Chapter 5: Rendezvous with the Unexpected
'Hello, Dante,' a voice, which was not mine, entered my mind.
He who was unlike any other men, he who was the embodiment of the monsters' fear, he who instantly made my knees soft, was standing in front of me in the center of the circular room.
The light of the torches on the walls dimmed until it completely died off and let the stars inside our bodies fight against the darkness.
When I looked at him and into those shining white eyes, I realized that I was not…unique. There stood another one of my kind, a Starchild.
The other Starchild raised his leg to make a step, but while he did that turned all of a sudden everything black and only the outlines of everything shined white. With that one single step he somehow crossed the distance of half the room and was now so close that we were standing eye-in-eye with each other.
To my surprise I hadn't taken a step back when he instantly stood only a few inches away, or rather, I couldn't do so. It was as if my body was stuck.
'Who—' I thought, but he interrupted me as his own thoughts invaded into my mind.
'Are you?' he finished my sentence and answered, 'I am.'
'You are…what?' I asked after he didn't consider to finish his sentence, but he chose to keep quiet.
For a while, we stood still and simply looked into each others' eyes, but then I remember what he had called me when he saw me and I couldn't do otherwise but ask him, 'How did you know my name?'
However, he still didn't bother to answer me and I began to worry, was he friend or foe? I feared the answer, because if he was the latter then I had no chance against him, but until now he had not done anything to indicate that he was out for malice.
Finally, for the first time after half an eternity passed, he went a step backwards. What did he want and why did he not do anything? I genuinely wanted to know. I wanted answers, which only he would knew. After all was he a "Starchild," too.
'Starchild… no matter when, no matter where…it's the same,' he said, but this time were his words not that forceful in invading my mind. They were not meant for me. 'Even though it's not me who is the child…ironic, isn't it?'
He struck his arm out. Many different colors began to gather above his palm and slowly solidified. It was not clear yet what it was going to be, but the jelly thing showed after a short amount of time its sharp edges before it eventually was satisfied to have formed into a simple, white, solid cube.
The cube hovered humming and then softly landed on his hand, while it gradually shrank in size. He let the cube roll between his fingers and would transport it from one finger to another, while doing some acrobatic tricks like how one would do with a coin. But when the cube lay on his thumb he flicked it. At that moment I believed that he was there to kill me, because the cube shot into my face and then dove into me.
It stung between my eyes. Besides the pain, which faded away as fast as it had appeared, nothing else happened and I survived without losing my one and only health-point.
'The box is the one and the none. Look inside and you will know. Or leave it and be it,' he said.
I had so many questions I wanted to ask, but he answered one even before I could have thought of how to word it, 'I wanted to go outside.'
That was the last thing I heard from him. A second later he suddenly disappeared without leaving a trace. The torches' flames awoke from their slumber and painted everything, where their light touched, in lively colors—as if they were never gone.
What the— He just disappeared and left me standing here! Furthermore, he didn't actually answer much and now I was standing there… alone again, with a bunch more questions on my list. Many thanks to him.
The cube! I hastily scanned my forehead, but there was nothing different to before; smooth as ever, no holes or dents whatsoever. I feared the worst. Fuck! It better not be a time bomb!
Great, I don't know what it did or will do and when it will screw me over! No, wait…he wouldn't do that to his own kind, if so he would have done it already or he couldn't. What if—
The ground growled, it cracked everywhere and the floor divided. An abyss appeared, as if the ground was hungry. Deep in there it was dark on the ground, so dark not even I could see anything at all. Parts of the ceiling broke off and fell into the hole. but that had not been the end. From deep within the abyss was a force trying to pull everything in there. The ground truly was hungry.
Don't tell me…this was his doing? Bastard!
I happened to run out of the house in time, before the ground sucked it in whole. But I had to dodge loose stones and rocks shooting towards the ever growing hole. However, outside of the house was not a bit better, it was actually much worse. Now I had to dodge or absorb not only flying rocks, no, I also had to avoid being hit by the monsters, which still were continuing their endless war even while they were being sucked into the abyss.
While I was busy surviving, I could not notice everything and eventually bumped into an eye-monster. It immediately set its target at me, grabbed with its several tentacles my arms and legs, and then charged its laser.
Time was pressing and I pulled at its tentacles in hope I could get away, but then I got an idea. I pulled as strong as I could and then ate the tentacles binding me. Because the eye had been countering my pull, it flew a little bit back when the tentacles got cut. The laser it then had shot, luckily missed me and burned a rat instead. All thanks to a rock hitting the eye-monster, which changed where it had aimed at.
Where can I escape to? My biggest worry for the moment was to find a safe spot, but the hole was pulling stronger as time passed and made it harder to run away from it.
