The unnamed stood in the middle of the corridor, Tusk and Vella close behind.
“Do you recognize it?” Vella asked.
The unnamed nodded. “Yeah. This one’s gonna be about speed.”
He pointed toward the continuing corridor across the other side of the chamber.
“Everything in here is designed to slow you down. The key is to keep moving no matter what you see or hear.”
“Are there gonna be illusions?” Tusk asked.
“No. Well, sometimes. But they can be real too.”
He bent down, looking out over the floor. It was covered with stone tiles each with different markings sketched on their surface.
“Step on the wrong tile and you might get a burst of flame or ice. Some of them trigger traps and darts. I’ve only managed to get through this once and the only way I could to it was to run as fast as possible and stick to the tiles with this symbol here.”
He pointed down at the closest tile and a symbol which looked a little like a foot with wings to either side. Vella leaned in close, her shoulder brushing against his as she stared down at the symbol.
“If we all go together, whoever is at the back of the line will probably get the worst of it,” she said.
The unnamed nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. We need to go one at a time. I’m already at zero, so I’ll go first. If something goes wrong I’ll just reset anyway and try again, no harm done.”
“But you’re the one that needs to get points,” Vella protested. “Should you be trying to load up as quickly as possible. We’ve got points to spare.”
Tusk grunted. “I agree with Captain Clean. It’s the first room. If we lose a couple of minutes it’s no sweat, so better to use him first to scope it out and maybe in a couple of rooms we can change it up. Besides, he’s more experienced at this than us.”
The unnamed turned to face Tusk, frowning.
“Was that a complement I just heard coming out of your lips?”
The half-orc rolled his eyes.
“Whatever. Get going!”
The unnamed stepped back and took a few deep breaths. Once he was ready, he charged ahead as fast as his legs would carry him.
It had been four or five days since he’d come across this room originally, but the memory of running across the tiles was still fresh in his mind. As his boots slapped against the stone tiles, darts fired from the walls and fire burst up behind him here and there. Previous attempts had revealed that there was no safe path through the chamber. The only option was speed.
He ran, darting to the left and jumping from one tile to the next, shortening and lengthening his steps to make sure that he was always standing on the stones with the flying foot symbol. It was an odd way of running, never quite allowing him to get into a full sprint and occasionally requiring that he leap over a line of tiles to reach the next safe stone.
Traps were the big danger here. The fire he could leap over, and the darts were always released a split second after he stepped onto a tile, so as long as he kept moving he’d be fine there. If he put one foot wrong though, or slipped onto one of the other tiles, he could hit a trap. He’d done that twice when first trying to find a path through the chamber and it had hurt like hell.
Steel teeth had snapped around his ankle, biting into flesh and bone with such staggering force that he had buckled and fallen onto the floor. That, of course, had triggered two or three other tiles where his knees and hands impacted the ground, releasing a mix of acid, freezing ice, and a cluster of spear tips that shot up from beneath the floor and skewered his torso, ending his run with lethal precision.
All of those memories were banging around in his head as he ran toward the exit, eyes fixed on the floor as he leaped and sidestepped his way forwards. A strange kind of confidence came over him as he reached the final few feet, causing him to momentarily lose concentration and very nearly step on the wrong tile entirely.
He corrected just before his foot landed, managing to step on the right tile, but then careening forward into the safety of the corridor, falling headfirst and tumbling head over heels until he came to an ungainly stop. Panting, his chest heaving, he sat on the floor, turned to the others and gave them a thumbs-up gesture.
** CONGRATULATIONS! **
You’ve just received the Head of the Pack achievement for clearing your first Rat Run chamber in a live testing event ahead of anyone else.
That’s the spirit! Leave those deadbeat companions of yours behind. They can fend for themselves while you cover yourself in glory! I’m sure there won’t be any hard feelings.
Achievement Bonus: +1 Gloating
Keep adding gloating points and you’ll truly become insufferable!
Vella was the next to attempt the journey, running with such speed and agility that her feet barely seemed to touch the ground. She had no trouble at all jumping from tile to tile and leaping over the larger gaps. He couldn't be sure, but the unnamed thought that, several times, her feet didn't even press hard enough against the tile to trigger any consequences.
