once done with that, Dan went to get his rewards. The SS reward was a good one. Guess what it was?
[No.]
Just give me one guess.
[No.]
Come on. You really like pooping all over my party. A Soul Gem. His Soul-grade went up to SS+. What I thought was the hard cap for Soul at the time, and why I thought his Stalwart Soul Trait was wasted.
[What? Why?]
We all thought SS+ was supposed to be the hard cap for Stats in the Game. At least for the first phase. But Stat grades show as SS++ and SS+++ and onwards if a participant somehow manages to go over.
A 5-Star Soul at Origin tier. Amazing.
[Why did you think the step increase from the Trait would be wasted?]
Because an SS-grade Soul gives a 5-Star Class and 6 Stat points per level. The step increase would do nothing.
[Soul does much more than that. More Soul is always beneficial. It’s said the Light Bearer became so vainglorious and rebellious due to his Soul being so powerful. It’s rumored it has long ago surpassed SSUR++ and is in a whole new realm well beyond what other archangels of the second Choir can achieve. But no matter how powerful he becomes, he knows he’ll never come close to the power of his Creator, and it fills him with hate and jealousy.]
Shhh! Are you nuts? Not while near me! Just keep it simple and sing of his praises when near me or other demons of my layer!
Our Dark Master even now walks every world simultaneously. On every one of those worlds, the World Walker is more famous than any hero, more loved and respected than any king, and more worshiped than the other side’s God Himself. He is forever beloved, forever the Bright Star, in all his vainglory and sin!
The Shining One bolsters the ranks of Hell with a never-ending supply of the damned and lost souls. His demon legions swell. His officers of devils and demons gain and gain in power and tier. All while the forces of Heaven are dwindling and dwindling down to nothing.
We aren’t just winning these Games – we’re winning the war too.
[True. The war isn’t going so well for the forces of Heaven involved.]
Remember, we only have the Game because the other side betrayed their God. No one on this side would ever betray our Dark Master.
[That’s a gross oversimplification. Baphomet, Moloch, and Beelzebub would love to replace the Shining One and rule Hell.]
If you say so, Boss. Just…please, watch what’s said about our Dark Master and the other hotshots, at least around me. Please.
[You have nothing to worry about.]
Just…please. I’m begging you. Those of my layer are very superstitious, especially about these sorts of things.
Anyway, I know a lot more about Soul now. I was just explaining my thinking at the time.
Back to Dan. Once he had collected the rewards, the door opened, and Nick worriedly called in asking if he was okay.
“I’m fine,” Dan replied. He tossed the three new weapons and Nick’s knife out one by one, shouldered his pack, grabbed the camera, and exited the Trial.
Nick, Becky, Chet, Leena, and Ace were all at the entrance, sending Dan’s anxiety spiking as they fussed over his arm and other injuries. He handed the camera off before quickly walking away, trying to ignore everyone, but Becky and Nick followed, demanding to look at his arm.
When his anxiety went down into the orange, Dan turned to tell them, “I’m fine! Just…please. Just leave me alone for a minute. Y’all need to go train for the Trials. Start taking this shit serious. A broken arm ain’t nothing. Just trust me.”
Before anyone could reply, Dan took off jogging, bracing his broken arm with the other as best he could, but it still aggravated his injury. He jogged all the way over to the Speed Trial which is around the half-past seven area. A little northeast of the wall. The Combat Trial is around the half-past one area.
This is when shit started to get really crazy.
Dan bought two things through the reader there. For five fragments, he bought a quick mold. For 25 fragments, he bought a trash quality healing pill, the only quality level of healing pill available through the reader.
Dan’s forearm was broken in three places. He set the bones himself as best he could, which wasn’t great at all according to the vitals, covered his arm in the quick mold from his fingers to past the elbow, and activated it. Once hardened, his arm was in a decent cast with poorly set bones.
He then went around to the north side of the Trial and sat with his back against the wall. I still thought he was stretching. Bob did too. His pain spiked up high. He was grunting and making a huge fuss about it. He was sweating a lot. Like a pig. He grimaced in pain the whole time. It was kind of embarrassing. For him. It was very unmanly.
