Chapter 5: Rendezvous with the Unexpected

Nick

"Kuma!" a familiar voice, getting mostly drowned by the sound of huge water masses hitting the ground, calls out to me.

I push some leaves aside and look into the direction the call came from. Near a small waterfall stays a man with pointy ears on a rock at the riverside. He is messily wearing the typical outfit of a citizen of Contessa, though neither piece of clothing fits the other, as if he randomly grabbed something for the sake of wearing at least something. Additionally he has visibly equipped a plain colt at his belt, probably because he looks too weak to lift a sword like a man.

But the elf is not alone, as next to him sits another man on the ground, though this one's getup does not match the pointy-eared man. This man only wears a simple gray robe, which has many poorly made patches on it. With his appearance, I almost mistook him for the homeless person down the marketplace at home, who also covered half his face in a black scarf to get at least some protection against the cold during to the winter, however, this one covers his face because of other reasons I don't know of.

The elf forms with his hands cups around his mouth and shouts, "Kuma!"

To give me a better view of everything, I push more leaves away and eye the surroundings of the two.

Water sprinkles on the two men, as the huge masses of water fall down, whereupon the water continues to flow as a river. On the other side of the river, I can see, that there are almost no trees and that the open landscape changes to a sparsely rocky land, where groups of deep-sea-blue eels—swimming in the air, closely above the ground—are gathering.

This side, however, is mostly covered in trees and makes it hard for me to spot anything—or anyone. Sadly I cannot confirm, whether somebody besides the two are hiding behind some bushes or are just like me using the cover the crowns of the trees provide.

I check again, if someone is really not hiding, before I jump down from the tree limb I am standing on and land with a thud on the dirt, whereupon I feel a numbness in my legs.

Once again forms the elf a cup around his mouth and takes a deep breath in, "Ku——"

"Dawn," I say and get out of my hiding place. "I am here."

"Kumabear, where have—" Dawn tries to get down, but slips on the wet surface of the rock and lands on his butt in front of me. I extend my hand to him and help him get up. On the dirt lie a pair of goggles, which Dawn picks up, clears them of the dirt and afterwards puts them on his head—covering some of his short spiky white hair.

"Are you okay?" I ask Dawn, whereupon he responds with a nod. "So, where is Aurora?"

"She is busy calibrating her gun," Dawn casually answers, while tapping on his own gun at his belt.

"Hmm… can't be helped then, " I quietly mutter, scratching the back of my head.

Mute, the ever so silent man, looks left and right, whereupon Dawn notices his behavior and copies the robed man's actions. Then Dawn asks me, "Did you not say, that you have an escort quest?"

I look around and listen to every sound, before I finally respond, "Follow me,"  and turn back to the forest I came out from. Without looking back, I enter the forest. Though, the sound of twigs cracking behind me, confirms that my companions are following me and I reassuringly lead them to a hollow tree.

Inside the tree lies the figure of a humanoid gray lizard with long rabbit-like ears. I brush her thick blue hairs aside, whereupon her soundly sleeping face gets revealed.

"Is that her?" Dawn takes at good look at Alissa. I nod and explain my plans, "She probably got poisoned, but it does not look like, that the poison was lethal, after all they wanted to catch us alive."

"Who?" the elf interrupts me, as I wanted to continue.

I roll my eyes and answer, "Those, who caught us and tried to enslave her and me," I point at Alissa.

"Is that even possible?" Dawn says, "I mean, a player becoming a slave."

Our nameless companion glances over to me, then he turns around and sits on fallen tree trunk.

"Who knows… I prefer not finding it out," I add, "But it most likely was a setting specifically made by the AI for my quest."

"Anyway, I need to get her safely through the gates to Contessa." My gaze follows the river downstream to a big city. "For that, I need your help, because—"

"Why did you not call us sooner, you even ignored our messages…" That damn elf butts in again.

"I forgot! Okay? And by the way, I did not receive any messages from you either." I say, whereupon I check my inbox. 'Oh… whops. I definitely did not get any. Absolutely not. Yep.'

I look over to the poor Alissa, she looks so weak and fragile right now. At the moment is her breathing still stable, but it will not stay long this way, if she does not get medical aid soon. Even though her face looks peaceful, I know that she is suffering, because she is convulsively clenching her four fingers into a fist.

"We need to help her get home, but our enemies are—" I resume my explanation, but get interrupted by the elf.

"Hmm… did the quest possibly disable your message system?" Dawn, still stuck on the previous subject, comes up with a theory.

"Damn it! Let me finish speaking!" I feel a vein pop up in my head.

Dawn raises both his hands and says, "Okay, okay. Man… you need to chill out."

I give out a grunt and shout out, "Ah, just forget it! Let's get going."

"Mute, we are going." I call out to him. Afterwards I lift Alissa up to carry her and we all leave to Contessa, following the river downstream.

The flying eels, the wyrmlings, are leisurely swimming on the other side of the river. But one or two would occasionally cross the river to attack us. As my groups average level is currently only at 13 and the wyrmlings are above level 20, we get slowed down by a lot, to only kill one of those.

Every time a wyrmling comes over, I put Alissa down to tank the mob, while the others deal damage. Mute scorches them with his fire magic, thereby he does the most damage, because my attack is weak while Dawn misses a lot. Hell, he even shot me sometimes.

While I am wrestling with a wyrmling, trying to keep it at bay, I get hit by a bullet. Because of the pain I let go of the wyrmling, which in turn takes the chance to taste my flesh.

"Ouch!" I cry out and glare at Dawn, who is snickering. 'Is he doing it on purpose? That rascal!'

