I watched and waited for the most opportune moment to use my Sortilege.
It doesn’t get dark in the Game, or not that dark. I think some of the participants had a hard time sleeping due to all the excitement and it being light out past dusk.
I had been meditating and accidentally drifted off to sleep myself. Keep in mind I had been working non-stop since early that morning. And for no overtime, may I add.
I awoke with a start. At the perfect time too. Dan was deep in REM sleep. Mac was sleeping on guard duty. It wasn’t really his fault. He had five kids, and one had recently fallen sick. He had stayed awake with his kid the whole night prior. He hadn’t slept much for weeks before that either, or that’s what he told Winston earlier anyway.
I paid the Veil cost and initiated my Sortilege. I prayed to Kobal and our Dark Master that it would be something good. There’s no way to tell what it’ll spawn. It could be great. For the tutorial area, great meant it could be something nasty up to peak Foundation, level 10, for semi-sapients, or early Copper levels for non-sapient beasts.
It could also be terrible. I think the bottom rung of terrible for that area is three level 0s, possibly level 1s. There’s a lot of rules on numbers and all that shit. I think there’s a scaling component, but I can’t be sure. It’s usually something okay, and almost never something great or terrible.
That day, our Dark Master heard my prayers. It was a really good one! Not the greatest, but better than what I was expecting.
Three decently powerful orekuns appeared near the Core Trial. About low Copper equivalent, so they wouldn’t have any invocations, but they’d have beast cores formed. Are you familiar with orekuns?
[No.]
I don’t know where they come from. They have a globular body encased in a shell of bony scales, tentacle-like antennae, a fanged mouth, one large eye with a glowing yellow pupil, crocodile-like limbs with three claws on each, a heavy tail covered with spiky scales, and a complete lack of any orifice of interest to me.
A few Trials in later areas have a lot of them. They’re very hard to kill without a decent offensive Orbment. There was no way those knives would pierce their scales. The eye is their weak spot for physical attacks, but they never make it an easy target.
I laughed as the beasts quickly skittered towards the group. Best of all, Dan was between the monsters and the rest of my team, and everyone was in a deep sleep.
Dan was still Level 0. His Soul-grade and his hotshot, fancy core were useless without a Class, mana-type, Orbments, or invocations.
The lead orekun went for Dan while the other two headed for the rest of the group 50 meters or so past him.
The orekun lunged its maw at Dan’s sleeping form. I became filled with giddiness and glee. Those feelings were replaced by anger as Dan rolled over and slammed his knife so hard into the eye of the orekun that its head banged off the ground.
Dan didn’t even pause for a moment. He let out a scream to warn the others as he got up and ran. One orekun turned around and headed back towards him and the other one continued towards the group, half of which were still sleeping.
Dan and the orekun charged at one another. At the last moment, the monster reared up and slashed with its claws.
Dan jumped up and grabbed around its head to keep its maw from chomping him. They grappled for a couple seconds before he was able to slide his knife into the eye. He still got slashed up pretty good. Dan was up and running the second both he and the beast’s corpse hit the ground.
I think Mac felt guilty for falling asleep during guard duty. He had no weapon but still intercepted the orekun before it could get at anyone else. He was quickly marked up by claw slashes, but he still wrestled with the thing, offering his forearm to its mouth to protect his more important parts.
Nick reached the monster and was futilely trying to stab through its scales with his knife. Ace joined in a moment later from the other side. Chet got behind it and stabbed it with a spear he had made from a branch earlier.
The spear broke and Chet was sent flying away by a tail swipe. The tail next took out Nick’s legs and sent him to the ground yelling out in pain.
The orekun thrashed its head side to side trying to rip Mac’s arm off. The arm stayed on, but Mac was tossed around like an idea in a brainstorm session and ended up on the ground. It released the arm and went to chomp on something better.
Ace slammed his whole body into the creature to prevent that outcome. The only reward for his brave act was a spiky tail to his back that smacked him a good distance away, and the beast still got its mouth around Mac’s head.