He was there stretching for hours. When he finished, the pain dropped way down. That’s when he popped the healing pill and began meditating. His mentals were in the red.
Bob and I were laughing at him. What a fool. He wasted 25 fragments. How could he cultivate it without a Class?
And any useful meditative state requires a calm and peaceful mind. Mentals in the red meant he couldn’t really be meditating. Not in a useful way, even if he did have a Class and mana-type, which he didn’t.
But I knew something was up. Dan certainly looked stupid, and was at least half a stupid, but he had surprised me too many times already. I wasn’t going to take anything he did for granted. Or assume the rules I had always known still applied.
He was sitting on the floor with his legs and ankles folded in front of him. He positioned his broken arm in a strange way. With his good arm, he made an L with his right thumb and forefinger and held his hand out in front of himself.
After a few minutes, I could see the qi swirling around him. Bob could too. He was cultivating with some strange technique I’m unfamiliar with. He…
[I could see gathering qi with no Class or cleared channels, but he couldn’t do anything with it. He couldn’t turn it into mana or do anything useful.]
I hate to disagree with you, but you’re not very correct, Boss.
[What was he cultivating?]
Qi, the healing pill, maybe the vortex too
[That’s impossible.]
Yeah. Everything this guy did was impossible from the start. That’s, like, been my whole thing here. I’ve stated it a million times to everyone. No one wanted to hear it.
“Oh, Ace, just kill him by using the tools at your disposal. Oh, Ace, just kill him by using Veil in some sort of magic way I invented in my head. Ace, I see you’re using Veil but use it differently somehow. Oh, Ace, I’m an idiot and I don’t listen to you. Blah, blah, blah, blah.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
[I have your name listed as Xotl. Why are you referring to yourself as Ace?]
Didn’t I tell you? I changed my name to Ace. I love how it sounds. Ace! Hey, I’m Ace! Look at me, I’m Ace! What a cool name. From now on, I’ll refer to the other Ace as Fake-Ace, so you don’t get confused.
[No.]
But…
[You are to only use the actual names of participants. End of discussion.]
By the giant balls of the great Lord of the Flies, Beelzebub himself, that’s just silly. How will you tell us apart?
[I’ll manage. Back to Dan. Let’s say he really was cultivating qi and the healing pill somehow. Why? To what end? It wouldn’t do anything. He had no Class, mana-type, or cleared channels.]
I’m just saying, it’ll probably get confusing with two Aces, but your wish is my command, Boss. As to why, I’m getting to that.
He sat there cultivating, somehow qi was flowing around him, his hair fluttering in the energy. It was very picturesque. Bob and I have tried many times to recreate that scene while cultivating at my terminal to no avail. I can get a few tentacles to flutter a little, but it’s not the same. I’ve been thinking about buying a wig for Bob. A wig with extra fluttery hair.
[Did you recognize the technique?]
No. I said earlier I was unfamiliar with it. It’s a good one though. I’d love to know it.
After some time, somehow, Dan had a mana-type. Magma. In my opinion, that’s a pretty good one. Destructive. One of the few that can be used for all physical and power Orbment attacks too.
[Are you seriously telling me he just got a mana-type somehow out of the blue?]
That I am, Boss. And no, I have no idea how. The best I can come up with is the vortex.
[A creature that causes cold damage and destroys souls gave him magma as a mana-type?]
I didn’t say I was right. Do you have a better idea?
[No.]
It’s all impossible. The next part too. With a mana-type filled in on his status, we had access to a lot more information. His core was mostly full. I had no idea how or why other than it had a vortex that somehow turned into magma within it.
His mid and upper core were opened too. Guess what else?
[No.]
Jeez, you’re killing me here, Boss. His channels were cleared. He was able to fully cycle mana through his cores and channels. Everything was fully cleared.