The wyrmling bares its sharp teeth, out of which a red liquid is dripping. In the next moment it tries to get another good taste of my bear meat, but a punch in the head sends it flying back a few meters. Afterwards, it gets hit by a well placed fireball. In its last moments, it charges at me, but before it reaches me the flames devour the wyrmling, ultimately burning it to ashes.

"Hah…. Almost died again." I try to catch some breath, before I pick up Alissa and continue to walk towards our destination, Contessa.

"Dawn…" I give him a menacing look.

"What?"

"Never mind."

We continue to follow the river until we reach another waterfall. The city, where the five rivers flow into each other, is clearly visible from the spot I am standing on. Even the soon-to-be landmark of Contessa, the Cage Tower, which is currently in construction, is in my view.

"Do you see the gates? We have to pass them without being noticed." I say, "Now we need to be extra cautious…. Hey, did you hear me, Dawn?"

Dawn nods and I continue talking, "Good, now let's get into Contessa, first."

The elf, however, raises his hand and asks me, "Do you even know where to bring her?"

I think about his question and answer afterwards, "No, but if we patch her up, then she could tell us where to go. And then I am going to crush those damn slavers!" My teeth grind at each other and my fingers form a fist.

"Don't worry, Alissa. We are alm——" I whisper to the sleeping Alissa, but I get startled at the huge shadow sweeping over our heads and the strong wind pushing us from behind our backs.

"The Na—Na—Nazca," Dawn stutters out, falling on his butt, as he sees the gigantic mechanical bird with the body made of gray stones slide towards Contessa. Its stone wings are so big and massive, that I wonder how they are able support its heavy body, when I cannot even properly do five push-ups without my arms giving up before I throw the towel and hit the floor.

Eventually the Nazca comes dangerously close to the tip of the trees, but with a flap of its wings it gains height, while sending out a gust strong enough to uproot some small trees in its vicinity. Simultaneously the blue and purple crystals, lined along everywhere on its body, glow a stronger light out, as long as the bird gets higher. Maybe it flies thanks to the crystals. Damn… I want some of those, too.

After the Nazca reaches Contessa, it flies circles around the city.

While Mute draws with a stick meaningless circles on the ground, Dawn jumps up and down out of joy, shouting, "The Nazca came back! It's back!"

"C'mon, let's hurry!" Dawn's eyes sparkle as he says with a wide grin. "Maybe there is going to be some event. Go, go, go!"

Dawn sets off to rush to Contessa, but after a few steps he trips over a leg and lands face first on the dirt. Afterwards a sweet voice says, "Geez… brother. You are going to ruin Kuma's quest."

An elf suddenly appears behind Dawn. Her green eyes shine like emeralds in the sun, when she smiles, then her snow-white teeth get uncovered behind her strawberry-red lips.

Her skin is white, but not pale, its rather looking healthy with a gleam of a natural pink. She moves gracefully like a swan—unlike her clumsy, idiotic twin brother—towards me.

A soft breeze blows and Aurora holds with a hand her shoulder-long hair, which is as white as the moonlight. At the same time, she lets her sweet voice ring once again in my ears, "Hi, Kuma."

Her face gets closer to mine and her eyes look directly into my own pair. She is so close, that I can see my own reflection in her beautiful emerald eyes.

Out of the corners of my eyes I see a misty figure getting closer to Aurora, who whispers into her ear—almost inaudible to me, "I think it was too effective."

"Kuma?" Aurora asks, ignoring dissipating mist, and her gaze piercing my eyes. Afterwards Aurora snaps her fingers, whereupon I feel like I wake up from a delirious state. What was that? What happened? Everything suddenly turns clear and sharp again.

I reply, taken aback, "He—hey" and take a step backwards, backing away from her. A moment later I say, after clearing my throat, "Hello, Aurora. Nice to see you."

"Likewise," she answers with a smile, so innocent that it melts my heart. Then Aurora looks at the linis on my back. and says, "Alissa, huh, we will definitely—"

But Aurora gets interrupted by her twin, Dawn, "What was that for?" We continue walking again, while Dawn, every now and then, spits out some dirt.

"Gosh, be a little considerate towards little Alissa." Aurora answers, folding her arms. "You were practically shouting, 'Dear enemies, come and get us, we are here!' endangering Kuma's first quest and especially this child on Kuma's back."

"Aurora, it's okay. Everyone makes mistakes. Besides, nothing really grave happened," I say. But if something had happened… I would have kicked his ass so hard, he would not be able to sit down for a while.

"No, it's not okay! He always does this, and because of him I am stuck with this class," Aurora sharply interjects, spreading energetically her arms.

"Hmm? You already have a class?" I ask curiously.

"Yes…unfortunately," Aurora answers, however, her smile disappears and her eyes lose a little of their glamour, which reminds me of Dante, when he talks about his sister.

Every single time Dante made this face, I got worried and by now I automatically assume the role of a caretaker. This time with Aurora is no more different and I slip into that particular role, asking her, "Why the sad expression, it's not about the class, right?"

We are getting closer to the road leading to the gates of Contessa. Carriages filled to the brim with goods are rattling on the cobbled path. Here and there horses are neighing and their drivers are talking with each other.

Aurora's mouth is gaping, trying to find some words to say, but Mute does not give her the chance to speak as he motions us to stop. Afterwards he points at several people, whose uneasiness is visible on their faces.

They are like meerkats vigilantly turning their heads left and right, and are trying hard to submerge into the crowds to go unnoticed, which they obviously fail.

"Thanks, Mute," I quietly say, whereupon he nods.

We gather behind the cover of some shrubs and a big rock to commence our strategy meeting. As to get not discovered, I speak with a quiet voice, even though the river should drown most of the sounds we make.

"As you all know, I have to get Alissa safely home." I point at the head lying on my shoulder. "But the fucking slaver won't let us and from what I know of him, he probably is one of the more influential people in Contessa and won't show mercy to us, who know his secrets."

