I had barely begun to contemplate the upcoming trials when the surrounding space folded in as if a weary deity had collapsed a fan. And then, almost immediately, the world regained its volume and colors, only now I was sitting not on a lawn under the shadow of a crumbling skyscraper but in an ordinary office chair in the middle of a wide, beige-colored corridor.
As far as I knew, from memories of a possible future, there were three individual trials, the first of which had already been passed. And if the task of escaping from the skyscraper was the same for everyone, then the options varied from there.
"Last time," if one can say that in my situation, I had to crawl through a labyrinth, more resembling a sewer system, for two days. But now, as the second trial, I had a different task. Much to my relief, in my new memory, there was a story not only about how to complete this quest easily but also how to complete it "with honors," thereby unlocking a unique achievement. I wonder what reward I will receive if I succeed? And what will I get for killing the guard of the skyscraper? Alas, I will only find out after completing all the initial tasks. If I manage to complete them, of course, and don't die or get erased during the process!
One could say that I was really lucky, as this trial, if you know what and how to do, was probably the easiest of all at this stage. I couldn't help but smile at that thought. But my smile quickly faded as a pillar of shimmering, dim light with a slight orange hue appeared in front of me at that exact moment. This glow stretched from the very floor for two meters up and was about the diameter of an adult's stride.
A lump involuntarily rose in my throat, and my fingers spasmodically clung to the back of the chair. All because I didn't know what or who appeared next to me just now. Did the mysterious organizers of all these trials learn about my "new" memory, and now they've come to erase me as an unforeseen and dangerous error? For a while, I forgot how to breathe, closely watching even the smallest and most insignificant movement of the unknown entity standing before me.
"Second task," the familiar voice of the quester came from the light.
As soon as I heard these words, a quick sigh of relief escaped my lips. Thanks to the memories of the "future," I knew that every person sees the quester in their own way: for one - it is an ancient old man, for another - an angel with black wings, for someone else - a cute girl with twisted horns. For me, this entity has always appeared as a monk from Eastern monasteries with a wide-brimmed conical hat covering the entire face. That's how I saw him during the briefing in the skyscraper. And, as the "new memory" suggested, so did the "past me."
For some reason, I now see the true appearance of these entities. Another flash of pain suggested a possible reason that caused this change and also clarified why I remember the "future life" at all.
"The task is simple," unlike the appearance, the voice coming from the pillar of light did not undergo any changes for me. The same deep, confident, appealing baritone. "Go through all the doors."
Usually, after giving a task, the quester attentively looks at you, but now, when I only see a dim light, it's hard for me to judge whether he's "looking" at me or not. Just in case, I nod, indicating that I understood what was said. As if in response to my gesture, the dim light rippled, and semi-transparent palms appeared from the stream of light. Stretching ghostly hands towards me, the quester froze for almost half a minute, after which he spoke again:
"Emptiness is bad," said the entity, demonstrating that his palms are empty.
A new light ripple, and now in the hands of the quester, there is a small granite cube with edges about two centimeters long, no more.
"This is good," comes from the dim light as he shows me the cube from all sides.
My "past self," when he saw the quester for the second time, rushed at him with questions, shouted, demanded to be brought back, threatened, begged; he tried everything and was completely ignored. And as a result of the second test, I ended up receiving a penalty for "inappropriate behavior." I didn't step on the same rake this time and just nodded, showing that I understood what was said.
Seeing my gesture, the pillar of light shrouded itself in a veil, trembled slightly, and disappeared, leaving behind a small leather bag on the floor. Picking up the object left by the quester, I carefully examined it.
In my normal life, I saw such only in pictures, movies, or games. This is what purses looked like in the Middle Ages, in which coins were carried. Dense but at the same time soft and flexible leather, well processed and decorated with a repeating pattern. The thin but strong braided strap was untied. Peeking inside, I naturally saw nothing there. The purse was predictably empty.
If it weren't for my new memory, I would probably just fold this purse and shove it into my jeans pocket, but the "future me" knew well how to handle such things. Less than half a minute had passed when the purse left by the quester took its place, tied to the belt of my jeans. There was nothing magical in this thing, just a simple leather purse, no more, an utterly familiar item for the "future me."
As soon as I straightened up, the door ahead cracked open. I looked back. Behind me was the same corridor leading somewhere into infinity. There was no desire to go in that direction, and I stepped towards the door.
