Colt sat in the ‘Cyberpunk alley,’ or more specifically, one of the empty storage lockers inside of it. Over the last few days, he’d stashed a few things here—a stolen meal or two, some medical supplies. It was the backup plan if things went bad in the kitchen. He’d even thrown some towels in here, enough for a makeshift pillow if needed.
Other than that, it was a barren storage locker. That, and the marks on the walls. Countless marks. Tests from his Edict. Which was the main reason Colt had decided to come here today, somewhere safe, somewhere far away from the kitchen and prying eyes.
Since coming to the dungeon, it had been all exploring and leveling. Now that the kobold tide had dried to a small trickle,
By the day, it seemed that the backup plan was rapidly becoming the main plan.
Whatever skill Bill was using had started to affect Nate and Sarah. Both of them were joking and getting along with Bill and Jimmy. More and more morning breakfasts had become full kitchen things—the spirit of collaboration, Bill called it. They were all in it with one another.
Colt had counted the days since he’d first become aware Bill was trying to mess with his head.
On day fifteen, they were planning group outings, which Colt declined, wanting to operate and gain levels independently.
“You should go back up Bill—if the two of you work together, you’ll find the way out,” Sarah said to him just yesterday.
It was a nice line—the kitchen coming together to conquer the big evil—but really, they had fallen under the grip of a new tyrant. One who was slowly tightening his iron hold on them, pulling them closer and closer in his hands. Eventually, Colt suspected, he would wring the life out of them if it meant letting himself survive even a day longer.
They were well aware of the supplies left. Cindy and Donny's early death extended their survival time, but it was limited when split six ways.
With how fruitless the search for the Boss had been so far, Colt was watching closely. Making sure that neither Nate nor Sarah went off alone with Logan and Bill since two others never returned from that particular trip.
Colt rubbed his eyes, his legs crossed.
“Focus.” He muttered and tried to clear his head.
Meditation. That was the name of the game, and out here was the ideal place to do it. No distractions, no worrying about the kitchen and the people in it. Just him, tucked away inside a storage unit hidden in the maze.
Nobody knew where he was.
There was nothing here to worry about.
Colt had heard about meditation, as had most people. They said it was good for mental health and somehow made you live longer, yada yada. It was kind of hard to focus on the videos of a man or woman who had their life together telling him to drop everything in his life and focus on his breathing when his life was a garbage fire.
Truthfully, he never bought into the idea that meditation did anything for you and thought it was a waste of time.
It was a fitting punishment then that he’d picked the class that forced him to meditate.
Colt hummed to himself like those monks did in those documentaries.
Again, nothing.
He tried focusing on this breath and just got annoyed.
This was a waste of time.
If only he could cut through this bullshit the way he’d cleaved through those kobolds; a knife was much easier to handle and progress than this vague conceptual nonsense.
Cut.
As his mind wandered over fighting the kobolds and using the edict, he found a latch point. The act of cutting, of his blade severing. Cleaving… There was a connection there. His awareness expanded, stretching to the knife stored in his Soul. The edge to it, the way he knew that if he summoned the weapon, it could bring out that invisible line.
What was that invisible line?
What was an Edict?
Cut.
He could picture himself. How many times had he done just that in his life, felt a knife slip through an object and split it in half? Dice, chop, mince. All of it was the same motion, the same result. An act which divided.
As he focused and felt the meaning of it, he felt his connection to that invisible line increase and build. It was in him, twisting in his soul. At his direction, the loose thread slowly wound tighter, with more threads to make a string.
He focused on the Edict, little by little, and as he did, he fell deeper and deeper into the trance.
His thoughts were consumed, and he felt the Edict strengthening. It was like winding threads together and weaving them tighter, closer to making a string, or, more accurately, in this case, like sharpening a dull knife, one that he felt might be able to cut through anything.
———
*Meditate* (Basic) has gained a level!
*Meditate* (Basic) has gained a level!
*Meditate* (Basic) has gained a level!
———
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Colt blinked, his eyes filled with notifications that had appeared out of nowhere—only interrupted by his stomach rumbling. It felt like a deep, empty pit inside as if a whole day had gone by without any food.
With a grimace, he dove into the packed-away food and filled the urge. Simple stuff: apples—some remaining bread, about a few days from going bad. Enough to fill his stomach and make his body stop screaming about starvation.
The immediate problem settled, and Colt got to his feet and faced one of the walls. Countless marks on it from where he cut. Like tallies on a prison wall saying how many days the inmate had been stuck there.
With narrowed eyes, Colt focused on that string and his Edict and let loose another cut.
As it hit the wall, he felt resistance—harder than the Kobolds, harder than Jack. A bead of sweat collected on his brow, but he let it continue, digging into the concrete surface until it eventually stopped.
When he stepped back, there was an obvious difference.
This cut went deeper than all the others.
“Ah,” Colt said, folding his arms, letting his soul recharge.
Then he made another cut, and it matched the first. Just about as deep before he ran out of juice—and the two of them had to be at least twice as deep as the others.
Meditation, it seemed, was the key to furthering his Edict’s powers. Whether it was gaining levels in it or… No, that didn’t feel right.
Colt felt his connection to the Edict inside when he focused. Felt those strings of understanding starting to form around one another. It wasn’t so much the skill leveling up as it was his grasp on what it meant to cut deepened. Strengthening his Edict required focus and cultivation of the concept.