"You all saw the shady men on the road?" I add, at which everyone nod. "Good. We need to sneak past them."

"But how do we do that?" Aurora asks.

I want to answer, but Dawn is faster and says with a not so quiet voice, "Why don't we simply go through the gates? I mean, hell, there are guards everywhere."

"How sure are you that they are on our side?" I answer back.

"Then let's use the goddamn river!" he says, almost shouting.

The river, huh? I look to my left at the river and wonder if it would work, despite the strong current. "And how?"

"Yeah, how?" Aurora raises her voice, "Have you considered that we have an unconscious child with us?"

The elf brother looks towards our hooded companion and says, "Magic, duh."

All of us look at Mute, who has been quietly reading an old black book, marked by the usage of time, since we started our meeting.

"Mute," I call our mage, "Can you do it?"

However, Mute only blankly stares back at us, moreover, his heterochromatic red and green eyes widen in surprise when I called his nickname. But after a short moment, he stashes his book away and stands sluggishly up.

He stretches his hand out, his palm pointing to the sky. From Mute's palm comes out a breeze and heat gathers at that point. Green sparks appear above his palm and they continually increase in numbers. Afterwards, Mute crouches to the ground and puts his greenly shining palm onto the by grass covered earth.

Then, someone comes running from behind the rock and his voice calls out, "Boss, I found the fucker!"

But as soon as the armor of a normal guardsman of Contessa comes into view, the magic of Mute takes effect and a line of green fire on the ground shoots straight towards the guard, engulfing him in green. The guard screams in pain and throws himself on the ground. He rolls around trying to extinguish the fire, but instead he makes it worse.

Yet, this was not the end of Mute's spell. In a straight line spreads the fire towards its next group of victims, rushing to the burning man's aid, and likewise burns them.

Speechless, I look at the scene taking place in front of me. Mute prepares another skill, strong winds gather at one point of above each of his palms. Shining white, the wind gets compressed into little marbles. He tosses one of them into my gaping mouth and the other one gets forced into Alissa's mouth. What the hell?

Before I can ask what he is doing, he kicks me into my stomach and I go, along with Alissa on my back, flying into the river.

The sudden cold water surprises me. I lose hold of Alissa. Everything is whirling and bubbling. The current forcefully catches me and carries me away.

I desperately try to find Alissa, but then something or someone grabs my wrist and pulls me even deeper underwater. My eyes burn when I try to open them, but I have to see what's happening, however, the river is surprisingly deep and therefore does almost no light reach down here.

Minutes pass and I am still being dragged somewhere. It is dark, the water is ice-cold, my body is numbing and so is my mind. I no longer know where up and down is, and I get the urge to give in to this sleepy feeling I have been getting since some time ago.

But when I was about to drowse off, the pull suddenly gets much stronger and I break through the surface of the water.

I am lying on a wet and hard surface, small spiky stones between me and the ground are stinging me. It still cold and I want to embrace my dreams, however, a kick to my leg rattles me awake.

Looking up, I see warm light coming from the ball of fire in the air. My frozen joints begin to thaw and after some time I am able to move again. Besides me are two other figures bathing in the warm lights inside this cave. One of them, however, is stock-still lying on the ground. It is the linis, Alissa.

The other figure, upon noticing that I am looking at him, puts his index finger vertically on his in cloth covered mouth.

My mind demands answers, such as why he did all of this, where we are and what the hell happened. But as I was about to open my mouth, Mute cuts in and forcefully keeps my mouth shut, whereupon he again motions me to keep quiet. Are enemies here?

Afterwards, he waves his hand, telling me to follow him. I go grab Alissa. She is freezing cold. We need to hurry And quickly sneak to Mute, carrying Alissa once more on my back. Silently and carefully we tread on the natural path being surrounded by wet stones.

The only light source is the floating fireball following Mute, even though its light is not very bright, I still appreciate the warmth it provides us with. It makes our stay in this cold tunnel already a hundred times better, although it still does not amount to much.

We have been walking in the tunnel, which is sharply curved, but never did we reach the other end of this circled path. Furthermore, we neither go upwards or downwards, which adds to the feeling that we are already going to endlessly follow this tunnel.

But then I finally see light at the end of this tunnel and the stony ground we tread on changes to neatly cut cobblestones. Not long later we reach a more spacious hall, which is being illuminated by red shining stones at regular intervals vertically lined up along the wall.

In the middle of this relatively small hall stands a round pillar. Through a hole, big enough that a hand can pass through, I see water bubbles, which thanks to the light look like blood, rising upwards.

Mute lets his hands wander inside his robe, whereupon he fishes up two guns and throws them into the air. The guns are spinning, a split second later the guns disappear and two humanoid figures appear in their stead.

The one with long hair lands gracefully on her feet, while the short haired one falls on his butt.

"At last! It was about time," Aurora says, "A minute longer I would have shared my workshop dimension with Dawn… I would have gone crazy."

The elf in question shakes of the dust on his butt and answers back, "Aw… how sweet. I know that you can't do without my company, sis."

At that she replies monotonously, "Yeah… whatever," and turns around to face me.

Oh, does that mean I can talk again? Great!

"Wow! You can turn into a weapon?" I say, "That's amazing!"

Aurora puts her hands behind her back and looks downwards. Her cheeks are reddening. "No, it is not… well… maybe a—"

"Ouch!" Dawns outcry interrupts Aurora. "Don't suddenly hit me!"

The sulking Dawn is holding his hand and blowing air at the sore place, while Mute goes between the elf and the hollow pillar, blocking Dawn's path.

"What happened?" I ask, approaching the two guys.