Houses disappeared, eye-monsters exploded each time rocks hit them and the rats crawled into holes the worms made to escape. Even the glowing liquid on the ceiling got sucked into the hole.
With my powers I created a better foothold for me, while I escaped as far as possible from the hole. But eventually I reached a dead end.
Is this it? My end? With my back leaning on the wall, I watched how the destruction of this dungeon took place. Soon, no trace of people and monsters ever having lived here would remain.
The hole was by now as large as half the cave and continuously sucked in everything in its way. The monsters at least no longer fought and only cared for their survival, so they were not a threat to me anymore. But it didn't matter anyway.
It was not an everyday-view, but what had looked normal since I started playing the game? Now I could only wait until it was my turn to die.
What looked the best here, was the whirl of the ceiling liquid flowing into the hole and somehow the amount of the liquid did not seem to decline. The ceiling was still full of that glowing liquid, but slowly formed gaps all over there. As the gaps grew bigger, I was able to see behind it the black surface of the ceiling. That was what I had assumed it to be.
But the less of the weird liquid covered my view to the ceiling, the more I could see what truly was there. A giant!
You prematurely discovered the secret of the dungeon!
Quest: Half-Done"Many made us, but we make one" was the previous residents mantra. Hence, they sacrificed each other and did not even let a single one of them left out to create this monstrosity, whose purpose was to challenge the gods. However, they never managed to finish their work and had to seal it before their curse took over them.
Finish what was left undone or destroy it before it comes free.
??? Missing information.
What's the point? The hole will swallow it any—— Speaking of the devil—the suction gradually grew weaker and eventually stopped, leaving a huge hole in the middle of the cave.
The giant, who no longer was covered by any of the fluids, bared his whole body. It was so big, that it needed all the space of the ceiling and it was a wonder how simple chains could have been holding on to it this whole time.
…It stopped. But, now I am going to be crushed! Great. I thought. And how am I supposed to complete or kill that, that thing? Why the fuck is it even on the ceiling?
Hmm, what are they doing?
All the surviving monsters crawled out of hiding. The ones who were able to fly, namely the worms, gathered at the faceless giant's head.
One by one turned they inside out to show everyone their sharp and triangular teeth. What are they planning? The answer to my question would come shortly afterwards, as all of them penetrated the skin of the giant and dug deep inside it to form a grotesque kind of mouth.
Completion Status: 4%
A system message appeared. The rate was increasing.
Disgusting. It was utterly disgusting. I felt like I was looking at somebody who had a mouthful of hundreds and thousands of maggots, only worse.
Out of every corner and hole came now the remaining monsters out. Unlike their flying rivals, they could do nothing but watch and desperately jump.
It didn't take long until the last worm found its place on the giant's face and the system message stopped at 33%.
I almost fell on the ground as the cave began to shake due to the giant's sudden movements. The shackles luckily were still restraining it, but I got a bad feeling about that.
The heavy resistance of the giant made the cave shake more and at last one of the gigantic chains loosened. One of its end was still stuck to the ceiling and the other end made a blast of dust when it hit the ground. This was the chance for the monsters to climb up now, but only the eye-monsters were able to do so thanks to their long tentacles. They were aiming to fill up the empty eye sockets of the giant.
A giant with compound eyes, where each can shoot laser beams…that should be stopped, I thought, Where is the exit?
Now was my chance to escape, while every monster was occupied, but nothing happened my way—it never did. This time was no different.
The other Starchild appeared midair, just below the giant. And then shit started going down.
Starchild moved his arms a little bit up, which made me feel lighter. And yet, it didn't stop there and I soon wasn't even touching the ground. I and everything else were getting pulled to the ceiling.
Even the giant was no exception.
The ceiling cracked and soon lifted, too. All the shackles binding the giant got loose and finally freed the giant. As confirmation of the giant's freedom, disappeared the message about its completion, which had been stuck at 33%. Instead, another message popped up. A warning.
The titan Homungradd has been released!
'What are you doing?' I screamed in my mind at the other Starchild.
'Trying to go outside,' He said.
And indeed, soon were we hovering above the surface with a giant facing us from high up.
The moment I softly landed on the ground and could feel the wet dirt below my feet, Starchild disappeared and everything still in the air fell down.
Homungradd, the titan, fell back into the hole we came out from, but it was big enough to crawl out of it again.
You failed the quest "Half-Done"For failing an important quest like this, you receive severe punishment.
- 15 Levels
Error!
+ 5 500 Infamy
Error!
Health, mana and stamina will now regenerate half as fast for 2 weeks (even outside of battle).
Additionally you will not gain any Experience for 1 week in-game.
Ha! Don't make me laugh! The punishment was ridiculous—for me, at least. I couldn't care less about that, but what I couldn't ignore was, that the titan was still too close to me.