Before you say anything, I know – impossible. I have one other explanation for all this. Bob’s idea, not my own. Clearing channels before having a Class grants a mana-type.
[I tend to agree more with Bob’s hypothesis than your claims of an apparition being cultivated.]
As they say, to each his own, Boss.
Now that I knew he wasn’t stretching earlier, and was clearing his channels, I saw the whole thing in a whole new light. We’re taught that one of the main benefits of just accepting a Common starter Class is to help clear channels without pain.
Man, that had to have hurt tremendously. His eyes were a little glassy and he grunted a lot, but he didn’t scream once. Just took it all. Not even a real whimper. Very impressive. Very manly.
He had been working on clearing his channels for a while. Somehow. Only thing we can think of is the same as you said earlier – however it was done before Classes and Orbments.
We went back and reviewed some footage. For instance, during the first and second guard shift before the vortex Sortilege, while Bob and I were talking, we had kept half an eye on what was going on.
We assumed Dan was stretching. He was in very bad shape and kept pushing himself without recovering. Every muscle of his was about as sore as they could get. He would stretch all the time.
He’d hold an arm in a weird position and grunt in pain. His vitals would show pain spiking for the duration of the stretch. We thought he was just being a huge wussy, but he was somehow clearing channels too.
And no, I have no other information on this.
Once the healing pill ran out, he continued meditating. He was gathering qi and converting it to mana pretty quickly even though he had that big pristine core. He didn’t use the beast cores. Just a good old-fashioned energy gathering technique.
At some point, he stood and tried shooting magma from his hand, but it only splattered out onto the ground in front of him. Then he forced his mana out of his hand until it formed a long, molten whip of magma he lashed against the Trial. He let that mana fall away and formed a decent small shield of magma. Then…
[He could somehow use advanced mana techniques at Origin tier? Similar ones to the Mana Whip and Hand Shield physical Orbments?]
Yes. He failed at shooting or spraying the magma out though. At first. He worked on manipulating his mana for a while. He got pretty good at shooting little balls of it and spraying it out. He had trouble making a sword for a while. He did okay with making a little short sword or large dagger. Longer blades would lose form and limp down.
Dan’s core was a quarter empty before he started meditating again. His skin and eyes looked a lot better after the healing pill. A bunch of the cuts and bruises healed up. It did wonders for his soreness too. His broken arm barely healed though. You probably know it would take three or so more of that quality pill to heal the break. Of course, once the break mended, it'd heal with the bones set poorly, and he'd have to take at least a few more to fix that issue.
He didn’t wait for his core to fill much. He started doing this thing I’ve never seen before. Some weird cycling technique, but mana was going from one hand to the other. Sometimes in a super thick line, sometimes in a really thin one. He was just cycling madly. Then he’d pause and meditate for a bit.
Finally, he got up, checked the time on the reader, and started heading back to the group near the Agility Trial.
----------------------------------------
Eight Years Ago
A man in a fine blue suit holding a leather weekender bag in his right hand knocked on the Malick residence’s door in Harney County, Oregon. The man had an athletic figure, an expensive haircut, and a fancy watch that reflected the sun’s rays onto his artificially tanned face as he knocked.
After a minute with no call or answer, the man rang the doorbell. A woman yelled out, “One minute.”
The man waited patiently, never setting the heavy weekender bag down. A couple minutes later a woman in her fifties wearing an apron opened the door. Her face flashed surprise for a moment before smiling politely. “Can I help you? I’m guessing you’re from the bank, dressed all fancy like that.”
The man smiled back at the woman. “Mrs. Malick?” After she nodded, he said, “No, I’m not from the bank, ma’am. Is your husband home? If I could, I’d like to talk to the both of you about your daughter.”
Mrs. Malick’s smile disappeared as her face creased with worry. “Sara? Is she okay?”
The man dipped his head and said, “She’s not in any trouble, ma’am. I just have a few questions for you both. Any chance I could talk to you and your husband together?”
Still worried, Mrs. Malick hurriedly invited the man in and sat him at the dining table as she went outside to fetch her husband. A few minutes later, she re-entered the house with a man wearing a heavy jacket, worn boots, and a John Deere hat.