"Mute slapped my hand!" cries Dawn out.

"Oh, boohoo," Aurora mocks him, "Man up."

Rolling my eyes, I say, "Look, I bet he has his reasons."

"I just wanted to touch the bubbles!"

A loud slapping noise echoes on the walls, as Aurora buries her face in her palm. Shaking her head, she softly mutters, "Stupid."

"Why do you want to touch that ominous looking thing? What is it anyway?" I ask.

Lacking in knowledge the twins shrug the shoulders and everyone look expectantly to Mute, but then Dawn has to say mockingly, "What, don't tell me you guys seriously believe Mute can talk? Haha, why else would we call him Mute?"

Oh, he can talk, just wait and see, I think.

Both, Aurora and I, don't bother telling Dawn the truth and expect Mute to speak, however, even after minutes pass stays the mage in question as quiet as a mouse. But as we were about to give up, we hear his voice, dampened by the cloth covering his mouth, "Shrine of Krohvak."

Dawn's jaw drops to ground, his eyes spread wide open then he puts his finger into his ear, trying to clear it.

Without minding Dawn, Mute adds quietly, "You sacrifice levels… to Krohvak."

"Oh, I am sorry… for calling you mute," Dawn apologizes, to my surprise, and Mute responds with a simple nod.

"See, he practically saved you," says Aurora, whereupon Dawn gives his thanks to Mute.

"Hmm… never heard of him," I unconsciously say my thoughts out load.

"Neither have we," respond the twins simultaneously.

"Not him…"

"Her?" I correct myself, whereat Mute shakes his head shakes, careful not to make even a small breeze.

"Then, what is Krohvak?" I ask.

Mute keeps quiet, his oddly colored eyes are fixated on me. He is motionless. If I wouldn't know it better, then I could mistake him for a very well done sculpture.

Suddenly, a whiff of warm air brushes my ear and I get reminded of Alissa.

"Anyway, we should hurry. The clock is still ticking," I say.

Soon afterwards, we leave the room with the Shrine of Krohvak, which certainly does not look at all like how I imagined a shrine would look and I never bothered to look up religious stuff anyway.

After taking a few turns here and there in this underground complex, which after the first fork turned out to be a labyrinth, we safely get to—a new different area, unlike the previous one.

"The water smells like someone died in there," says the retching Aurora, holding her nose.

Dawn's palm draws circles on her back, while avoiding the gears decorating it. We follow Mute, who has been leading us without fault, as if this were his home. Maybe he is just randomly guessing, but he has a confident aura surrounding him, which makes me trust him—in this case.

"Hmm? Isn't this weird?"

"What is, elf?" My last remark goes unnoticed by Dawn and he continues talking without even letting my words sink in his head, "We have yet to see a monstrosity."

Indeed, there have been none so far, nothing besides the water flowing on our left made the slightest move. One would even expect mice and rats to appear or that fishes are swimming in the oozy brew, whose stench already disabled my nose—maybe forever. But no one, but our group of six walks on this very slim path, slightly higher than the water level.

In a thinking manner, I stroke my chin and say my thoughts out loud, "Now that you mention it…usually are a city's sewers dungeons, heavily infested by mobs… in most games I know of at least."

"Who are you talking to?" a voice from behind me says.

Alissa's head lies on my left shoulder, so I look back over my other, unoccupied, shoulder and see an elf bending his brow. "Dawn?"

"Yeah?"

As if something in my head made a click, making all the gears turn, I realize that something smells incredibly fishy—no, it's not the water and neither is it Dawn, who fell twice into the sewage.

Through my inner eye, I see in less than a second the recent events happening. Dawn who has been walking behind me, the hand which stroke my chin (even though all my hands have been busy carrying Alissa), that someone who I had a conversation with and the hand patting Aurora's back. Also, originally we were a group of five and not six. One too many. Uh-oh!

"Aurora!" I shout, my head shooting back to its most comfortable position, however, no part of my body feels relaxed.

She screams.

Her voice; so high-pitched that it would wake the dead, so sharp it would shatter the sturdiest windows and loud enough to render my bear-ears deaf.

You are stunned.

Remaining duration: 1 second

Fortunately, nobody except for my group is presently here. Or is it rather unfortunate, because something is able to stalk us from this close up without raising our attention.

"Wh-what?" mutters Aurora.

Where? Where did it go? Not a shred of that something remained. It left me wondering, am I just seeing things? Was it just an illusion? I don't know, but I am also not eager to find out what it was. At least I know that I don't want the others to worry, if by chance that it was just my mind playing tricks.

"No… never mind," I say, barely with any force behind it.

Confusion is painted all over Aurora's face, obviously a normal reaction. From my back shrills a melodic whistle sound, followed by the elf singing, "Craaazy."

Maybe… I am

Anyway, walking for a while we finally reach the exit of the sewers, thanks to Mute's perfect lead, who by the way never bothered turning around to check upon our states. That's why I can't make a real picture of him in my mind, he seems kind, but he acts cold. Then I settle on the picture that he is shy.

Coincidently, Alissa grumbles and wakes up from her deep slumber. "Who…are…you?" she weakly asks me upon seeing my face, trying hard to get some words out.

At first she doesn't recognize my face at all. I show her both; my beast form and my human form, which already seems to be enough to make her remember me again, and the last couple of days. Her innocent face distorts—in no way is it a sight I want to see again.

We come out at a dark alleyway, where I don't even know whether it is dark because it may be night or if the high walls with all their ticking gears are blocking all the sunlight from illuminating this place.

"We need someone ahead of us to keep an eye out for any suspicious people," I say, hovering my gaze over everyone's faces. Dawn is out of the question and Mute… no, he is reliable, but will he talk if the time comes? After pondering for a little while, I finally continue, "Aurora, would you be so kind?"

