My first urge after regaining some composure was to stand up and start calling for the questers while simultaneously swearing at them at the top of my lungs. But since I now knew perfectly well that such behavior was utterly pointless, instead of doing that, I got up and scrutinized the shoreline more carefully.
Naturally, there was a door here, looking entirely out of place, standing "in the middle of nowhere." For about ten minutes, I wrestled with the desire to spit on the "perfect completion" of the trial and simply leave this beach by walking through the door. But I didn't want to waste the effort I'd already put in, so I decided to try to find the stones. Moreover, maybe everything isn't that complicated, and there are some hints that I haven't noticed yet?
Apart from the door, sand, stones, and sea waves on this beach, in its very center, there was a drinking fountain half the height of a man. Approaching it, I inspected it from all sides, practically sniffing and groping it all over, but I didn't find even a hint of any clues. On the bright side, I drank some clean, spring-like water, which was already good.
Then I approached the sea so that the small waves, rhythmically lapping at the shore, reached my boots. Here, it wasn't coarse granite pebbles that prevailed but fine, as if sieved, yellow sand. The salty sea water in this place was so transparent that I could easily distinguish the mussels that littered the entire seabed.
"What if the one who created this "room" stuffed the cubes I'm looking for into these mussels, like pearls?" - a panicky thought flashed through my mind. Panicky because I could see hundreds, if not thousands, of mussels from where I stood!
Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm down. After all, nothing bad or critically dangerous for my life has happened yet. Nobody and nothing threatens me at this moment. Yes, it will be disappointing to fail the "perfect completion," but even such a failure is not a tragedy. Of course, I want to get the achievement and the bonus it entails, but that's not the be-all and end-all. I just need to try searching but not get fixated on it. And if it doesn't work out, finish the task as quickly as possible, going through all the remaining rooms straight away. I have enough cubes in my purse not to get any penalties.
Having made this decision, I "measured" the beach by steps. Along the shore, I had a distance of fifty steps available, beyond which I encountered an invisible elastic wall. There was even less space in the direction perpendicular to the shoreline, only twenty-five steps. And I was allowed no more than five steps into the sea. These results calmed me down a bit; the search didn't seem as impossible as it first appeared. I just need to check the thousand two hundred and fifty square steps of the stony beach or, if converted to the metric system, just under a thousand square meters. My teeth ached at this number. Because, of course, it was much less than initially seemed, but it still went beyond the scope of "simple and light work."
I need to look for clues! They must be here! With this thought, I examined the drinking fountain again, then the door that looked so out of place here. Either I was inattentive, or they really weren't there. Sighing heavily, I went into the water, picked up the first three mussels I came across, took them ashore, and opened them. Alas, there were neither cubes nor the hints I sought inside the mollusks. I wondered what to do next and, without noticing it myself, ate the mussel I was holding in my hands. Of course, a raw sea mollusk is far from a restaurant dish, but my stomach immediately rumbled, demanding more.
Thanks to the "new memory," I knew that I, like all other subjects, should not be afraid of ordinary food poisoning. Our bodies were "improved," and it was now very difficult for me to get poisoned unless the poison was of magical or alchemical nature.
Looking around the beach, I realized that if I decided to look for cubes here, it would take quite some time, maybe even more than one day! And if so, I still have to eat something, and these mussels are not the worst option. Moreover, there was nothing else even minimally edible in my field of vision. It's not like I could gnaw on granite pebbles. Having eaten a dozen mollusks, I carefully washed and cleaned their shells, then examined them in the most careful way. Alas, I found no clues here either.
