Shield courses down my shoulder and into the ghost quarter. I push off with one foot as best as I can, then toss the coin at the ground between me and whatever’s about to eat me whole. It blinks twice before spreading into a barrier of magical energy that I really hope can support my weight.
My foot slams down on it, sending hairline cracks through the projection. They spread quickly, but not fast enough that I can’t do anything about it. Two more coins fly off my thumb, one higher than the other, and I slam them against the back of my hand with barely a thought at the sensations that allow me to call them right.
“Heads, tails!” I say in succession, then send two more shields into the coins. I toss one of them away without a second thought.
It flies a handful of feet before crackling to live in midair, just out of reach of the thing’s ‘teeth’. I push off the shield as hard as possible, feel it shatter into nothing with the newfound pressure, and stumble onto the shield with the grace of a figure-skating walrus. It crashes into my stomach hard enough to steal my breath away, and the utter disorientation is almost enough to send me to an early grave.
Almost. I grit my teeth and toss another ghost quarter a few more feet away, clamber to my knees as my shield underfoot begins to crumble away, and launch myself to the next one. I land with a little more grace than the last one, but still end up flailing wildly to keep myself from falling.
Only then do I allow myself a glance back. Unlike a few seconds ago, the ring of teeth isn’t moving with me. It’s stopped exactly where I left my last set of footprints.
“Of course it’s sandworm rules.” I say to myself as I flip all the other ghost quarters, then use one of them to send another shield platform a few feet away. “But what did I do to draw it to me?”
It definitely would’ve gotten me in my sleep, since I’m the kind of sleeper that can’t stop tossing and turning. And I moved quite a lot last night after the message told me I wasn’t in the safe zone any more. So it had to be something I did today–either to trigger the rumbling, or during the rumbling to draw what I assume is a sandworm directly to me.
I try to theorize multiple different options, but my mind is inexorably drawn back to the image of that sapphire shovel falling into the sand. Even if that isn’t what triggered the thing under the sand, it had to be part of it.
Just as I’m about to ready another coin, the sand below ripples outward like stone striking a pond. I frown down at it and send out another shield to step to, then watch the strange ring of shards as it does absolutely nothing. For a whole thirty seconds and two more ghost quarters worth of shields.
Then another thirty seconds. And another. Slowly but surely, the thing is going to run me out of coins. So… why isn’t it doing anything?
“Sandworm rules.” I mutter as I toss a ghost quarter into the circle.
It sails safely over the shards, then impacts softly on the sand inside. All the collected black in the seashell-like shards explodes forth, creating a pillar of absurd magical power that shoves a horrific gust of rotten wind over me and throws me off my shield platform. I yelp in surprise as I go head over heels a few times, sand getting in my hair and hard impacts already starting to sting my wrists and ankles.
I stupidly tried to catch myself with every impact, and now that I’m sitting flat on my ass, I really wish I hadn’t. Because there’s a huge-ass hole in the beach where the shell-spikes had been a second ago, and a lot of glassy sand surrounding it. Wisps of silver-tinted energy dissipate in the wind, as if reminding me that the thing from a second ago wasn’t a horrible dream.
My breaths come faster and faster as the adrenaline starts to wear off.
“Holy shit, that could’ve been me.”
And it could still be me, if I don’t get off my ass and run… to… I look around in desperation for any kind of high ground. A rock. A tree. Just… something. But there’s absolutely nothing at all. The sand was my safe space from whatever dangers lurk in the water, but now they’re two different flavours of damned.
So… maybe I just can’t move at all. Maybe I have to stay here for two weeks. The ‘Arrive at the exit location’ part of the clear conditions could’ve been put there just to get me to move. To trick me into leaving safety. It seems like something a tutorial would do to get a rise out of me, but it also seems… way too dickish.
I wince and slowly get to my feet. The yawning pit stares at me as the last of the power dies out. Taking a quick peek to see if there’s anything at the bottom can’t be too dangerous now, right? The sand’s stopped shaking and I haven’t gotten any warning notifications. That has to mean something.
Right?
“Yeah. Right.” I tell myself as my curiosity wins out. My reluctance is still there, yelling at me to run as far and as fast as I can, but I ignore it with a dose of half-assed survival logic.
If the thing’s going to kill me, it doesn’t matter if I’m here or ten miles away. I’ve already seen that it can follow me from what I’m assuming are vibrations alone, so I might as well not stress the joints I just battered and abused in the fall.
I gulp and lean in as the edge of the pit gets ever closer. The sand all around it looks like it’s been flash fired into a five-inch wide glass rim. It’s been tinted black and silver with power, but only little remnants. Another reminder of the thing’s destructive power.
I lean in closer as my heart beats faster and my stomach threatens to jump into my throat. Then I just keep looking down. And down. And… down. So far down that the daylight turns to pure darkness, and I can’t even get an idea of how deep it actually goes.