Carlos, Luke, Winston, and Leena were throwing rocks and sticks at the monster, but other than that, they kept their distance. Nick, on the ground still, tried stabbing the thing’s side again, but he had to roll away from a tail strike as the monster began to chew on Mac’s head in earnest.
Then stupid fatty Dan the giant prick arrived. I probably don’t have to tell you what happened. But I will. He killed it. One powerful and accurate knife thrust right into the eye. He took a few more injuries though. He was marked up and bleeding pretty good, so my Sortilege wasn’t a total waste.
I told my dumb boss about that too. How Dan somehow knew to go right for the orekuns’ eye. She said the eye was a big and obvious target.
Mac was still alive. Carlos held Bonnie as Becky and Ace tried saving Mac. Dan went and bought a nice medical trauma kit that cost 10 fragments and the smallest bottle of 10 anti-toxin patches for 30 fragments.
[Where did all these fragments come from? Counting the 40 he spent on the food and blankets earlier, he’s at 80.]
Mostly the two Trials he had completed. SS-rating gives 54 commons, so 108 trash.
It only takes about a minute for purchased items to parachute down. When he had them, he ran to Mac.
Mac was already dead though, so Dan began to work on everyone else with injuries.
Austin had slept through the whole thing and was still sleeping.
Chet was lucky to be alive. He had taken three tail-spikes to his chest, and since he was little and scrawny, he had no meat protecting him. Amazingly, he was barely injured. I honestly thought he was dead. Each spike hit a rib. Just three small puncture wounds and bruised ribs. He was very lucky. In fact, he had the Lucky Trait.
From what I’ve seen, Lucky’s a decent Trait, but not a life saver. He had just gotten actually really lucky.
Nick had a bad enough puncture wound in his calf that he couldn’t put any weight on his leg. Ace’s back was injured but not too badly, and he played it down anyway.
Dan gave Nick, Ace, and Chet one anti-toxin patch each and put one on his own upper arm.
Everyone but Austin was awake with excitement, but no one was really talking, just listening to Carlos sing a lullaby to the Karen to calm her down.
Since the last orekun was killed while Dan was way too close to other participants, he got the inverse Lone Wolf bonus. Drastically reduced XP and it dropped no fragment at all. The other two dropped three and five apiece.
After collecting the other fragments and removing the three beast cores, Dan hauled Mac’s body off to where the other three in that area were. He then…
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
[Wait. Beasts dropped Orbment Fragments?]
They do. Everything in the Game can drop them. Remember, the goblins and other participants were level 0 and did too.
Dan went back to the tree he was sleeping at. He was almost asleep again when Becky walked up to him.
She said, “Let me get that first aid kit, please. I’ll take care of your wounds. Looks like you got some good ones,” as she walked up.
“I’m fine, thank you, ma’am."
Becky scoffed. “Ma’am? I’m younger than you are. And I’m a nurse. Let me get a look and we’ll see if they’re fine.”
Dan relented. He grabbed and handed Becky the medical trauma kit and took his shirt and undershirt off. As she inspected his injuries, she asked, “How old are you?”
“Uh, a year older than Nick.”
“Damn. So, 24? I got a year on you. Still, I’m not a ma’am yet even if I do got a kid. You got allergies?”
“Naw.”
“Well, you got a bad rash everywhere. And I mean everywhere.”
After she cleaned and wrapped some injuries, she said, “Not much of a talker, are you? My husband wasn’t neither. He died a couple years back. Only man I’ll ever love. My soulmate. He was in the military. Your brother said you was too.”
Dan grunted and said, “Kind of. I was in payroll.”
“Either way, thank you for your service.”
“No need. I did it for the college tuition.”
Becky laughed and said, “I got to admit something if we’re being truthful. I lied. I ain’t no nurse. I’m a CNA. But I’m going to school to become an LPN. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but you got a bunch of cuts I know need stitching. I don’t see nothing to numb you with in here. No aspirin or nothing. Plenty of needle and thread though.”
[What are those? CNA and LPN?]
I’m not sure what the acronyms stand for, but I think both positions are lower-rank nurse-types.