It was an approach he hadn't even thought possible, but the way Vella moved so quickly and lightly across the surface of the floor, it presented another possibility for clearing this chamber. Moving so lightly and fast that you didn’t trigger the inbuilt traps in the first place. The only problem with that was that he didn't know anyone as quick and light on their feet as Vella. Hob maybe, but that ginormous chip on his shoulder would probably weigh him down.
The unnamed chuckled at that thought as Vella cleared the room and stood beside him, not even breaking a sweat.
“That was kind of amazing,” he said, still breathing heavily from his own path through the chamber.
She threw him a smile and they turned their attention to Tusk who was readying himself, crouching low with the shield on one arm and sword in the other as though he intended to stab any of the traps or obstacles that got in his way.
If it was anyone else the unnamed would advise against trying to fight fire with the sword, but he'd seen Tusk fight, and the hulking half-orc was something else when it came to using weaponry. He was incredibly fierce in hand-to-hand combat but if you put a knife or sword or even a stick in his hand Tusk became a demon.
The half-orc ran forward with none of the precision Vella had shown, his boots thudding so loudly against the tile floor that it sounded to the unnamed as though he might crack the tiles with each footfall. Fire flared, traps were sprung, and at one stage a flurry of long darts shot from the side of the room, peppering tusks upheld shield. The thick-limbed half-orc continued regardless, charging ahead in leaps and bounds even though his feet triggered one or two traps each time he landed.
For someone so skilled at fighting Tusk was remarkably imprecise, moving like the proverbial bull in a china shop. He relied on a combination of strength and speed to push his way through the various obstacles that presented themselves, thundering into the corridor with a smile on his face and a broken trap clattering behind one heel. His skin was so thick that the tooth-like metal claws of the trap had failed to penetrate, and he simply shook the trap off and rolled his shoulders as though it were nothing at all.
“Easy,” the half-orc said, seemingly unaware of just how close to death he had come.
** CONGRATULATIONS! **
You’ve just received the Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork achievement for clearing your first Rat Run room in a live testing event with a team!
Well done! You finally went and found yourself some friends. You even decided not to ditch them. What a guy!
Achievement Bonus: +1 Shared Resolve
A portion of each team member’s total health is put into a pool which can be redistributed to keep team members alive during battle.
The unnamed was about to dismiss the announcement, when he read the bonus information.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
“Wow!” He said. “That could be pretty useful.”
Tusk and Vella shared a confused look as he went on.
“I just got a team bonus where some of our health is pooled and redistributed. It doesn’t say how much, but it could be useful I guess.”
“What?” Tusk asked.
“It came with my latest announcement. It’s a bonus that we should get from now on.”
Vella frowned. “What are you talking about? What announcements?”
The unnamed stared at them for a few seconds, before motioning to his collar.
“The ones that come up all the time from your collar. Every time you do something stupid or something good an achievement announcement pops up right in the middle of your HUD.”
Again, they stared at him blankly.
“Wait, you guys aren’t getting these? They’re super snarky, like the collar’s got a bad attitude.”
They both shook their heads. The unnamed tapped his collar and opened up his screen. He navigated to the achievement history section of his display and pressed the button to make it visible to the others. Vella and Tusk huddled around, reading the list of odd achievements.
“We don’t have anything like this,” Vella said, scrolling through the list. “All we get are the basic stats. I think it’s the same with everyone else too. I’ve never heard of anyone getting achievements. Not without having a full sigil. And you said you get bonuses too?”
The unnamed nodded. “Yeah. Most of them are useless to be honest. I can’t access them, and I can’t really tell if they’re doing anything. That last one seemed pretty good though.”
Tusk grunted. “Must be a defective collar? Too late to change it now. You should have said something before.”
The unnamed closed down his display. “I just figured everyone was the same.”
Vella smiled and shrugged. “I guess it’s just a mystery then. Like Tusk said, maybe there’s something wrong with your collar. As long as it’s still picking up your points though, that shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Plus,” Tusk said, “if it’s throwing you bonuses, it could help us out.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” the unnamed agreed, trying not to let on exactly how disturbed he was by this recent revelation.
They’d given him a defective collar, a collar which seemed to demotivate him at every opportunity. A collar which…
In that moment the pieces of the puzzle began to coalesce. The unnamed stood staring at a nearby wall while Tusk and Vella looked on, the later wearing an expression of concern.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” the unnamed said. “I just need a minute.”
He latched onto the fleeting idea that was slowly coalescing in his mind.
The AI.