Optional Quest Received: Investigate the Dark Below.
Potential Rewards: 300 Worth, ????, and ????.
To accept this quest, jump down.
“Nope. No way. Hell no. Well… I mean… maybe if I have more ghost quarters…” I pause and glance down at the tiny holes around me in the sand, then shake my head. “Who the hell am I kidding–this is literally the only hint I’ve gotten so far. The smart thing is to mark this place, explore the beach for a few days, and come back to it later.”
Quest acceptance window expires in: 0:59:13.
If you reject this quest, all future offerings of it will also be rejected.
…Or not. Looks like I’ve got an hour to get my hands on as many ghost quarters as my inventory can carry.
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I pull open my class card to check the time. Less than a minute.
“Cutting it real close here.” I sigh and close my card. “Gotta make a choice right now.”
All the ghost quarters are taking up way too much space in my inventory since I just found out they only stack to 50 per space, and that both the doubled and normal ones count as different things. 215 in total, fourty of which I pre-doubled. I’ve only got two free slots left, but the ghost quarters have so little real value that I’m not worried about tossing a few stacks if the need arises.
Sure, I probably could’ve dumped a bunch in my backpack, but it’s easier to get them out of my card. I can almost do it with just my mind, but I’m not quite there yet.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
I count down in my head and bite my lip. Eight seconds left. If I’m going to do this, this is the absolute last chance.
“Screw it.”
I snap an empowered ghost quarter filled with Shield into the hole, then jump down on top of it. A pale grey barrier stops me from plummeting into the depths, but the moment I shift even slightly, it starts to crack. After a few tense seconds the thing seems holds my weight well enough, but that doesn’t stop me from already tossing another ghost quarter a few feet lower and starting to drop down to it.
Quest Accepted: What Lies Below.
Something exists underneath the Seasky Shores.
It will continue hunting you at daybreak, growing in intensity every day unless you deal with it.
Objective: Identify, Locate, and Defeat the unknown monster.
Rewards: 300 Worth, two Stat Coins, and ????.
The light instantly blinks out above me. The glassy edges of the hole start to glow an eerie silver, basking everything in an ethereal light. It’s almost like the rest of the world doesn’t exist anymore–just me and the unfathomable depths.
“At least the rewards are good. Even if one of them’s still a bunch of question marks.” I shakily tell myself. “That one’s gotta be good, right?”
For a terrifyingly long time, the only sound is the crunch of ghost quarters and my own drawn-out breaths of effort. It doesn’t seem right, but every time I use a new shield, it feels like it’s a little more… real than the last. Stronger. More stable. What lasted a few seconds at most and cracked under my weight slowly becomes a stable platform that clearly tells me how long it’s got by how the colour drains out of it.
Thirty-two ghost quarters spent. My lips taste slightly of blood, and my mind pounds with encroaching dread. I wipe a cold sweat from my brow and glance up, but there’s absolutely nothing to see. The glassy hole only glows twenty feet above and below me, with the rest being complete darkness.
I gulp and shake my head to rid myself of my worries. It doesn’t really work, but I don’t have the freedom to dwell on possibilities. All I can do is keep going down.
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Seventy-two ghost quarters down. Freezing cold water spills over my tongue, bringing as much relief as it can given the situation. The shield under my feet is almost completely solid, cracking only slightly every second. As long as I don’t hit it in one place the thing can hold me for upwards of four minutes. Nowhere near long enough to actually catch my breath, but compared to the thirty second scramble it had been at the start?
I shake my head and laugh quietly.
“A hundred and fifty-ish more ghost quarters left.” I whisper. “If I run out…”
The sentence goes unfinished, but the sentiment lingers like smoke on a windless day. I take one last draw from my bottle and fish out an energy bar. If I’m going to fall to my death, I’m going to make the most inconvenient splat as possible.
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Spell ‘Shield’ efficiency and strength at maximum.
‘Shield’ mastered–evolutions available for purchase.
All details of spell available, though some may be hidden due to insufficient Mind.
I lean against the side of the hole and stare at the notification that had popped up with my latest cast. Shield had definitely been getting stronger with every cast–I could feel it–but there hadn’t been any popups telling me that. Maybe the spell only has one level, but as I cast it, the experience gained from casting it makes it more powerful. Or maybe it doesn’t have levels at all, and I was the one who had to get used to casting it.
Either way, I’ve got a little distraction to check out for a few minutes. I pull out my Class Card and tab over to my spells, and instantly, I notice a difference. Where ‘Projectile’ is written in dull grey, ‘Shield’ shimmers like molten gold–and there’s a little star on both sides of its name.
*Shield*
Create a flat barrier of magical energy that suspends itself in place. It shatters when it takes enough damage, ending the spell. If used by a spellcasting _________ ________ ___ ____________. If cast using Worth, can only be used with coins of value 1-5.