Standing up, I looked over the volume of the upcoming search again. I immediately wanted to just go through the door. And the person I was before the memories of my "future life" flooded in would probably have done just that. As I once quit gymnastics, so now I would have given up. But in such a short time, I have changed. No, I haven't become a copy of that "me" whose memory is now available to me, but I have changed, nevertheless. You can't stay the same when you've looked into a possible future, especially the one I'm going to live through…
First, I divided the entire beach into approximately equal squares, drawing lines on the pebbles with my foot. And even for such a simple thing, it took me quite some time. After that, having drunk some water, I went to the "corner" square from which I decided to start the search. Kneeling, I first opened my purse. I needed to look at the cubes again and compare them to the pebbles littering the beach. Maybe I'll find some noticeable differences that will make my search easier.
I couldn't get the cubes out on the first try or even the second! I had to untie the purse string completely, and only then was I able to pull the cubes out into the light. And all because, for some reason, they stuck tightly to each other. At first, I was scared because my initial thought was that I had done something wrong and ruined everything. But, after thinking about it, I decided that this was unlikely. The second thought that came to my mind when I looked at the "stuck" cubes in my hand was more sound: "Here's the clue I was looking for!" With some effort, I managed to detach one of the cubes from the rest. Then I brought it closer again, and it literally jumped out of my hand, "sticking" to the rest.
A dozen minutes of experimenting showed that, in some unfathomable way, the cubes in my pouch had taken on the properties of magnets. Moreover, the more pebbles were joined together, the stronger they attracted each other. At the moment, I had collected six cubes, and if five of them were connected, they attracted the last one from a distance of three centimeters. I'm sure these properties of the stones were acquired quite recently because I clearly remember that when I added a stone taken off a duck in the last "room" to my pouch, the cubes were not attached to each other.
This discovery greatly lifted my spirits. Now the search for cubes lost on this stony beach no longer seemed like an impossible and fantastical task.
But… Just… Not everything turned out to be as rosy as I imagined…
Four times the day turned into night. Four times I went to sleep on the stones, as continuing the search in the dark was almost impossible. The pile of mussel shells I ate during this time grew so much that it could be seen from anywhere on the beach. It took me four days to find five stones out of six. Apparently, the memory of the future had changed me, and I became more stubborn and persistent than I remembered myself. I didn't give up at the first real difficulty, as I would have done before. I searched and searched. Even when I had "turned over" the entire beach and found only three new cubes, I didn't give up but gritted my teeth and started over.
Having added the fifth stone to the pouch, I drank plenty from the fountain and, having snacked on three mollusks, went through the door. At the last moment, I looked back. As if winking, the beacon swayed on the waves, showing me a one on its side. But I wasn't worried about it; for a perfect passage, collecting all the stones in the rooms was unnecessary. On the contrary, one cube had to be left in each room. And all because of what the quester said before the start of this task: "Emptiness is bad!".
Honestly, I'm not that smart, and I would never have guessed about such a condition on my own. But thanks to the "future me" hearing the story of someone who passed this test "perfectly," I knew what needed to be achieved and what should not be done. I myself would probably have tried to take all the stones and leave nothing behind. And thus would have gotten "Perseverance of stupidity" achievement and, with it, a permanent penalty not only on the development of the mental core but also a debuff on learning new techniques, which would have made my future life much harder. Or I would have died in the maw of the Tyberian orchound, which was more likely.
One step, and I appeared in a completely different place. The same corridor from which everything started. And a column of dim light in front of me. From this light, a ghostly hand reaches out to me. I unfasten the pouch and place it in the "palm" of the quester. He didn't untie the knot. Didn't look inside. Just blinked, it seemed to me - with satisfaction, and that's it. It's so uncomfortable to see the true form of this entity. When the quester looked like a Buddhist monk to me, it somehow felt more convenient and calm.
I blinked several times on purpose - as if it could restore everything as it was before. And… surprisingly, it worked. The quester once again looked the same as before. Monastic robes, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and perfectly anthropomorphic proportions. However, as soon as I shifted my gaze slightly, his appearance changed back to the column of light. The pouch with the cubes I had worked so hard to obtain disappeared from the "monk's" palm as if it had never been there.