Yes, thanks to the "new memory," I know what awaits me ahead. But only in general terms, without details; the specifics are unknown to me. And that is extremely unsettling, as it is precisely these specifics that can either help or, on the contrary, doom me.
I slipped sideways into the door, ready to jump back at any moment. While dealing with the tasks of the questers, such precautions are quite reasonable. Behind the door, I was met by a decent-sized room lit by numerous bright ceiling lamps. The contrast with the corridor was such that I had to blink to get used to it. In front of me was a large hall, reminiscent of a school cafeteria, with ascetic furniture in the form of simple tables and cheap chairs. The only thing that deviated from the familiar image in my memory was that all the walls were painted with the number three in various forms and sizes.
According to the quester, to complete the challenge, I had to "pass through all the doors." And, of course, these words were not a lie. I could just traverse the entire hall and exit through the wide glass doors, set slightly ajar on the opposite wall. To minimally complete the task, indeed, all I needed to do was move forward. But the questers never say anything just for the sake of it. Every word of theirs has meaning. And this test, it's not so much about its formal completion but about whether the test subject is capable of understanding the unsaid.
At first, I walked around the perimeter of the hall, then hopped onto one of the tables and scrutinized it from above. None of this helped me, as I couldn't find what I was looking for. Scratching the back of my head, I pondered briefly, then, jumping off the table, cleared a corner of the hall, carefully examining each tile. After that, I began to move all the furniture into this already thoroughly inspected corner of the room.
I found the first cube under the leg of one of the chairs. It looked exactly like the one the quester had shown in his palms. Almost a perfect cube of two centimeters edge length, similar to granite. Almost perfect because its corners were slightly rounded. I examined the cube extremely closely, nearly licking it, but didn't notice anything unusual. There were no signs, symbols, or cracks on it. Grunting, I untied my pouch and put my find in it, then tightened the strap securely. Why did I do this? Because the quester clearly stated, "Emptiness is bad!"
As far as I knew from the "memory of the future" that had fallen upon me, I could complete the task by simply moving forward and ignoring everything else. But such a completion of the challenge would have led to a negative achievement called "stupidity" and, as a result, a considerable penalty on the development of the mental core. I definitely did not want to receive such a debuff at the very beginning of the new path. Patting the pouch on my belt, I looked around again.
At first, I didn't even understand what exactly had changed in the hall, there was just a sense of some alteration. I spun around on the spot, raising my arms in a defensive position, ready to face danger. There was no danger. But something had changed, that was certain. For almost five minutes, I rotated and stared at the hall until I noticed the obvious. The number that covered all the walls had changed - instead of a three, there was now a two. Apparently, this was the number of stones left in the room.
To pass the challenge without penalties, the one stone I found and had in my pouch would have been enough. Because there was no emptiness in my purse anymore. But, inspired by the fact that I had maximally completed the first task, I was no longer content with just passing without a penalty. The questers never mentioned this, but the bonuses for "overachieving" the tasks are more than significant. Gathering all of them, using my new knowledge, would be a great head start for the future. And for the "ideal completion" of this challenge, one stone in a pouch is not enough…
But finding the second one was not so easy. Three times I moved all the furniture from one corner to another but found nothing. This was the main drawback of my "new knowledge." I generally knew what needed to be done, but as for where exactly each cube was located, this was not in the "memory package," and I had to look for it myself. If it weren't for the clue on the walls, clearly indicating that there were two more stones in the hall, I would probably have given up and left the room with one cube in my pouch after an hour of searching. I examined almost everything! Looked into every corner, studied each floorboard for a hiding place. I even tapped the walls for hollow spots.
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Sitting in the center of the hall, I closed my eyes and thought. What did I miss? What did I pass by? I racked my brain for a long time, even though the answer was right before my eyes. I didn't need to rack my brain, but the furniture! When I realized this, I started smashing tables and chairs. When only a quarter of the furniture remained from the initial amount, I began to suspect that my assumption was incorrect. But having started the task, it had to be finished to the end. And this perseverance was rewarded. By Murphy's Law, the second dice was found in the wreckage of the last table!
As soon as I put the cubic stone into my purse, the number on the walls immediately changed to one. Looking at the devastation I had wrought, I smiled, shrugged, and headed for the exit from the hall.
The next room, which looked like the office of some IT corporation, I just walked straight through as soon as I saw the number on the walls. It was a one, and the office space was almost three hundred square meters and was crammed with various office equipment. If I had to break everything here too, to find a single cube, it could take not just hours but possibly days! I only paused in one place, near the water cooler, greedily drinking two glasses of water. After which, I threw the used cup in the trash and headed for the exit.
