SARAH AVERY VASILIAS, GREAT HOUSE SCION, REBORN LVL 5

SOMEWHERE DEEP UNDER THE CATACLYSM MOUNTAINS, KILDARI FEDERATION

The first thing Sarah noticed was that reality seemed to have reasserted itself. The painterly effect and weird perspective shifting had completely gone, replaced by a sudden, novel mundanity. Voices echoed in the terminal as people talked and laughed. It smelled like…lots of people.

The second thing Sarah noticed were a few new System messages.

Attribute Increased!

System Message: Through diligent graft use and training, you have increased your Growth [Strength] Attribute by 2 points!

GRO [Strength] – 15 ->17

Achievement Gained!

Traveler of the Hidden Worlds

Description: You have physically traveled to one of the Hidden Worlds and returned unharmed.

Reward: Travel between the Hidden Worlds no longer causes any physical discomfort or disorientation.

Achievement Gained!

Dream Walker

Description: You have physically traveled to the Second World, known as the World of Dreams, and returned unharmed.

Reward: Arcana [Cybernetics] + 2

Quest

Earn a Star

Details: You have advanced your [Arcana] Attribute to 20 / 20. At your current rank of Reborn, you now have the opportunity to earn a star for your Attribute and gain Unique synergies for each graft associated with [Arcana].

Use your Arcana graft or grafts to defeat a Monster or Reborn of your same Rank in a life-or-death battle to earn your Star!

Rewards: Unique rarity Power Arm [Cybernetics] synergy

Accept?

Yes / No

Sarah accepted the Quest automatically, reading through the other notifications quickly. As soon as she did, they disappeared and Sarah felt reality seem to normalize all around her. Of course, her frame of reference for ‘normal’ right now was seriously fucked, she knew, but she’d have to adjust as best she could. The edges of odd little visual hallucinations of oddly warped space kept tugging at her attention, but she did her best to ignore them.

“Am I…actually here?” she asked out loud.

“Yeah, yer here,” Cricket’s voice rang out above the general din. She looked around and saw him lounging against a pillar nearby with another of his ever-smoking cigars clutched in one meaty hand. “Got here in record time, too. I told ya that gongk recipe I had was good.” He had another bottle of water in his hand, which he handed to her. “Drink the water though, gongk leaves ya with a mouth drier n’ a draakan’s cloaca!”

“What a…colorful metaphor,” Sarah muttered, but she drank the water.

She very carefully avoided looking up at the window because the effects of the gongk weren’t entirely gone. She kept getting little waves of it. Sarah put a hand to her temple as another surge of vertigo rolled through her. She clenched her teeth and practiced a breathing exercise Gammon had taught her, designed to help her concentrate under stress.

As she completed the exercise, she felt her anima respond to her will once more. It had been just spread in a random cloud while Sarah hadn’t concentrated on it, picking up various little sensory inputs and tiny surges of tensa. Now that she concentrated on it, she felt the jarring sensory effects suddenly stop. We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your problem, Sarah thought wryly, remembering a Douglas Adams quote.

It was jarring to see her natural skin color on one arm and the futuristic metals and plastics of her Power Arm after she’d almost gotten used to being in her Oni-Blooded form, though it was nice not to constantly be on the verge of white-hot rage. She decided to focus on the terminal instead, to learn as much as she could before Cricket got them moving again.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Hundreds of people were moving through a large, echoing space made of more of that deep blue stone. The ceiling arched overhead with fantastic murals of luscious jungle scenery and tropical flowers adorning the cathedral-like ceilings and walls. Bright lights glowed from various places in the walls and ceilings, incorporated into the artwork so that light suffused the space without obviously coming from anywhere.

The people themselves were a marvel. She saw mostly orcs—large humanoids with dark green skin and black hair. They tended toward muscular and wide, like football or rugby players back on Earth.

Amidst the orcs were figures robed entirely in swaths of dark cloth with their faces hidden behind veils. Sarah couldn’t figure out what kind of people they were, but they seemed to stick to one another. Maybe the robes were a religious thing?

Scattered here and there were larger people that Sarah immediately thought of as ogres because they were three and a half meters tall and so heavily muscled that they put professional bodybuilders to shame. They towered over even the biggest orc, and they seemed to delight in covering their huge bodies in tattoos. Most of these big guys carried huge guns or melee weapons easily in one or two hands, and their expressions reminded Sarah of soldiers on patrol: bored, but hyper-aware.

Little groups formed here and there for brief conversations or other interactions, but the general feeling was one of purposeful movement. Most of the people going in one direction tended to be heavily armored and armed (though this seemed to be the standard for pretty much everyone she saw), though not all, while the people going in the other direction had a more general mix of heavily armed and lightly armed people. She didn’t see any unarmed people walking through the area; they all seemed to have some kind of weapon prominently on display.

Cricket nudged her elbow and motioned for her to follow him down the stairs and into the crowd. “Keep up,” he said, “or yer gonna have a hard time explainin’ yerself to a buncha orcwallah who see an Imp with no minder.”

She nodded and hurried after him. They joined the crowd of generally less heavily armed people, and Sarah saw that they were headed toward a bank of doors that looked for all the world like elevators. Cricket and Sarah joined an elevator with several other orcs and one of the people she’d labeled ‘ogres’ in her head.