The only concerning part was how hungry it’d made him. It felt like blinking or falling into a sleep.
Not for the first time, he wished he’d worn a watch when coming into the dungeon.
Colt took a look around and then shrugged.
Today, he would keep at this until he needed to sleep, head back to the Kitchen, call it a day, and focus on exploration. The last few times he’d re-tread ground in this labyrinth, he’d noticed kobolds tended to show up in the medieval section more often than the others, if they could be found at all. And after it tickled his brain, he knew maybe, if anywhere, something was missing there he couldn’t piece together.
Colt closed his eyes and then focused, once more falling into the same trance as before. Letting time slip by.
Falling into a state of focus this time proved a lot easier now that he knew what to focus his efforts on. The feel of a knife in his hand, the sharpness of its blade—the images and thoughts swirled, forming another thread to join the others, slowly wrapping around one another.
Tightening, sharpening.
Colt fell into a blackness.
The next thing he knew, he was on the floor, sprawled out, hungry again, with his head on the floor, and another notification was flooding his vision.
———
*Meditate* (Basic) has gained a level!
———
“God,” Colt muttered, rubbing at his eyes and getting rid of the crust. His head ached, and his whole body was more sore than usual. Sleeping on bare concrete. “I passed out,” he shook his head, stunned.
Meditation was dangerous, it seemed, at least for now. His control over it was so bare minimum. Yet, as before, he felt closer to understanding his edict and what it was. And after eating again, he tested it.
The cut went another inch deeper into the wall.
“Edict Carving in the most literal sense,” Colt mused, and then let his knife slip back into the space within his soul. Well, it confirmed it, too. His sense of time was completely gone when meditating. He went through some light stretches, opened the shutter to his little hideout, and returned to the dungeon.
It was a long, quiet trek through the endless alleys back to the kitchen.
He almost missed the abundance of kobolds and rats. When they had been here in full force, it had been more dangerous, sure. But there was a sense of life. Now, going it alone and without seeing anything… It was unnerving. The shadows. The grinning moon always overlooking from above: the turns, the twists, and the alleys. It was lonely and desolate.
If they didn’t find the boss, these endless streets would be all that remained.
That, then later, starvation and death. Going out at the hands of an endless wave of monsters almost seemed preferable to the loneliness and isolation.
It made him wonder, and that wondering in his head was worse than dealing with the reality in front of him. As he treads down the empty streets past a stairway that led to nowhere in particular, he wondered again, thinking of his half-brother, his mother, and his little sister.
Where were they in all this? Some other endless alley like he and his kitchen? Some other dungeon?
He wanted to care, but then, caring was an avenue to feel things he didn’t need to feel.
Keep it simple.
Focused.
After too long on his own, Colt arrived back at the Nashville alley and then, in short order, back to the kitchen door. He threw it open.
Jimmy was in there, alone,
“Colt!” He yelled out in surprise.
“Jimmy?” Colt asked, striding in and taking a look around. Much the same as when he’d left. Disorganized, with everything now a mess, they gave up the pretense of being an operating restaurant. Though, he noticed that his pile of things had been rifled through. Even the bed of towels that made up his sleeping spot was gone.
“Oh, thank God you’re alive,” Jimmy said, rushing over and looking Colt up and down. I thought you were dead.”
“Well, considering the biggest threat is a couple of kobolds about once a day, that isn’t that likely. We don’t know what might be hiding out there, but I would’ve come for some backup if I found the boss.” Colt said, though, at this rate… He wasn’t sure if that would be the brightest idea. He’d probably have tried the boss on his own.
No need to tell Jimmy that, though.
“Oh—the kobolds.” Jimmy drew back and looked left and right. “Yeah—no the monsters.”
“You weren’t worried about the monsters getting me.” Colt crossed his arms, frowned as he said the obvious, and then let the silence linger.
He saw it then, the indecision on Jimmy’s face. They were alone now. Bill and everyone else are gone. Everyone else being Nate, Sarah, Logan, and of course… Bill.
Jimmy wasn’t saying anything. Though, there was clear fear in his eyes. That spoke enough for Colt.
“Jimmy, where is everyone else?” Colt had a sinking feeling in his gut. If Jimmy was worried that he went missing, it was clearly for a reason. And he was starting to suspect that reason was a certain convict and his cancerous plans.
“Well, Bill said you were gone—and that we had to start working together if the rest of us wanted to live. He talked them into splitting up to try working as a team—him and Sarah as one team, Nate and Logan as the other…”
“Why did he leave you here alone?”
Jimmy backed away, cowering in a corner.
“Jimmy?”
“…D-donny didn’t get killed by a Kobold, Colt.”
Colt felt a chill run down his back. In those dark hours at night sleeping in the kitchen, when he felt the push on his psyche of something trying to worm its way in, he’d had thoughts like this. Nightmares about this. “Then how did he die?”
“B-bill.” Jimmy finally said after too long.
Why is he admitting this now? Colt narrowed his eyes, then ran an inspect on Jimmy. It was all much the same.
Except, at the bottom of his skills…
Mental Resistance [Uncommon] - Level 1
Jimmy had gained a new skill.
“Where did Bill take Sarah?”