She nods.

"Alissa, could you tell us where you live?" I ask the currently most crucial question. "Your home, where your parents are."

I am holding Alissa, whose legs are still too weak from the poison to bear all her weight. Her face is shining blue from her fever, she is fighting to keep her eyes open. This doesn't look good. Eventually she no longer is able to open her eyes, furthermore, her breathing suddenly goes wild. Then, it stops abruptly. Her chest neither rises nor does it fall.

A red health-bar appears below her name, slowly diminishing.

I panic, "Alissa!" and lift her up, dashing out of the alley. Antidote! Antidote!

It is dark. No fireball follows me to light up my path and no streetlamps are there to brighten up Contessa during the night. The streets are empty, but some people are still roaming on the main street leading to the market place in the center of Contessa.

Tramping, automata horses pulling carriages come out of the market. Steam blows out of their nostrils, trying to cool down their engines. Unlike during daytime looks the almost empty central plaza ridiculously huge. Nobody could guess that this wide range of space could be really filled to the brim by many diverse stalls selling all kind of stuff.

However, now that the only stalls left are too packing, it makes it harder for me to find anyone who is selling antidotes. Furthermore, there is only a very small amount of stalls, meaning that the chance to find it is really low.

Therefore, I go to every salesman asking them if there could still be someone selling an antidote. But none of them had an idea, they told me they were too busy to look for their own booth and couldn't bother to check up on someone, who would not even rival them.

That's the last one! Alissa's last hope is the guy near an alleyway, who already is done packing and is about to leave, but I stop the wrinkled old man. His white bearded face makes one reminisce of their own kind grandparents. But his voice is harsh and croaky, "Whad'ya want, boy?"

"Please, do you have any antidotes? This girl urgently needs some!"

"Maybe, maybe not," he says, eyeing Alissa, "I can't be bothered to unpack everything again."

"How can you ignore a dying child right in front of your eyes!" I raise my voice like I had done never before and fiercely glare at the old man. Alissa's health already is at half her maximum health and it's still decreasing. I am close to explode.

"Look. For. An. Antidote. Now!" I threaten him—something I have never done before, nor have I imagined myself to do it.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"What can a boy like you do?" He says, giving his attention to his cart.

I don't know. I don't know! I think.

The old merchant laughs and points somewhere, "Look, you can't do shit. There are still guards patrolling this area," his eyes wander to Alissa lying in my arms, then he rummages for something in his cart, "but if you want it so badly… here my last one in stock."

He pulls out a small bottle with a milky liquid inside it. His eyes are glittering and his lips divide, revealing a rotten grin.

"But I want twice the market price," he adds, "else, you can say your farewells to…that."

"Deal!" I shoot out.

"That makes one silver coin." the merchant says.

That's expensive! I am not even sure if I have enough, therefore I immediately look it up.

Status WindowName:KumabearAlignment:NeutralLevel:12Class:NoneRace:Demi-humanTitles-----Achievements-----Fame:2Infamy:0-Health:1991/1991Mana:1040/1040Stamina:674/1580Satiety:44%-Strength:55 (+4)Agility:14 (+1)Vitality:55 (+6)Intelligence:10Wisdom:10Leadership:2Luck:42-0g 0s 88c

Damn it. I am 12 copper coins short and I don't think he is lenient… I think.

"Sir, I don't have enough money right now." As I say it, the merchant knits his lonely thick brow, which looks like a very hairy caterpillar made itself home above the merchant's eyes, but I doubt that it will evolve into something beautiful, because then it would not match the merchant's ugly looks or personality.

The old merchant's bony fingers tightly clutch on the bottle containing the antidote and are about to lead the it back inside the cart, but I raise my voice to cut in, "But, perhaps, I could compensate the last bit with goods I have gathered on my adventure."

Though I say that, the only things in my inventory are a handful of wyrmlingfangs and the run-down sword I snatched from one of our pursuers. An aura of confidence surrounds the merchant, as he inspects the items I just pulled out.

Eventually he says, "Well… normally you could sell them for 14 copper coins, but I don't have any need for them," he glances at Alissa, "however, I would be willing to buy them for half the price."

"But that would not be enough to buy the antidote, please make an exception this time, please."

The geezer seems to be deep in thought, he glances over Alissa, then to the antidote in his hands and then to his carriage. "Alright, wayfarer," he says, whereupon his empty hand moves under the carriage's cover, searching for something. He gets out another bottle, this time with a black slimy liquid swimming inside it. The liquid becomes clear after he put a little black stone into it and stirred it with his long dark fingernail.

"Under one condition, I want you to do something for me. When I call you, come," he passes me the bottle, "Now, drink this."

"You promise that you will give me the antidote?" The merchant nods. "But how will you call me?"

"Drink," he urges me, "You will know when I do."

While I am holding Alissa with one arm, I am shacking the liquid inside the bottle watching it making swirls. Afterwards, I down the drink with one gulp. At first it made my throat itch, but now it burns everywhere inside me, as if I just drank molten lava. Fortunately, the pain subsides as fast as it appeared and gives room for a nice refreshing breath.

Suddenly, a blue window pops up in my view and I read it with my teary eyes.

Quest: A DebtBecause you did not have enough money for the item you wanted to purchase, the merchant compromised so that you can pay the rest by doing what he has requested of you.

When the time comes, follow the merchant's call and obey his following orders.

"Good, good," he displays a wicked smile, "But do not ignore my call. You don't want to… know what kind of punishment will befall upon you if you do. Although, either is fine for me. Anyway, here you go."

Very Weak AntidoteValue: CommonThe most common antidote on the market. It is easy to make, as it only requires the most basic knowledge in alchemy and one of the cheapest and common herbs.