Behind the next door, another puzzle awaited me. The new location reminded me of a dance training room. A bare, perfectly smooth, polished floor, a huge mirror covering the entire wall farthest from me, metal railings stretching along this mirror, another exit door – that's all that was inside. The number four adorned the walls here.
But wait, that was not all. Precisely in the center of the hall, right on the cleanest floor, lay a granite cube. There was no need to look for it - it was immediately visible from the entrance.
Such "simplicity" made me suspect a trap. I don't know why, but the cube just lying in the center of the room gave me a sense of vague anxiety. The "new memory" was silent on this matter, but nonetheless, I circled this stone in a wide arc and approached the mirror.
Judging by the numbers on the walls, there are three more cubes in this hall, but I haven't seen them. And where they could be hidden here, in a completely empty room, I had no idea. But the moment I looked in the mirror, all thoughts of searching for the stones immediately flew out of my head. Approaching closer, almost point-blank, I scrutinized my reflection from head to toe. No, I was still myself, only I looked much younger than I remembered. Slightly above average height, sinewy, without a gram of excess weight, but also without a pronounced muscular physique, thick pitch-black hair. A face with sharp, even stern features and bright eyes resembling clear emeralds. The "me" that I was more than ten years ago was staring back at me.
I recently turned thirty-three, the age of Christ, and when I went to bed this night, I looked much more battered by life than this reflection. Grey hair at the temples, slight scoliosis from a sedentary job, a noticeable, quite round belly, the extinguished gaze of a man worn out by daily life – none of this was visible in the reflection. The twenty-year-old me, full of strength, hope, and belief in a bright future, not yet given up on sports, was looking at me from the mirror. And in this "new memory," there is a mention of this change. It's just that this memory was buried under a pile of others. Now I "remembered" that the subjects, having been moved here, were healed of all diseases, rejuvenated, and "brought into perfect form," whatever that meant.
Not really believing what my eyes were seeing and what the "new memory" confirmed, I unbuttoned my shirt and looked at the lower right part of my belly. Still not trusting what I saw, I touched the clean skin. A year ago, I had my appendix removed, but now there is no trace of that operation. Approaching the mirror, I opened my mouth wide and looked at my teeth. All in place! All, while three should not have been there! I don't know why, but this fact surprised me much more than all these trials, quests, and memories of the future!
Back in the skyscraper, after the very first flashes of "new memory," I accepted everything that was happening as reality. But only now, in front of this mirror, did I fully realize it! Not with my mind but with all my being.
If there had been a horizontal bar in the hall, I would have tried to do a pull-over, which I hadn't been able to do for more than five years. I'm confident that now it would be effortless and without any problems. Lifting my shirt again, I tensed my muscles and easily saw the distinct six-pack abs. So that's why it was so easy for me to climb up the fire hose - it's because of my physical shape, not because of the adrenaline rush, as I then thought.
With a broad smile, I patted my abs and, getting up on my hands, I walked across the entire room on them, from one end to the other. At twenty, I was still full of hope and believed that gymnastics was my future. Naive, young, foolish. Alas, my abilities were not enough even to qualify for the country championship. Five years of failure after failure, and then... No, not an injury, not a disease - I just stopped believing in myself, gave up, and quit. I quit sports and took a "regular job," joining the ranks of the army of office clerks. And for ten years, I not only didn't train, but I didn't even visit a gym once. This memory wiped the smile off my face.
Returning to the mirror, I once again carefully examined myself. During this examination, I noticed a discrepancy. The room's reflection differed from what my eyes saw when I turned around. According to the reflection, if you looked closely, in the far corner of the room, stacked in a small tower, were three missing cubes. I turn around and see an empty corner. Clearly, something is lying to me: either the mirror or my eyes.
Just as I thought, it was my eyes that were deceiving me because once I reached the right corner, I quickly found the stones by touch. As soon as my fingers connected to their surface, their peculiar invisibility immediately fell off them. After collecting these three cubes and not touching the one lying in the center provocatively, I left the room.
As soon as I walked through the door, a sharp, familiar smell of overripe hay and manure hit me in the face, bringing back childhood memories.