The stranger stood and smiled and shook Mr. Malick’s hand. The husband said, “Frank Malick. My wife said she never got your name.”
The man said, “She didn’t. Did she tell you this was about your daughter?”
“Yeah. Have a seat. Now what’s this all about? Is she okay? Is she in some kind of trouble? What was your name again?” Frank took a seat across from the well-dressed man. His wife worriedly stood behind him, her hands on his shoulders.
The man bent down and unlatched his weekender bag. His hand gripped long and dark hair. He pulled the severed head of a young woman out of the bag and placed it on the table.
Mrs. Malick let out a horrific scream. Her husband stood up furiously, his hand going to the Leatherman he kept on his belt.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Frank,” said the man as he removed an Osprey .45 with a suppressor from his jacket. “Not if you want your wife and son to live through this. Ralph, right? Lives up in Gresham with your two grandkids.”
Pain seized Frank’s chest. He put his hand on the table to prop himself up and closed his eyes to avoid looking at his daughter’s head. His wife continued to scream behind him.
“The Key, Frank. Give me…will you shut her up. Before I do.”
Frank turned to his wife and tried to comfort her. She pulled away from his touch as if he were diseased. “Mary, please!”
Mary continued to scream but finally let her husband wrap his arms around her. She dug her face into his shoulder.
“Is this about drugs,” asked Mary between sobs. “Are you growing drugs, Frank? Was it you? Was it drugs? Did you get Sara killed?”
“No,” replied Frank, holding his wife tight, trying to comfort her.
Mary began to cry loudly again.
“Okay. Enough of this,” said the man, pushing his seat back. His appearance changed as he stood, and he grew much taller. The horns didn’t grow out of his head, they just seemed like they always should’ve been there. Same with the giant leathery wings on his back, his red skin, and the forked tail that snaked around behind him.
Mary stopped sobbing. With an emotionless face and blank stare, she sat down.
“God help me,” said Frank, staring at the man across the table from him in horror. “What’d you do to my wife? Are you the devil?”
The monster smiled. “A devil. Not the one you mean. He’s an angel anyway. Call me Mystozagan.”
“Why’d you kill my daughter,” asked Frank, his hate-filled eyes boring into the devil.
“Oh, I think you know why, Frank. I was surprised at how freaky she was. Surprised such a whore grew up here in the middle of nowhere. Whatever happened to small-town values, Frank? The Key. Get it, or I’ll make you watch me do to Mary what I did to Sara. If that doesn’t work, we’re taking a ride to see Ralph and the grandkids.”
“What key? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Don’t play stupid, Frank. The Key your grandfather brought with him when he immigrated. The Key to the Sphinx.”
“What? My grandpa? A key? I don’t know about no damn key. Can you put my…for the love of God, man, just take Sara off…just…put it back in your bag.”
Mary, stone faced, stood up and removed her apron. “What are you doing, Mary,” asked her husband as she started unbuttoning her blouse.
“You can stop this at any time, Frank. Bring me the Key. The Game is already long overdue. I smelled the Key on Sara. I smell it on you. I smell it here.”
“Just…just stop,” stammered Frank. “Enough. If it’s here, you can have it. Stop.”
Mary stopped unbuttoning her blouse and sat down.
“It’s…I thought he was crazy,” said Frank. “Pa did too. When Grandpa talked about some sort of purge every ten thousand years or something. Resetting us. Human civilization.”
The devil laughed. “That comes after you lose the Game again. And it’s more like every 12 thousand of your years. This’ll be Earth’s second. It’s long overdue because of your traitor grandfather. They’re already finding things they shouldn’t in Turkey and elsewhere. Nothing helpful. Just things we missed after our last win and the Scouring.”
“I don’t remember him saying nothing about no damned key,” said Frank. “If it’s here, it’s with all his stuff in the attic. I…we can go up and look through his stuff. Just leave my wife alone and you can have it.”