However, even though it easy relatively easy to make this, the alchemist of this antidote did very badly during the procedure of creating it, which resulted in this mediocre antidote.

After he is done talking, I get the antidote in return for paying him everything I have got. Alissa's health is at this point only at a quarter of her maximum life, which means we don't have much time left. Therefore, I immediately pour the drink down her throat. Nothing happens, there is no reaction from her, but then I finally see a familiar blue window appear in my view.

The cure failed.

The used antidote was too weak to fight the poison deeply rooted in the body. Please use one of a better quality.

"It…failed…" I mutter and plummet on my knees.

I hear the sound of wooden wheels turning, the mechanical steps of an automata mount and a mocking laugh getting quieter and quieter the more they distance themselves from me.

Then I hear from a distance away the voice of the old merchant saying, "Oh, what a bummer… but don't forget your debt!"

Now we are all alone on this big spacious plaza, only Alissa and I. She is unconsciously lying in my arm, while I only watch her health-bar drop further down as times passes. Her cold body is shining bluish under the moonlight, her long ears are limping down onto the ground, he heartbeat is almost nonexistent just like her breathing.

Out of one of a dark alleyway echoes a shady but strong voice, though it does not sound friendly at all, "Look, look. What have we got here? If this isn't our lucky day today, then I don't know what it is."

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Dante

Each maggot—which have been quiet until now—let human-like high pitched screams out and they rained in masses down from the ceiling. After their cries reached a climax they exploded into clouds, leaving an awful stench behind. Some exploded when they hit something, others exploded midair and a few even sprayed an acidic liquid around when they exploded, which created a chain reaction of other maggots exploding prematurely.

Those exploding prematurely were the worst, as they somehow left a bunch of smaller versions of them behind, whose screams were even higher pitched.

The glass-shattering cries made the cave tremor, as if multiple volcanoes were erupting all at once because god wanted to show his mighty power. Instead of lava spurting out of the crater, there were acidic liquids flying around, eating through everything they touched. Also, I didn't had to dodge burning stones, rather, I had to either absorb or avoid maggots blowing up in my face. This, unfortunately, gave me the opportunity to see them from close-up and it definitely was in no way pleasant to see small human faces screaming with the most pained expression I could have imagined.

Worse were the many weird clouds, smelling like mountains of dead fish had been left alone for centuries to mature into a more lethal stench, so that a short sniff of it could have been lethal, even to anosmic people, who were physically not able to smell anything at all.

Ugh…. The stench… it's horrible. Wish I had a nose to hold. It was the bane of being able to smell despite not having the appropriate organ to do so. But the gruesome stench was not really the problem, actually, what had been getting on my nerves was the inability to do anything about that. The emotion I was feeling was comparable to enduring for days an unquenchable thirst and seeing water dripping down right behind the grinds—it was torturous. At least, I wasn't that powerless now and due to my powers I got an idea, which most likely would be my lifesaver in the midst of this fatal stench, almost bad enough to come to life.

Smell…. A human can smell because molecules originating from matter reach our noses and eventually they trigger neurons, which tell our brain what we smell. But how and why do I smell? Hmm… first I need to know from where I take in the smell.

However, as bad as this situation looked like, it was perfect to gather some information about my body. So to speak, I wanted to know how I could even smell, even though I did not have the required organ for that purpose, and this situation was perfect for it, because I was surrounded by mind-breaking smells.

It made me excited to know that I was a step closer to know more about my body—shrouded in mysteries. The last time I had been this curious and excited was one year ago when professor Sidis brought me to the research institution Xive, where we witnessed another confirmation to our current standard model by finding proof that the cosmological constant is part of dark energy, however, finding out that our known models are not true would have been much more interesting.

Because it is more fun to discover something completely unexpected, rather than finding out what one had expected comes true. An unexpected discovery like that I was able to smell from every part of my body.

It was not hard, it actually was too easy to find out. As it only required me to absorb those molecules when they were about to touch me, and I did this several times for each part of my body until I absorbed the clouds with every nook and cranny of my body which freed me from the deadly smell.

Additionally, I discovered that even the faint green lights, which appeared when a maggot exploded, and the screams had died off as expected. However, unexpected was that the sound and colors only disappeared when I used Absorb from all over my body, which was weird because I certainly could view everything from where my eyes were positioned.

This… I need to experiment with this in more detail.

But it wasn't the time for experiments, because in the next moment blew the left maggots simultaneously up, which meant that I was busy eating everything coming at me. And I couldn't risk getting hit even once, else I would wake up in the my pod and had to wait another three boring hours.

I crouched down to my knees and made me as small as possible to lessen the surface I could get hit on.

Green glibber flew right into my eyes, which soon pixelated into a myriad of colors and made room for the next wave coming at me. I was constantly watching my satiety-bar with my inner eye and according to it I would not have survived much longer, because it was already filled by three quarters.

Fortunately, the next wave coming at me was the last one. The scenery changed, now it was entirely different to before, and it welcomed me with a blue window popping up in my view.

You discovered the Ruins of KhavonIn the past had this been a home for those who got persecuted for murdering the first prophet, Laveed. They turned this into their safe haven, hidden away from the gods' eyes and lived in peace for decades without ever seeing the sun smile upon them.

But now is Khavon in ruins and only the belongings of the refugees indicate, that someone once lived here besides the many monsters which made this their new home.

Do you want to announce your name and your discovery of this dungeon to the public?YesNo

No. It was pointless to try it and expect that the error would not occur this time.

The system notification fades away and gives me a full view on the golden bricks of the walls and the floor. Besides the red carpet I am standing on is nothing else in this room and one would wonder how there are no traces of the exploding maggots left. I was sure I also ate the ground, so why didn't my feet sink in?

