Immediately in front of Jeff stood a hulking, fur-covered ape-like man, towering at eight feet tall. His massive nose and pendulous earlobes gave him an imposing appearance, further accentuated by the giant cudgel gripped in his hand—a weapon that gave off a potent, powerful aura. The giant was clad in a medieval-style smock, cinched at the waist, with a wide leather belt adorned with glowing runes. Despite his brutish features, there was a sharp glint of intelligence in his eyes and a calm demeanor that softened his fearsome presence.
The System identified the Sasquatch as Bernard, and Jeff found himself warming to the creature immediately. After striking up a conversation, he found Bernard to be a mine of useful information about their current predicament.
NAME: Bernard Ch’Aranastik
RACE: Effsiks Sasquatch, Grade J
HIT POINTS (HP): 60/60
MANA POINTS (MP): 30/30
REWARD: 230 Coins
Total Attribute Points (TAP): 76
“System Blessings upon you,” Bernard greeted in a booming but friendly voice, peering down at Jeff curiously. “I am unable to identify your species, little friend. Are you newly arrived in the System-universe?
Jeff was grateful to the giant ape for making the effort to be friendly, relieved to find that not all harbored hostility like the Tawg. Through their ensuing conversation, Bernard confirmed his suspicions about the composition of the crowd of Contestants. Roughly half of the assembled crowd were long-time System dwellers, while the others, like Jeff and Fracta, were fresh arrivals—noobs in every sense.
As the System-universe expanded ever onwards through the Multiverse, mundane universes like Jeff’s were inevitably consumed on a daily basis, their inhabitants joining the vast and varied populations scattered across the Outer Fringes. Some even said that the multiverse itself was an artificial creation of the ‘Makers,’ an ancient race of aliens. The theory went that Jeff’s universe, and all the others were simply fuel for the System’s continual expansion. Jeff continued quizzing the Sasquatch and learned another interesting fact. According to Bernard, time itself functioned differently within the System. The closer you travelled to its center, the faster time moved.
“The Old Masters of the Outer Core live a thousand mortal lifetimes in the blink of an eye, little man,” Bernard intoned, his voice choked with religious zeal. As he spoke, he lifted his head up to a point in the sky, eyes glazing over as if in worship.
Bernard’s long pendulous earlobes swung back and forth rhythmically like twin metronomes as he chanted what was obviously some form of prayer.
“At the Omega Point, there can be only one…At the Omega Point, there can be only one…
At the Omega Point, there can be only one…”
Jeff stared, mesmerized by the strange creature and his odd ritual. Around them, other System dwellers dotting the queue took up the refrain, their voices merging together as they all chanted with ecstatic fervor.
“At the Omega Point, there can be only one…”
Jeff, Fracta and the other newcomers to the System-universe looked on, bemused, exchanging bewildered glances.
After Bernard’s had finished his observations and the chanting had died down, the queue resumed its slow forward progress. Jeff spent the next hour quizzing him for more information about the System, his religious beliefs and the Tournament itself.
Bernard explained he was required by his faith to recite a prayer at a certain time each day, always while facing the center of the System-universe. The ritual was more than just empty words—according to Bernard, something called ‘Faith-energy’ was generated in the process. This energy could be allocated to any number of powerful entities, inhabiting the Core. He chose to allocate his Faith-energy to his personal deity, Abgernath, a primordial being from whom, Bernard believed, all Sasquatches were descended. In return, this ‘god’ provided certain benefits to its followers, though Bernard was deliberately vague about the details.
“Abgernath watches over me,” he declared solemnly, voice heavy with conviction. “I feel his presence even now, guiding my steps. In my time of need, the Master will be my salvation…as long as I continue to strive for perfection by following the catechisms, honoring the ashes of my ancestors, ever aiming for the Omega Point.”