This time, I found myself not in some hall or room but in a rural yard. A weathered wooden shed, leaning to one side over time, a huge pile of manure near an unpretentious fence. The uncut grass in some parts of the yard grew almost up to my waist. The doghouse with a steel chain, which initially appeared overly massive and sturdy to me. A dozen chickens run back and forth, and a couple of ducks swim in a small pond overgrown with duckweed. The only thing distinguishing the scene from a typical rural image is the absence of a residential house. Of all the buildings in this yard, there are only a barn and a doghouse - that's all.
This is bad! Very bad! How am I going to find the cubes here? In this grass? In a shed cluttered with firewood and other garbage? And how many stones I need are hidden here at all?
However, the answer to how many stones are here was easily found: each chicken running around the yard was marked with the number two. And the first stone was found quickly. It was calmly lying on the roof of the doghouse. But as soon as I took a few steps in that direction, a blurry shadow leaped out of the doghouse towards me without barking or growling. Acting on primitive instincts, I jumped back.
The clank of a taut chain. And a bone-chilling snap of jaws closing shut just a few centimeters from my neck. Quite large jaws belonging to a decent-sized dog, which at first glance weighed no less than me.
The "new memory" obligingly hinted that I had just walked on the very edge. On a chain, taut like a crossbow string, a Tyberian orchound was silently rushing at me in complete silence! A unique breed of dogs raised by the highlanders of the northern foothills of Tyberia specifically for hunting orcs. Outwardly, this dog resembled an earth mastiff, only it was many times stronger, faster, and deadlier. In terms of combat effectiveness, it was no inferior to a second-rank warrior. Which, in my case, with my essentially zero development at the moment, meant that if this dog reached me, it would tear me to shreds.
I've never been afraid of dogs. I easily dispersed wandering packs and once, with my bare hands, knocked out a Rottweiler, who had run away from its owner and rushed at me in the yard. But thanks to the "knowledge of the future," I clearly understood: this beast only looks like a dog. But in fact, it is essentially a mutant, grown on magical potions, and specifically trained to kill.
Recovering from the initial shock, I picked up the first stick I found and threw it at the "dog." I missed - the dog easily dodged it. I tried again and again failed. The "future me" at the end of the last Cycle would have crushed this dog on the go as easily as snapping his fingers. But I am very far from that level of power currently! All my instincts screamed at me right now - not to mess with this beast. Fortunately, the chain was strong enough to hold the dog. No matter how much it strained, it couldn't break free and get to me. Understanding this, I mentally outlined the radius that I should not cross.
This dog scared me quite a bit. Not as much as the Hound, of course, but still! And the most terrifying thing about this creature was its complete silence. It didn't bark or even growl. It only snarled, displaying unnaturally sharp fangs, its eyes gleaming, and occasionally made sudden lunges toward me. Lunges that were restrained by the steel chain, which seemed excessively sturdy to me initially.
After ten minutes, I got used to this spectacle and barely paid any attention to the raging beast, thinking more about where the second cube could be hidden. Because I didn't have the slightest desire to try taking the one on the roof of the doghouse. In theory, in such a deep, purely speculative theory, I could handle the orchound. I could have come up with something using the tools that were in the shed. Set up a trap, somehow distract the beast, or something like that. But I clearly understood that it was not worth the risk. Any mistake, the slightest miscalculation, and my throat will be torn. The cube on the roof of the doghouse is clearly not worth it.
I found the second stone, thanks to the hints scattered all over the yard. These hints turned out to be pages from a children's book, and each of them always had an image of a duck. Apparently, I'm not as smart as I used to think of myself because it took me over an hour to understand this hint! And only after looking closely at the ducks in the pond I noticed a small bag on the neck of one of them. After that, I found a long stick and tied a rope to it, which I had previously coiled into a self-tightening lasso. With this simple tool at the age of ten, I caught my grandmother's goats after watching movies about North American Indians. It did not let me down this time, either. The rope whipped around the neck of the duck I needed, a jerk - and the cube I was interested in was in my hands. I even let the frightened but alive duck back into the pond, although this was not necessary. As soon as I leave this yard, everything here will melt away and disappear without a trace.
Tying a bag with a new catch, I showed an indecent gesture to the Tyberian orchound and walked out the gate.
One step forward, and I found myself on a beach...
On a rocky beach, wholly covered with granite stones of various sizes. What I saw made me open my mouth and sit down where I stood.
How am I going to find the cubes here? Granite cubes?!!
A beacon floating a few dozen meters from the shore, as if mocking, swaying on the waves, showed me the number six on its side.