Oh no! After I realized something I hastily looked at my empty hands then around me and finally I checked my inventory, but it was nowhere—I ate the pocket watch, my only quest item. What do I do now without it? How am I supposed to finish th—— I stopped questioning myself about something which I would not be able answer myself anyway, while I called up the quest window and thoroughly reread it.

Hmm…It does not say that the pocket watch is required to finish this quest. Hopefully the watch's only purpose was to lead me here.

I followed the carpet to a stone door, the only exit from here and thought. This does not seem like it's the same place as before. Maybe I got teleported here? Wait—how do I go back, damn, games were once easier. Mainstream games were never challenging for the only sake of gathering more clients and to appease them, while games which actually were challenging would get many people whining about it because they couldn't do this or that until eventually the sales of the game would decrease and the developers had to stop making such games.

However, Ianus' Gift is one of the challenging ones, but as it was still the only virtually reality game where a full dive was possible it immediately claimed the throne of the most played games, despite its high cost.

My hand stroke over the carvings on the door, depicting a fight of an army against a giant way too big for them to win. There was no handle for this massive door, so the only option available was to push it open. A swirl of gritty dust entered through the door which almost opened all by itself.

The hallway smelt of flowers, it was as if I was not walking through a cold and dreary room. The smell intensified and a warm gust carrying the spring overwhelmed me as the door at the end of the hallway shot open.

On the other side of the door flashed big rat-like monsters, with nostrils big enough for apples to fit in, out of debris trying to take a bite from scaled eyeballs, which tried to barricade themselves in the still somewhat unharmed houses. Flying worms sucked with their circular mouths the lives out of the other monsters, thankfully, they seemed to avoid this underground city's ceiling, which had been oozing a glowing red liquid, otherwise they would have spotted the ledge I was standing on.

There was no way leading down.

Furthermore, the ground was a battlefield. Constantly were the worms and rats screeching and the eye-monsters would explode in a bright light when they died. Occasionally would rays of light shoot out of the eyes and burn the other monsters to cinders. The worms were the weakest as they often could not deal any significant damage, but at least they got the numbers on their side and used it to gang on singled out monsters.

Walls were painted dark red from all the blood and they already were corroding because of that, creating many unstable buildings, which sometimes led to houses collapsing under their own weight. The upcoming clouds of dust covered the battlefield and left behind several suffocated rat monsters—the other monsters came quite unscathed out of it.

But suddenly exploded one of the eyes and threw a worm my way. [iUh-oh.[/i] I knew that it had found me despite its lack of eyes because the many rotating rows of teeth in its mouth aimed at me. I am still not hungry enough yet!

Its teeth rotated much faster and it let out a hellish screech I hadn't even heard from the battlefield. The screech caught every monsters attention and they all stopped fighting for a moment, instead, they looked at me.

I need to escape fast!  I thought and ran towards the door behind me. But it had slammed shut earlier and wouldn't open from this side, at least I was not strong enough to open it myself. However, I still had solution; I simply had to make hole and pull the door from there.

No way, the door is so massive that eating it from my fingertip filled my satiety-bar by a huge chunk!

Meanwhile, the worm had calmed down and came flying at me with the intent to kill me. One of them wouldn't have been a problem, but it was a different matter if a dozen of those came to back up their fellow worm.

A small hole in the closest worms's body eliminated the most imminent threat to me and I still had some time left to escape before the other worms arrived here.

But there weren't any paths I could have used to escape from them and the only way down was to jump—a sure death. The pressure to act grew on me as worms were coming closer and I became restless. Damn, I don't want to have to wait again if I die…it's not gonna happen!

I crouched down at the ledge. My legs limped down the edge, trying to get a foothold on the wall. However, the surface of the wall was too smooth and my feet only slipped every time I seemed to have found somewhere to put them on.

As I was hanging at the ledge, grew the screeching sound of the worms' rotating teeth.

I have to get down…somehow. But, how? How? I panicked.

My strength was not even enough to pull up my body and the only thing I could do was look inside a worm's mouth. It was more like a cylinder out of flesh with nothing inside it but the many rows of teeth.

Surprised, I let go of the edge with one hand and swung a little and thankfully avoided a hit by the worm, which crashed into the wall where my arm was a moment ago and got stuck there. Now I struggled with one hand to hold on the edge.

Not long later targeted another one my life and aimed at my leg, but by pulling my leg up I avoided death once again and now I even got something to put my foot on.

From the ceiling dropped some of the liquid and hit a worm flying at me, but smoke came out of the place where the liquid had dropped on the worm, whereupon it soundlessly fell towards the ground. Now I even to be careful of the ceiling too…

Unfortunately, I was not that lucky with the next worm. I survived, but it certainly would have gotten a clean hit at my back if I hadn't retorted to absorb it in the last second and filled my already almost full belly.

The one worm I had been standing on suddenly began to convulse and move violently. My guts told me that something bad was going to happen if stood on it any longer and listening to it certainly saved my life, because a second after I pulled my foot away it turned inside out and bared its sharp teeth to the outside world and freed itself from the wall's grasp. Oh, shit!

It now looked even more grotesque than before and I had to absorb it if I wanted to survive, however, in the process of trying to eat it I startled at its appearance and hesitated in disgust. And so I accidently let go and fell, while this particular worm burrowed itself into the wall.

I didn't fall for long.

My eating skill was still active and my hand ate a part out of the wall, where I could hold myself. Huh…wait… I could have done this earlier!

Now that I had discovered a new method to get down, I safely climbed down while avoiding incoming monsters and leaving holes on the walls at the price of almost filling my satiety-bar.