Though further conversation with Bernard, Jeff managed to piece together some of the Sasquatch's history. Bernard’s people had once—perhaps more than once—been a respected member-race of the System, only to be cast out long ago due to internecine politics. The furred giant’s people, over the eons, had teetered on the verge of qualifying for membership within the System’s so-called Community of Equals—occasionally gaining a foothold before being cast out once again. Expelled to the Outer Fringes, where, as Bernard put it ‘time ground slow’ they had been forced to struggle for survival ever since. Now Bernard found himself competing in the Tournament to save his species from extinction.
“For millions of years we have struggled and fought,” Bernard said, his voice heavy with the burden of history. “Our people strive to survive… but then BANG! We get knocked down again.”
There was a deep, almost supernatural fatalism in his tone.
Although Bernard was relatively knowledgeable about their current situation, his alien thought patterns and the rigid constraints of his esoteric religion gave him a fatalistic air. His strange belief system contained over ten thousand commandments, dictating every conceivable choice of action.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“The Effsiks race is much weakened,” Bernard added sadly, almost whispering, his eyes still fixed on that distant point in the sky. “And a new evil rises in the center…”
With a sigh, the huge yeti-like being turned his face towards Jeff.
“Well met, little man, well met.” Bernard grunted, squeezing Jeff’s hand in a giant paw.
Jeff turned his attention to the Contestant further along the line, a tall young woman with striking features resembling a human emo/goth girl, complete with dark eyes and jet-black hair. Her extremely pale, almost translucent skin accentuated her outlandish look, further accentuated by the strange black figure-hugging outfit she wore. On closer examination, what had at first appeared to be heavy makeup was actually naturally occurring black lips and fingernails.
NAME: Wenwyn
RACE: Quiquene, Grade J
HIT POINTS (HP): 70/70
MANA POINTS (MP): 40/50
REWARD: 230 Coins
Total Attribute Points (TAP): 86
Jeff studied the woman, mentally tagging her as “the Goth girl,” appreciating her black, skintight clothing that left little to the imagination. However, he noticed that although she was attractive, her proportions seemed slightly off—something about the ratio of her collarbone to the length of her arms gave her a gangly, overly slender appearance.
Suddenly, aware of his attention, Wenwyn’s skin flared a brilliant red, while her hair and fingernails turning a deep mauve. Jeff was stunned to realize that what he had assumed was a tight bodysuit was actually her skin; the woman was completely naked, with the ability to change the color of her body at will.
Wenwyn, in turn, studied him frankly, eying his ripped physique, her gaze traveling the length of his body.
“Strange…” she murmured, “almost Quiquene, but not quite…”
Wenwyn’s people, much like Bernard’s, had prior knowledge of the System-universe. According to their legends, they had once served as a client race to the Autochs. But after becoming collateral damage during a genocidal conflict—known to them as the Cataclysm—they were exiled to the fringes of the System, their home planet expelled by a massive, destructive explosion. Like the Effsiks, it had taken Wenwyn’s people millennia to claw their way back from the brink of extinction. They had preserved fragments of myth and lore, but nothing useful regarding the preliminary rounds of the Tournament.
“The consensus amongst academics and historians is that the next few rounds of the Tournament will test our strength in many ways. Just exactly how, we do not know…” Bernard grunted in agreement, but had no further detail to add.
Both Bernard and Wenwyn had chosen to exit the training environment earlier than Jeff and Fracta, driven by hunger and their AIs’ enticing promise of fine dining in Tantalus. However, they had discovered to their chagrin that cutting the training short gained them nothing. Instead, it resulted in a much longer and arduous journey to the mountain, leaving them stranded over a hundred miles further from their destination than Jeff had been.
Bernard and Wenwyn had met up along the way, and through a series of shared adventures—fighting off rogue Contestants and battling hostile fauna—they had obviously forged a strong bond.
Fracta meanwhile had attempted to engage with two more people who arrived after them, but had no other useful information to report.
A common preoccupation amongst all of the Tournament Contestants was the subject of food.
“I’m so hungry. I can’t think straight…do they mean to starve us?” Wenwyn moaned in a voice tinged with desperation.
Bernard’s stomach emitted a loud, grumbling sound, as if in sympathy with her words.