It was so bizarrely mundane, standing there in the elevator with a bunch of other people standing uncomfortably close to one another. Then she started noticing the looks the orcs in the elevator car were throwing her way. They looked like they had just realized that the worst criminal in the world had casually strolled within arm’s reach. Sarah formed her anima into a spiked shield weaponform, but she didn’t power it with tensa yet. She had no idea when it was going to turn ugly, but it was going to, soon.

Then the ogre ripped an enormous fart.

The fart was so loud, it echoed in the elevator car and Sarah felt it in her chest like the bass drop on a souped-up sound system. The ogre immediately burst out laughing uproariously. Everyone else was too busy gagging and trying to get some fresh air, and the elevator ride was not a quick one.

At least none of the orcs were looking at her now. The ogre was still laughing when he got out at the next stop, and the rest of them were forced to travel with the smell for the rest of the ride. The other orcs were happy to get out of the elevator as soon as they could, and soon enough, it was just Cricket, Sarah, and the lingering smell the ogre had left behind.

The ride continued for a minute longer with Sarah and Cricket silent and standing on opposite sides of the elevator car. The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open silently. Sarah missed the ding that she felt should’ve accompanied the arrival; somehow it didn’t quite feel like they’d arrived without it.

Cricket led the way into a small vestibule where there was another set of elevator doors opposite them, a floor-to-ceiling window on the wall to their left, and a set of ornately detailed metal doors on the right. Sarah followed Cricket out of the elevator, and the doors slid shut silently. The old orc didn’t immediately open the ornate doors but turned to her and looked her up and down critically.

“I guess yer as presentable as ya get. Ya don’t happen ta have somethin’ fancy in yer Infinite Inventory space, do ya?” He waved a hand as she hesitantly shook her head no. “Nevermind, nevermind. It don’t really matter. Now, yer about ta meet someone—”

“No,” Sarah interrupted, some of that anger sparking up once more, “you are not going to herd me into some important meeting with someone without giving me more than you have already.” She folded her arms in front of her, setting her jaw and raising her eyebrows challengingly.

Cricket grunted sourly and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window. The cigar he’d been smoking earlier had reappeared in his hand, and he started smoking it as he looked out the window. Sarah followed him and looked down at the landscape with him. They were hundreds of meters up on a mountain peak surrounded by bleak mountains. There was no life anywhere, just red rock and dirt. It was a sobering view.

“So…why’d you drug me? Is it a big secret that your home is in a fucking mountain? In the Cataclysm Mountains? Are you kidding me?” Sarah spat convulsively as another wave of rotten grapefruit taste washed through her mouth. “That shit is gross. And just who exactly am I about to talk to?”

“I gotta lotta reasons fer what I do,” Cricket growled. Sarah cocked an eyebrow and clenched her jaw, and Cricket sighed. “It’s gonna take a while fer me t’get used to this… Fine. This place is called Aadhrika—not the room, but this whole mountain. But it ain’t a mountain, it’s a Dungeon. And not just any Dungeon, but prolly the world’s oldest, deepest, most valuable Dungeon. We ain’t even begun to get into the mid-levels, and we’ve delved three hundred and twenty-nine levels down. Just knowin’ that… well, it’s a secret I’ve killed t’ protect before, and one I reckon I’ll kill to protect again. But that ain’t why ya had to take the gongk.”

He took another puff on his cigar and continued, “That shit’s the only way most folks’re ever gonna see the entrance, let alone be able to enter Aadhrika. Oh, there’s tons o’ entrances, but the main one’s only accessible from someone who’s got half a foot in the Second World, and gongk’s the best way to poke yer head in without actually bein’ there.” Cricket nudged her in the side with his elbow. “Plus, I got ta see the real you. The one inside. In the Second World, y’cain’t hide yer utunshit like ya do here. I ain’t never seen a graft like that before, but I like what it says about you, fer whatever that’s worth.”

Sarah stayed quiet for a while, considering his words. He throws around terms like ‘Dungeon’ and ‘Second World’ like I should know what they mean, she thought. And he’s still not answering all my questions. “So we’re inside a…Dungeon? Like, a prison?”

Cricket looked at her quizzically. “The fu—why’d ya…? I mean, where’d ya…? A fucken prison?!” He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What in the worlds do they teach ya in yer fancy Imp schools? I ain’t never seen a…”

Sarah punched him in the shortribs, temper flaring as she growled, “Stop treating me like I’m an idiot. You know I’m not from this world.”

He grinned. “Damn, ya learn fast. Huh, ‘pologize ‘bout that, I ain’t used to Imps bein’ very quick on the draw. I like the rage! It’s refreshing t’see some honest emotion from a human!” Another puff, another cloud of black smoke. “Aadhrika ain’t just what this Dungeon’s called—we’ll talk about what Dungeons are later, I promise—it’s her name. An’ that’s who yer gonna meet here in just a flick.”

“I’m going to meet Aadhrika. The Dungeon.” Sarah said. She shrugged. “Yeah, okay. That adds up. Let’s do it. Let’s meet the Dungeon.”

“Good. Let’s skedaddle.” Cricket turned away from the view and led the way to the big double doors with Sarah following. She rolled her shoulders back and forth and took several deep breaths. She formed her anima into the Master Sword’s weaponform, not infusing it, but just keeping the form in her mind, ready to hand.