Afterwards, I immediately went into hiding in a collapsed house and hungered for a while, but a laser beam cut through the wall and forced me out of there.

I was constantly on the run and couldn't even take a short break without rats snooping me out of my hiding spot. These rats were the worst; they easily found me, they were too fast for me to follow their movements and eat, to make matters worse they would also often ambush me. To get away from them I had to use my surroundings to my advantage and bury them under buildings I made collapse, but it never killed them immediately and only gave me some precious time.

The eyes, on the other hand, were relatively easy to deal with, even though their ranged attacks were deadly I still could avoid them, as they were even slower than me and I even had no problems, whatsoever, to get through their armor and poke holes into them.

However, what bothered me was that none, not even one of them feared the incredible me. Perhaps their level was too high, perhaps they simply didn't know fear or perhaps they did not care. But at the moment it didn't matter for whatever reason they acted like this, because a rat just found me.

It took a deep breath through its oversized nostrils and blew out steam at me. I already had predicted that this would happen and prepared beforehand to make this building collapse. The only thing I now had to do was to eat some bits of the last supporting pillar and run.

From behind blew smothers at me, I used it to the fullest to cross open fields without being spotted and entered a house.

In there I met an eye half my height on the other side of the room. Its several tentacles were supporting its body and with the remaining ones was it supporting the big rock in the door to keep the rats outside.

The defenseless eye had yet to know that I was standing right behind it and I could have easily killed it, but I decided otherwise, else the huge rats would rush in here. But I also couldn't simply turn back and go outside of this house, where the dust no longer could cover me from the other eyes waiting for a target to jump onto the big field.

Shush, don't worry. It won't hurt. I sneaked up behind the eye and quickly cut away all of its tentacles. It did not even get the time to target me as the rats entered through the door.

Imma firin' mah lazor! I thought as I turned the eye at the incoming rats. The red beam had scorched the rats' fur to ashes, slowed them but ultimately it didn't kill them.

Yet, my plan just began. Thanks for your service, Private Eyevy. Your sacrifice will not be in vain. I thanked the eye-monster, poked a hole into it and rolled it towards the mob of rats. Shortly afterwards it set an explosion free and bathed the recovering rats in red.

The hallway was reeking of burned flesh, some arms or legs of the rats' dead bodies were now and then were convulsing, but otherwise they seemed pretty dead and didn't pose any threat to me.

Finally peace… It was time to rest.

I leaned on the bloody wall next to a few dozen dead rat-like monsters and appreciated the moment, that I was for once not part of the mayhem. Actually, I was reminiscing of the time in the void, where nothing at all happened—I grew fond of it.

Next time I die I should bring some orbs with me. I thought, At least then I can escape from dangerous situations…until I come back.

As I had been thinking about stuff like these, I never forgot to look out for any monsters and enjoyed my break.

Wh-what…the hell. From the direction of a stone bridge came running a group of rats, they were being pursued by the eyes and flying worms. But until now the rats never avoided a direct conflict and never ran away no matter how bad the situation looked for them.

They were so desperately fast that they reached me almost instantly before I even thought of hiding or defending myself, but luckily they just ran past me and ignored my presence—afterwards the worms and eyes also followed their example. What is going on?

It was obvious to me that they were fleeing, but what could have been doing this, if they had not even feared me. Suddenly, I was not so eager to find out, but this itch in my head would not stop to annoy me if I didn't at least try to find out.

However, I still couldn't decide whether I should bear the itchy feeling or to probably walk into my death, which actually wasn't that terrible in a game. And so it was settled.

The bridge led me to one of the bigger houses, which had several tall towers at its five corners and everything around here was still unharmed and free of dust. The interior was even neatly decorated with paintings and furniture.

I went through the hallway, ignoring all the doors to the side-rooms, because I felt that 'that something' was behind the big double-doors.

Before I was even close enough to touch the doors, they miraculously opened and showed me the source of the monsters anxiety.

Hello, Dante, a voice, which was not mine, entered my mind.

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WARNING! Expect a long Author's Note.

First of all, I am sorry (I really am!) for the long delay... I am probably the worst best author for doing this.

Well, I was busy with three new projects of mine:

1. A new novel, which I intent to release it as a real book, but that is gonna need a looot more rewriting and time.

2. I was rewriting the first chapters of Starchild and damn they are now almost twice the size from before, now I need to shorten them (Still not done rewriting all of them) >.> Oh yeah, special thanks to DarkD and JCaper who helped me with rewriting the first part of the first chapter.

3. Reading some other works :)

After this I will focus more on Starchild, I promise!

Anyway, enough of my excuses.

So here is chapter 5! The first half...

Now you finally saw the stats of Kumabear and you can compare them to Starchild's, hehe... Kuma is at least much richer than him. Oh yeah, I am going to keep the money low, because I read many stories here on rrl, where the guys leisurely spent thousands of gold and never even mention copper coins after the first few chapters, inflation at its finest. Hell, copper was much rarer when gold (seemed to be the case in those stories.) >.>

Note: I changed the name of cable corporation to... apparently I did not and did not note it down anywhere... damn I forgot. Grr... need... to... remember.

BUT, I changed the game's name from "Another Life" to "Ianus' Gift" Will change that later in the previous chapters.

Also, I have been thinking, now that I got some writing experience I think it was dumb of me to write everyone beside Dante's POV in present tense. I got confused a lot. Well, I at least had some intent why I did that, and I just got an idea how to make it even more awesome by changing every tense to the present! But you won't find out until the later part of this series :P

Aaand I am sorry for the cliffhangers not putting Chesh into this chapter.

Hmm... I think I wanted to say more, but I can't remember... Oh, well. See you next time!

By the way, I haven't proofread this chapter yet. Will do that tomorrow when I got some sleep.

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