Jeff thought a moment, then took out the Ahud nut he had received from the NPC King. With a swift blow of his sword he sliced the nut in half. Storing one half, he broke the remaining portion into several small pieces and handed them out to his newfound companions. Bernard and Wenwyn, who looked pale and drained from their lack of nourishment, were extremely grateful for the gesture.
“By Fulgar’s Mighty Blade, that is most kind of you, Jeff!” Wenwyn said, between mouthfuls of the creamy nut.
As they got closer to the head of the queue, word filtered back down the line that there were two possible ways to reach the top of the mountain. Either climb a staircase cut into the rock face, or pay a hefty fee to facilitate a speedier ascent.
The pair rounded an obscuring rock and saw that ahead of them there was some sort of toll booth set up at the base of the stairs. The people at the head of the queue seemed to be entering into a discussion or haggling with the occupant of the booth, before moving on up the mountain.
Eventually their turn came.
Leaning out through a hatch in the simple wooden booth was another horned Ejdar. The small red, gnomish creature had a bulbous nose, pointed ears that seemed too large for its head, and wiry black hair. His eyes were a piercing shade of magenta, staring impassively at them as they approached.
NAME: Mahalath
RACE: Ejdar
Grade: H
HIT POINTS (HP): Hidden
MANA POINTS (MP): Hidden
REWARD: Hidden
"Evening," he grunted at them as they approached, despite the fact that the star-flower was still directly overhead, hanging in the exact same position it had been at when they first set foot on the planet. Jeff squinted at the stellar construct briefly, noting that two of the petals seemed to have dimmed their output. The yellowish light had darkened to a darker umber shade. Come to mention it, the temperature seemed to have dropped slightly.
"Fastpass, get your fastpass here," rasped the impish creature, waving a book of paper tickets above its head.
Jeff and Fracta approached the booth and got a good look at the staircase for the first time. Now that they were up close, they saw that there were actually two staircases next to each other, both climbing in a spiraling path around the mountain to the mist-shrouded summit. One was a rough-hewn stone staircase, seemingly cut out of the living rock of the mountain. Next to it, separated by a yellow hazy force field of some type, was an escalator, a sleek futuristic moving staircase which looked strangely out of place next to the stone steps.
Jeff peered up the dual sets of stairs and conferred briefly with Fracta, Bernard and Wenwyn—by the speed at which the moving stairs proceeded up the mountain, using them would probably reduce the journey time to the top by a factor of at least five. Jeff had already made up his mind to stick with Fracta for the time being, feeling that they had worked well together in a combat situation.
“There is always more than one path to the top of a mountain,” Bernard said cryptically. Jeff was certain he was speaking both metaphorically and literally.
"How much for a ticket?" Jeff inquired of the red-skinned Ejdar, taking the lead in the exchange. Fracta watched on, confused by the whole concept of free-market capitalism and the exchange of tokens for goods and services.
"500 coins each," the Ejdar rasped, a greedy glint appearing in its eyes.
That was more money than Jeff had in his possession, although through conversation with Fracta, he knew she had over 600 coins. Suspiciously, Jeff knew that their combined balance would be just enough for two tickets, but they would be cleaned out. Jeff couldn’t help but wonder if the price of the ticket was somehow means-tested; had the Ejdar adjusted the price knowing the sum total of their combined coins?
Jeff asked Fracta her opinion. "What do you think? Spend all our funds or climb the mountain the old-fashioned way?”
Fracta deliberated for a second. "Let's walk up. I’m not convinced the fastpass is worth it…"
Jeff also sensed a trick of some kind. Entering Tantalus with no funds seemed a tactical error to him. Plus, he wanted to grind some more and work on his stats, to try to get closer to leveling up before hitting the next stage of the Tournament.
The Ejdar cranked up his marketing a gear. "Bloodthirsty predators with razor-sharp claws and teeth are eager to feast on your entrails... They lurk in the shadows!" He ended the obviously rehearsed speech with a screech.
The dire warnings of the Ejdar grew fainter behind them as they continued past the booth and joined the line making their way up the rough hewn stone staircase.