When he’d been first uploaded into the afterlife simulator, the technician had said something about giving him a bespoke tutor AI as thanks for helping him out. The unnamed tried to remember exactly what the technician had said, but that already felt like it was years ago. He remembered something about the AI being a little…wiggy? The technician had said it would be triggered once the unnamed got a sigil or if he was using anything with a sophisticated enough HUD.
And there it was.
The AI must have been activated when he put on the training collar, and it had been rattling off achievements since then. It all made perfect sense, but what didn’t make sense was the tone the AI used. A bit wiggy was one thing, but the AI was downright antagonistic. Either the technician hadn’t known that the AI he was implanting was demented, or he’d known exactly what it was like and took some sick pleasure out of dropping it on the unnamed.
Maybe that was the technician’s whole kink? Make some excuse to embed a deranged AI into everyone he transitions to the afterlife simulator just to make life inside Havenspire that much more unbearable. What kind of a sick puppy would get his kicks out of that caper?
Then again, maybe he really did give the unnamed the AI because he truly believed it would help him? Maybe he just didn’t know the extent of how broken it was? There was also the possibility that the AI’s full functionality wasn’t active yet, or that the reduced functionality of the training collar was affecting the AI in some way.
The unnamed realized that the others were still staring at him. He smiled, waving it all away.
“It’s fine. Like you said, probably just a defective collar, that’s all. Let’s just keep going and I’ll worry about it if it becomes a problem. If you see me talking to myself, I’m probably just wrestling with the collar, that’s all.”
Tusk chuckled. “Or you’ve gone completely nuts.”
“Yeah, or that,” the unnamed agreed with a smile.
He walked over and plucked one of the long darts out of Tusk’s shield. Three of them were still wedged in the wooden frame and the one that the unnamed pulled out was barely half an inch from the edge and would have likely struck Tusk right in the neck if it had gotten through. There was no point explaining that to the half-orc.
In the three mornings they spent working through the Rat Run together the unnamed had seen this several times. Tusk could handle an inordinate amount of pain and discomfort. His thick hide and brute strength shielded him to some degree from many of the dangers that would otherwise render the unnamed unconscious or even dead. Any time Tusk came close to death, his usual approach was simply to shrug it off and move on. No point dwelling on the past was his mantra.
The unnamed pulled a second and third dart from the shield and offered them to Vella.
“You use daggers, right?” he asked as she picked up one of the darts and examined it.
“Yeah,” Vella replied, “but these are little light and thin. Could still be useful though, as throwing knives. Just need to make sure I don't catch myself on any of that venom.”
She pointed to the crimson stain on the tip of the dart.
“I got hit with one of those once,” the unnamed said. “Took about ten seconds before I was dead.”
She carefully took the rest of the darts from him and secreted them away within her clothes. “Good to know. That gives us another weapon if we face something nasty down here.”
“Before we go on,” the unnamed said, “we should check that the scoring works the same way it did when we were testing the run out. Just to make sure the point allocation is close to what we’re used to.”
They each brought up their display, confirming that Tusk and Vella had been granted eighty points for fraternity and twenty for perception, giving them a hundred total points for clearing the chamber. Both Vella and Tusk were well above the five-thousand-point threshold, with Vella at eight thousand and Tusk at twelve.
The unnamed’s tally looked a little different, however. He’d entered the maze at zero points across the board, but it seemed that he had taken a significant step forward just by clearing that single chamber.
** RAT RUN INITIATE 012 **
Total Score: 650
Fraternity: 540
Perception: 100
Endurance: 0
Martial Prowess: 0
He stared at the numbers, trying to puzzle them out as Vella and Tusk watched over his shoulder.
“Six-fifty?” Tusk said. “How the banana toast does that work?”
The unnamed shrugged. In truth, he had no idea. They'd worked out through trial and error that it was typical to receive a total of one hundred points for successfully clearing a room. With seventy rooms in the maze, it was entirely possible for the unnamed to gain enough points to pass the Rat Run, but only if he avoided dying more than a few times.
Four times, to be exact. With the five-hundred-point penalty for death, he'd have four chances to die while still being able to pass the threshold, provided that either Tusk or Vella stayed alive, and he was able to make it back to them before the maze was reset. He was constantly minding himself of that fact, trying to counteract the ease with which he had thrown himself into the maze time and time again during his preparation for this final test. He could no longer be so cavalier with his life but needed to plan carefully and limit the number of times he died to as little as possible.