Anyway, If Dan was going to reply, he didn’t get the chance. Becky yelled out, “Aaah!” A moment later she said, “Sorry, my flip flop fell off and I stepped on something I thought was a giant insect. It was just a pinecone or something. I didn’t know I was coming here, so I didn’t dress for the occasion.”
Other than the flip flops, Becky was wearing short shorts and a hoodie that said Navy on the front. She was pretty tall for a female. Maybe five foot seven or eight. Dan was around six feet. Or 1.83 meters. I know I’m supposed to use meters, but since I did my Ethnological Observation in the US and my team uses the imperial system, that system’s stuck in my head. And I meant 183 centimeters. Whatever.
After a few moments, Becky said, “Well, guess I’ll take your silence as meaning, ‘Sure, Becky, go ahead and stitch me up, please.’ This’s probably going to hurt a ton so brace yourself.”
Dan kept his eyes on his daughter as she asked him why he killed her and why he didn’t love her. Not once did he wince as he was stitched up.
“Okay,” said Becky. “Done. I didn’t do half bad neither. Not to float my own boat, but I think I did better than you did on the other guys. In case you’re wondering, since the scrubs Ace is wearing are hard to miss, he’s a radiology tech so he knows less about seeing to wounds than I do.”
“Thank you, miss.”
“Jesus,” exclaimed Becky. “No need for the ma’am and miss stuff. Just call me Becky. And you’re welcome. Thank you for killing those monsters. I know me and Leena and the two boys are happy you did what you done. Bonnie’s too young to understand really, but she’s thankful too. Real shame about Mac. Real shame. He was a nice man. He said he had five kids.”
“Sorry I didn’t make it in time. Y’all should get some sleep. Same shifts. There shouldn’t be any more attacks like that for a while.”
Becky clicked her tongue and said, “That’d be nice but why you think that?”
“Just do.”
“Okay. I hope so too. Well, goodnight.”
Keep in mind, whenever more evidence popped up that Dan knew what he shouldn’t, even little things like what he just said to Becky, no matter how little, I messaged that dumb broad Zixy about it. I documented all of it.
Dan fell asleep listening to his daughter. A couple hours later he whipped his knife out and pointed it at that little punk-ass bitch Bonnie as she ran up to him smiling, holding out a flower. He quickly put the knife away and sat up with a loud groan.
“Thank you for fighting monsters,” said Bonnie, smiling and holding the flower out excitedly.
Dan just looked at the gift. “For you,” said Bonnie.
Dan finally took it and said, “Thanks.”
The girl’s stomach growled. Dan asked her, “You hungry? Your stomach okay?”
She patted her belly. “I don’t have a stomach. I have a tummy.” She held her sandaled foot out and said, “Look. Mommy painted my toes.”
“Looks like she did,” replied Dan.
Bonnie took off running back to her mother who was standing a distance away with Nick bracing himself on a big branch he was using as a crutch. They both smiled and waved.
Becky called out, “Don’t worry about guard duty. We took care of it so you could get some sleep.”
I could tell Dan was having a really hard time moving. His vitals showed he was in a ton of pain and extremely sore. He turned his back to Nick and Becky and began stretching, wincing as he did.
Nick hobbled up alone a few minutes later. “Man, that was some crazy shit last night. You ain’t looking so good. Just take it easy today. Rest up.”
“I’m fine. How’s the camera going?”
“You’re not fine. You got a lot of injuries.”
Dan twisted around and looked at his brother. “There ain’t no being nothing but alive or dead. Don’t let how easy it’s been so far fool you. Things are fixing to change right quick. And all y’all still got to get through these Trials here.”
Nick scoffed and said, “You do too, Danny. And how come it seems you know so much about this place?”
Dan ignored the question.
“Did you know Chet was accepted into MIT,” asked Nick. “You heard of MIT, right? It’s one of those fancy schools. He read through all the same stuff you done, and he don’t know half the stuff you do. That camera ain’t for purchase from the thing. Where’d you get it?”
“From where I got it.”
“I’m your brother, Danny. You can talk to me, you know?”
Dan winced as he continued to stretch. “I know. I will. Camera working?”