With a wave of the quester's hand, a portal arch of instant transportation opens behind him. Making an inviting gesture, he stepped into the haze of the portal. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I followed him. I immediately found myself on the edge of a road paved with yellow brick, stretching somewhere beyond the horizon.
"Task," the quester's calm baritone broke the silence. "Keep moving forward in that direction." His hand indicated exactly which way, after which he added, "Leaving the road is bad!"
Once these words sounded, the quester immediately disappeared, and I was left alone again. As soon as this happened, I took a step forward. Then another and another. I walked, cursing my fate and the universal injustice.
The first task with the skyscraper was the same for everyone. The second could be one of a dozen options. As for the third set of trials, as far as I "remembered," there were twenty-four in it. Out of these twenty-four, I knew how to pass twenty-three! Moreover, I could do a dozen of them "perfectly." Only one trial was unknown to me, and I had only heard its name, "The Road." And… That's precisely what I got!
Continuing to step on the yellow brick, I thought hard. And came to a surprisingly simple conclusion: the only thing left for me to do is to follow the quester's instructions. Follow them literally! And hope that I pass the trial. I won't die, I won't be erased due to a mistake made, I'll just complete the task to the necessary minimum. I couldn't even dream about a "perfect" pass.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The first thing I need to do, as the quester said, is to move in the given direction. And, most likely, it doesn't matter whether I will walk, run, crawl, move on my haunches or belly, tumble over my head, or roll on my side. But what I should not forget is that the movement should be constant; that is, I can't stop even for a second. It is also obvious that I should not leave the boundaries of the road paved with yellow brick because that is "Bad!"
At first glance, nothing difficult. The only thing that bothers me about this test is the vagueness of the task set. How long do I have to go? And where? But I obviously will not get an answer to these questions. Because, at this stage, questioning the questers is an entirely useless task.
The landscape around somehow reminded me of the African savannah: tall, dry grass, sparse trees with broad, but almost leafless, crowns. Only there were no visible animals or birds. I was lucky that the sun wasn't as harsh as in real Africa; the surrounding temperature felt close to twenty-five degrees, no higher.
Looking at the clouds drifting somewhere in the distant sky, I regretted not taking more mussels from the beach and not drinking more water. Who knows how long my journey will take? What if several hours? And if days? But the latter is unlikely, as I would probably die of dehydration first.
By the way, how long can a person go without rest, food, and drink? I once read a random fact on the Internet, on the Guinness Book page, that one man ran for two days straight without rest, covering more than five hundred kilometers. But that athlete drank water during his ultra-marathon.
After four days of searching for cubes on a rocky beach, the thought of walking somewhere for several days in a row didn't inspire a single positive emotion in me. I hope that the task will be a little different. However, time will reveal it, and for now, I just need to keep moving forward. And since there's no one rushing me and no pursuit behind me, I can use this peaceful time to my advantage. I'll try to make sense of the memories of the future that have fallen upon me!
The very first attempt to consciously dig into these memories caused a migraine attack. However, it wasn't as severe as before, and it could be endured. The foreign memory, encompassing months of the life "future me" lived, is too "voluminous" to study in a short period of time. Moreover, as I immediately realized, there were gaps in this avalanche of data that fell on me, peculiar lacunae that sometimes spanned several days of my "past life." But even so, there is too much information, and it is not structured at all; it was just "poured" on me like a barrel of water. But I now had a fairly accurate idea of the central moments, the most important milestones of future events. And this gave me a massive advantage over other test subjects. Perhaps this knowledge will allow me to move forward without lagging behind the Shards! Although, I'm afraid even such an advantage will be too little to not fall behind them…
Shards.
Not for the first time this word surfaces in my memory.
Ignoring flashes of pain, I delved deeper into the memories of the future, and when I got an answer to my question, I almost stopped, froze on the spot. Good thing there was no complete stop; otherwise, I don't know how breaking the rules set by the quester would have ended for me.