“Maybe I got a bonus for being the first person to clear the room?” he offered uncertainly.
“Look!” Vella said, pointing to his collar display.
While they were watching, the fraternity number jumped from five hundred and forty to six hundred.
“What was that?” the unnamed asked. “Did I... I didn't do anything. I didn't even help you that much through the last chamber.”
The number jumped again, increasing by another fifty points. Tusk jabbed a finger toward the display
“There it is again! Your collar is definitely defective, dude. But I wouldn’t go complaining about it. As long as the points don’t magically go down.”
Vella smiled, shaking her head as she realized what was going on.
“No, it’s The Knowledge,” She said, still grinning. “You gave it to everyone, didn't you? All the initiates have it.”
The unnamed nodded.
“Well, that's it then,” Vella confirmed. “That's where these fraternity points are coming from. The other initiates are all here in the maze using The Knowledge to clear rooms. They’re using the work that you did, which means you’re helping them. Not directly, but obviously enough that the collar recognizes it and gives you a boost in fraternity each time they use information from The Knowledge.”
The unnamed let the logic of her reasoning settle into his mind. She was right. He hadn't even considered the implications of giving away the information he had acquired whilst delving into the Rat Run. His primary purpose for that was to prepare for the test, to help Vella and Tusk. He'd offered The Knowledge up to the other initiates because there was no reason not to, and it wouldn't hurt to have a few friendly faces in the Guild if he was able to pass the test.
What he didn't account for was the fact that every time those other initiates used The Knowledge to clear a chamber, points would be awarded to him, and those points would be added to fraternity, which was the stat which gained the highest point allocations. He did the math in his head, tapping fingers one by one as he reasoned through it.
“There are, what, seven other groups going through the Rat Run at the moment?”
Vella nodded. “That's right. And I think you'll get points every time they clear a room regardless of whether they die in a subsequent chamber or not. So, if a group keeps clearing three or four rooms and then wiping, you'll still get fraternity points for each of the rooms they've cleared.”
While they were talking, another two-hundred points were added to his fraternity score.
“Blueberry ricotta pancakes!” he hissed.
Tusk slapped him on the back. “You just hit the jackpot, son. You could sit here on your butt and do nothing and you’d still hit five-thousand points before the end of the seven days. Heck, you’ll probably hit it today the way those points are racking up.”
The unnamed worked through some revised figures in his mind. The sheer number of points coming his way regardless of how well the other groups were doing would mean that he would reach the threshold far quicker and more easily then he'd thought possible. True, not all the rooms in the maze would be covered by The Knowledge. There would be a certain number of rooms that wouldn't grant him any additional points. But given how quickly his fraternity score was increasing, it was still a good bet that his numbers would continue to hike as the days went on.
“Okay, so this changes things,” he said, pacing back and forth. “I mean, we still have to clear seventy rooms and get out of here, but if these points keep coming in, I don’t need to worry so much about my own points.”
Task laughed, pointing at the unnamed’s collar display.
“Dude, you just got another two-hundred points while you were saying that.”
“How does this change things?” Vella asked. “Shouldn’t we be approaching the chambers the same way?”
The unnamed turned to her. “Yeah. I just mean it changes my approach. This means I should be going into every chamber first, even if it’s one we’ve never been in before and even if there are beasties waiting in there that are too powerful for me. With the points coming in so quickly and so often, I can afford to die a lot more than you guys and still have plenty of time to reach the threshold.”
Vella frowned. “So, you’re gonna be our canary in the coal mine?”
He grinned. “I’d prefer to think of myself as a heroic scout, running ahead and checking for danger, but I guess it’s the same thing. Our approach should be basically the same, but I can afford to be a little more reckless and, if there’s something particularly risky to try, I should be the one to do it.”
“And our job,” Vella said, “is to make sure that at least one of us stays alive if you die, so that we don’t have to clear the chambers again.”
“Spot on.”
Tusk yawned, stretching his arms out to the sides, his neck cracking as he completed the overly loud gesture.
“Okay, let’s get moving then, yeah. I’m hungry as balls and we need clear at least ten rooms before we stop, right?”
The unnamed chuckled. “Dude, we literally just finished breakfast like an hour ago.”
“Exactly!” Tusk said. “Why do you think I’m so hungry?”