Nick sighed. “Not yet. You know none of us is in much shape to do these Trials if they’re as bad as you saying.”
“Y’all’ll do them as a group. Only a few can’t be done grouped up.”
“What’re you talking about?”
Dan winced loudly before saying, “Y’all are dropping the Lone Wolf Trait and forming two parties.”
“We can do that?”
“Yeah.”
Nick asked, “But why we doing that?”
“Because I said.”
Nick scoffed again. “It’s like that, is it? You ain’t dropping yours?”
“Naw.”
Nick threw his cigarette down and put it out with his injured foot before turning and leaving.
[Wait. I have a few more questions before you proceed. Are the beast cores normal beast cores? And what does XP do?]
They work as normal beast cores do, so I’ll go with yes. XP is fake qi. Participants can cash out banked XP from the Profile Reader. It comes in something like a beast core that can be cultivated.
[Are the beasts in the Game real?]
Yes. Ah…well, they’re clones. Real enough to have beast cores. I don’t know if you consider clones to be real or not. I’m not sure what my own beliefs are. That’s more of a philosophical question and I don’t feel I’m qualified to answer.
So, now that I’m thinking about it, I guess I spoke too soon when I said yes. I’m not sure at all now. Of anything. What is real? Am I even real? Oh, Light Bearer, our great Dark Master, help this lost demon find his way back to your light.
[Just…continue.]
You got it, Boss. In training, they said the sapient enemies are clones too. There’re real demons in the last area. Or will be eventually, after participants summon the champion. For this Game, it’s Asmodon the Lesser, Page to Duke Agares. Participants must kill him if they want to get to the next phase.
When this Game is successful and we win again, Duke Agares will offer to sponsor Asmodon’s membership in the Order of the Fly. That’s what the scuttlebutt says for the sponsor and champion of every Game. Who knows though? It’s not like anyone important ever visits this layer and tells us the truth of things.
You must’ve heard of Agares, right? He’s been a bigwig forever, but not like the high pantheon hotshots. Do you know him?
[What tier is Asmodon?]
I don’t know. I’ve never seen any of the sponsor’s champions. Every Game, once they think they’re ready, the remaining participants summon the champion. Except the champion doesn’t come. Only a couple hundred or so demons and devils do. I’ve seen that fight every Game, but I’ve never seen a champion.
[What tier are the demons and devils that come?]
No idea. I can only watch with my camera view, not feel them out or anything.
I’ve only seen the first two waves, and I've only seen the second wave twice. The first wave is usually just demons. The second wave is a mix of demons and devils.
I’ll tell you that the demons look nothing like the ones I’ve ever seen in real life. They always make quick work of the participants, and I’ve seen many, many thousands of powerful participants with 5-Star Classes in this fight.
[Understood. Next question - how much of your Veil had you spent at this time?]
Early morning the second day? Uh, I’m guessing a little over 20% but a good bit under 25%. The ghosts cost almost nothing. Most Trauma is relatively cheap. The three knife deals cost 2% each, so 6% right there. That’s the max I can do for those, and that deal can only be made during initiation. Sortilege costs 15% but each tech can only use it once in each area, though it resets every year. So does Veil.
Keep in mind, my regular share is lowered with my Veil expenditure, so I’m screwing myself when I use it. And it puts me at real risk too. Or could, If I use too much.
Since I mentioned Veil being reset every year, did you know that if participants last a year in the Game, the other side’s allowed to send their own techs to this building?
Some participants always last a year. The other side never sends any techs though. Not once. Not that I know of. And thank Kobal for that, especially this Game since I’m on their floor. Being surrounded by all those sissy prudes would be unendurable. I’d definitely have to fly a plane into something.
[Understood. Continue.]
Let’s see. Where was I? Nick walked away. Or hobbled away.
Dan got up and went on a run. He also climbed some rocks and did some other exercises. He was hurting badly. His muscles were about as sore as muscles can get. I’d hear him every now and then calling himself names to provide motivation. He once said, “Just push through and stop being a little bitch. Sore muscles ain’t nothing. There’s no quitting. It’s all on you. You can’t fail again.”