Memories…
The first and what seemed to me the most important: I now knew clearly how and why I got the memory of the future.
This occurred because everything happening to me and thousands of others like me, plucked from the ordinary earthly life, is some sort of experiment of an entity of a divine level. I don't know the specifics of the experiment's goal. I only know that the third Cycle is now underway. The first two turned out to be unsuccessful, and everything was restarted with slight changes to the initial conditions. The restart of the Cycles was caused by the experiment not achieving its unknown goal neither the first nor the second time. I also know that there will be no fourth Cycle! If the third attempt fails, the whole Project will be closed down, as the resources and energy allocated to it will run out.
Who allocated it, which resources will come to an end, what are the true objectives of the Project? This, alas, the "past me" did not know. However, perhaps no one, except for the true Owner of the experiment, had any idea about the final goal. At least the questers did not know the answer to this question.
The questers... My "past self" considered them an absolute evil, blaming them for everything. The hatred was so intense that the "me" at that time dedicated myself entirely to one goal - to kill the quester! Back then, "I" thought it was a single entity, and after its destruction, all people would be brought back to Earth. Harming a quester – everyone thought this was impossible in principle, but "I" displayed truly unwavering determination and achieved my goal, destroying one of them.
Alas, it turned out to be futile - no one returned us back to Earth. The questers were not the players who pulled the strings and stood above everything happening but rather insignificant pawns. It would even be wrong to call them fully intelligent beings. Rather, they were magical automatons. Golems created not from clay but from captured light. They simply executed their program and nothing more. Their free will was minimal to the point of being laughable. They were not players - they were tools. Very powerful tools that were supposed to remember past Cycles. And, having killed one of them just a day before the last human stronghold fell under the onslaught of demonic legions, which immediately led to a Reset, the "future-past me" acquired the ability to transfer memory to the beginning of a new Cycle. This is how the current me got these memories of the future.
For a moment, I was scared and surprised, wondering why I was still alive. Because the death of one of the questers is undoubtedly known to his other "brethren." But I immediately relaxed. The others don't worry about the fact that someone destroyed one of them; they are not at all worried because such "worry" is not included in their program. As long as I do not shout about my knowledge of the future, as long as I do not put a stick in the wheels of the "experiment," the questers will not touch me.
Shocked by this newfound knowledge, I walked, probably about three kilometers, adjusting and realizing what I "remembered." And this realization came to me with great difficulty. It is hard to accept that you are essentially nothing more than a laboratory mouse in an unknown experiment by such a powerful entity that humans are smaller and more insignificant than ants to it. An entity that can command Time, albeit locally and within limitations, but nonetheless!
"So! Can I stop the experiment?" I said aloud. "No. Can I bring everyone back to Earth? No. Then there is no point in racking my brain over the impossible! I need to focus on what I can influence!"
Telling myself this turned out to be much easier than truly accepting it. But now, knowing the future, I won't be able to simply live as if nothing has happened. And in general, can I influence anything? Not just change something in my personal future, but make global changes to the upcoming? Such changes, after which everything will go differently than in the last Cycle?
This question was not so simple. Because for such deeds, you need to be a Shard, and I am an ordinary person.
Shards again…
Another plunge into the whirlpool of future memories. I surfaced from this vortex of memories, gasping for air.
Shards are the souls of once-fallen and overthrown gods! Souls that have "degraded" to the human level and reincarnated in human form in the next cycle of rebirth. Reincarnated, of course, devoid of even hints of their former power. But even without knowledge of past incarnations, these people possessed truly limitless potential. They learned and developed much faster than the rest. There's a saying, "a talented person is talented in everything," so it seems like it was coined from them. Leaving the camp to relieve themselves and finding a great artifact hidden thousands of years ago? Spit on a rock and activate the entrance to a secret dungeon full of divine treasures with this spit? That's all about them.