“I already know pretty much all of this, but knowing that I couldn’t use this thing with ghost quarters without my skill is scary.” I say as I scroll down, looking for more info. There isn’t any. “At least it had the decency to blank out the stuff it’s hiding from me. I… wait, what?”
The name of the spell slowly turns from molten gold to completely solid. A thin pearlescent outline stretches over it, and suddenly, the description changes.
Defensive Evolution: Towering Shield. Cost: 15 Worth.
Offensive Evolution: Bloodied Shield. Cost: 20 Worth.
Hybrid Evolution: Rampart Shield. Cost: 40 Worth.
Trade Off Evolution: Coinbound Shield. Cost: 1 Worth.
Two of those options are pretty damn obvious, even if pressing on them only brings up garbled redacted text. Towering shield probably makes my shields bigger and more resilient. Bloodied shield is a little more abstract, but it brings up an image of a bladed shield–or one with massive spikes. It probably lets me move it around more, too.
The other two, though….
“Rampart shield costs 40, which is equal to Bloodied plus Towering’s cost. So it’s probably a combination of the two, but maybe a little weaker because it’s more flexible? Or maybe not, since Worth’s so valuable.”
I drum my fingers against my forearm as I stare at the last one. It literally costs one Worth. And it calls itself a ‘trade off’. That’s the kind of thing that screams ‘trap’ at you with enough spittle to drown a fish. Unfortunately, it’s also written in a different colour than the other three. The colour of Fate.
“Maybe once I hit solid ground, but not while I’m still falling.” I tell myself, even though I know damn well I’m going to pick the trade off evolution.
I stretch with a groan of effort, then pull out another handful of flipped ghost quarters to continue my descent.
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Clink.
The ghost quarter I’d just thrown bounces off something, skitters a few inches away, and blossoms into a shield. I stare at it for a few seconds, not quite processing what it actually means.
The bottom.
I bite back my excitement and tentatively lower one foot. The shield I’m on cracks just a little from the uneven weight. Then I feel it. Solid ground. I burst into a smile and let go all at once, letting my feet hit the ground with a hollow reverberation that travels up my legs and dies out in my knees.
All at once, a section of the darkness disappears. Dim firelight flickers from down a roughly hewn tunnel that’s barely an inch taller than I am with grains of sand filtering down from above to pool on the ground like the drippings of condensation.
“Now that’s an invitation if I’ve ever seen one.”
I place my hand on the side of the tunnel and step into it without hesitation. It’s much rougher to the touch–like actual stone–but it’s also a little too warm. Like putting on gloves that someone else has been wearing for hours.
I quickly pull open my Class Card while I’ve got a second of respite and press on the ‘coinbound shield’ evolution. The system takes one Worth for its troubles, and in a flash, the name of my spell changes. And goes right back to being a dull grey colour with no real explanation.
“Okay, so Mind is a lot more important than I thought.” I say as I put away my card. “Maybe I’ll focus on that right after Fate.”
The claustrophobic tunnel slowly bleeds out into a slightly larger one. I find myself clenching a ghost quarter between each of my fingers, shield and projectile at the tip of my mind for whatever decides to jump out and attack me.
After minutes of walking, nothing does. The tunnel breaches into a chamber the size of a hotel lobby with glassy rubble haphazardly strewn about. Slash marks and web-like impact cracks litter the entire place, giving off a vibe that some massive battle took place a while ago.
I bend down and inspect a piece of wood that looks exactly like driftwood, but that has somehow been cut into a perfect plank. Well, it would’ve been a perfect plank before something splintered half of it. Nothing’s rotting yet, though, so… maybe that means it’s new-ish?
“Hey, is something there?”
A quiet, almost scared voice cuts through the silence. I stay statue still, holding even my breath as little creaking noises come from across the cavern. Slowly and carefully I turn my head to face the source, then knit my eyebrows into a confused frown.
One thing somehow managed to escape the destruction–a tiny stand, like one of those roadside fruit vendors, made completely out of driftwood and fastened together with tiny seashell shards. There’s a sign on top that’s written in a language I can’t understand, but I can definitely understand the large ‘W’ with a line through it at the very end. There’s a little damage underneath the ‘W’, but otherwise, it’s completely pristine.
Where the things to sell would be placed instead lies a single strange, small seashell. It looks like a combination between a nautilus shell, a crown of thorns starfish, and one of those old clockwork gears. To top it all off, it shimmers terrifyingly similarly to the shell-shards that almost obliterated me an hour ago. A shiver runs down my spine as the quiet voice makes a little noise as if it was clearing its throat, coming unquestionably from the shell.
“Um… are you ignoring me? Or did I imagine you? …Oh, I hope I’m not hallucinating again.”