As the "past me" figured, one of the tasks of the global experiment was an attempt to return the Shards to their former, divine level. To make them quickly, in a matter of months, undergo the path of Ascension from human to deity! Alas, I can't say yet whether these thoughts are correct or not, as the questers didn't have such information. These were "my" personal conclusions.
The "past me" knew four individuals who, in the Last War, almost equaled the power of the gods of the past. Almost…
And that "almost" wasn't enough. The demons won. The Cycle restarted.
No one knows that there are Shards among the thousands of people taken from Earth by an unknown experimenter. Even the Shards themselves are unaware of their true nature. Only questers have this knowledge. Well, the questers, and now me.
Shards… "I" remembered four who could claim this role. But the questers' data contained a different number - twelve. Where did the other eight former gods "get lost"? No information. However, the questers' knowledge contained a hint that some Shards did not even pass the initial selection in the form of the first tests. This seemed strange to me: hundreds of ordinary people managed, but someone capable of going through the path of Ascension failed the initial tasks. But I had no reason not to trust this data.
Much to my deep regret, I definitely wasn't a Shard. Too bad. If it were otherwise, and with knowledge of the future, oh, I would have thrived!..
Thoughts, fantasies, reflections took so long that I didn't even notice how quickly the sun set over the horizon. However, the full moon in the clear sky gave enough light to not lose sight of the yellow road under my feet.
The long reflections were not in vain. By midnight, I had identified my primary goal. Namely - to prevent the Cycle from restarting. And for that, I need to stop the demon invasion in Ain. The goal is global, worthy of someone who remembers the future. There's just one problem: I have no idea how to accomplish it!
Four Shards, each with their own armies of followers, reaching the highest rank, mithril, could not accomplish it "last time." However, I'll have almost a year to prepare and find a solution.
Will I? It's too early to think about that because I'm unsure if I'll even pass this trial. And after it, two group tests are waiting for me.
The mere thought of what awaits in these tests made me uneasy. I felt disgusted. I "remembered" what decisions I would have to make, and these memories didn't cheer me up. Absolutely...
"Stop!" A sharp shout ahead.
And at the same time, the bright light of two spotlights hit me in the face.
In front of me, blocking the road, are two military jeeps. At the gun turrets of each of them sit soldiers, and they are aiming at me.
"The way is blocked!" The officer standing between the combat vehicles reaches out toward me.
Silently, I continue to move forward.
"Restricted area. Contamination! Stop!" The officer insists.
Since I cannot stop without breaking the quester's rules, I do not slow down.
"One more step, and we'll open fire!" The very young lieutenant shouts nervously.
What if this is a test to see if I can fulfill the task's conditions even under the threat of death?
I don't even think about stopping.
A distinctive click of a cocked bolt, and the muzzle of an assault rifle is pointing at my chest.
"Citizen! Stop! Last warning!" The officer is straining his voice.
I ignore his shouts. I can't be scared by the bluffs of the questers.
A shot.
My ankle explodes with incredible pain. Falling on the yellow brick, I yell out a curse.
"Please stop!" The lieutenant is almost crying.
Gasping in pain, I managed to extend my hands forward and, despite my left leg being shot, continued crawling forward.
A shot.
And my right leg gives out.
The pain is such that tears pour from my eyes. Nevertheless, I am moving. Barely crawling. But crawling!
The memories of the future have changed me. The current me didn't become a copy of the "future me," just like you can't become a copy of someone you saw in a biographical film. But still, knowing what I am truly capable of, I will not give up now. Never. And only death will stop me.
A shot.
Pain in my chest.
The pain is oddly dull, not sharp, distant.
Breathing… I can't breathe. Something prevents me. Fear and pain bind me. Drain me of strength. But…
I lift my hand and pull myself forward.
A shot.
My whole body is shaking. I dig my nails into the bricks. Pull myself forward.
A shot.
There is nothing but pain, fear, and movement. And movement matters most.
A shot.
Darkness…