Trees just flashed past me as I ran into the opposite direction of the titan, who looked confused about what to do. I guessed that it was due to its incompleteness and was glad that it couldn't sense me. Nevertheless, I still had to put some distance between us. Just to be safe.
Even though I ran a considerable distance, the titan still overshadowed everything in my view.
When the titan stomped its feet on the ground, crushing trees along the way, the ground shook even miles away. Animals sought after the far distance and left in masses, away from Homungradd.
I, on the other hand, decided to take shelter in the nearest town I could find.
Of course was it none other than Clock Town, which I soon reached.
Seeing those familiar clocks, regret surged up in me. Regret, that I had not found anything regarding the quest here. Regret, that I had been unable to help once again. It was just another thing, which added to my long list of failures. In comparison was the list about my successes very short—the only noteworthy thing was, that…nothing actually. Maybe that I was good at studying, but this was something everyone could do.
Unlike Nick, who was a talented artist since ever, I couldn't show any remarkable talent. Therefore, I did not want to fail this quest. No matter what.
A feeling of hitting against some miniscule resistance, appeared as I came close enough to the houses.
The barrier! I thought, while holding my hand out to the sudden rain. How could have I forgotten about it? But why is here even a barrier? This may be a lead itself!
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Hmm… could it be? No. A barrier, it's here to separate two areas; the cursed inside and the normal outside. The gears in my head suddenly began to connect to each other.
That means that it was probably pointless of me to go that dungeon… I concluded, Then, there is that time-loop-like behavior, the clocks could be the reason.
Outsiders, like the shady wolves or me, were ultimately unable to change something. The next day it would return back to "normal". Now that I remember, I made some experiments to test this hypothesis out.
The house, which I had made collapse, was looking as sturdy as ever. Well, at least it was standing, however, from the cut I had made remained still a few holes, through which I could see the old lady knitting like usual. And if I looked closely, then I could see that the walls were slowly regenerating.
Something this huge was back to normal again—a reason this truly was due to a time loop.
But then, I also had tried the same on a human, the old fisherman.
Somehow, I got used to the crazy clocks and could almost ignore them completely, especially now that I was dedicated to solving this case. The lock at the fisherman's house was working again, but not for long.
That's weird…he should be back alive again, right? Then why is he not breathing! The wound I had inflicted on him disappeared, but his heart did not beat, hence, his skin was pale.
You should now be preparing to go fishing again! Don't—
"Yes! The door is open," I heard a voice, which I believed already had heard once before. "C'mon let's get inside. Oh, sh-sh-shit. We-we found him ag-again."
A big axe clunked on the floor.
Then entered another guy, who also dropped both his shields to the ground.
"Wa-Wallter, block the door!" shouted the man and then picked up his axe. "Now! Don't let him escape!"
"Can't," Wallter's voice was so quiet, it barely left his throat.
"Pick your fucking shields up!"
A vein was about to pop on the man's sweaty skull. As Wallter reluctantly picked his shield up and positioned himself at the door, faced the other man me.
"After I kill you…I will get famous," he said.
'If you can kill me,' I thought and prepared to fight, now that escape was impossible. Fortunately looked these guys easier to deal with—compared to the monsters I had to face previously.
The man spread his eyes wide and stuttered out, "Yo-you can ta-talk?"
Oh, it worked. I thought to myself.
'Yes,' I answered. 'Now leave ordie!'
"I-I am not scared of you." Sweat flowed down his red cheeks and made his beard, which was already wet due to rain, even wetter.
'Do you have a death wish? I. Said. Leave.' I made a step forward, trying to look as menacing as I could. Truthfully, I was fed up for the day and simply wanted to finish this quest and chill at home.
What I last said, seemed to have an effect as the man shrieked back a little. However, it was not enough to make him leave and he raised his axe.
"Fucking die!" shouted the man and kicked the floor.
His axe inflamed a blue fire as he slashed it at me.
I saw my own reflection at the surface of his axe when I barely avoided it. The axe looked damn heavy, but he swung it as if it was a stick, hence, he didn't leave me even a chance to grab him.
He swung his axe once, whereupon I dodged another hit. Instead, the axe struck the wall and wouldn't budge even after the man pulled at it. My chance to counterattack!
But, realizing it was my turn to attack, he immediately distanced himself and pulled out a dagger from its sheath. He was getting serious, I believed.
I will die for sure, if I play any longer, I thought, Huh, is he now even more anxious?
The man was hesitating, either that, or he was preparing something. I couldn't tell exactly what he was doing, but assumed that he felt insecure, now that his main weapon was gone. Still, his grin was confusing me.
To know what was the case, I casually walked towards him and took attention at every move he made. But nothing changed.
Then, as I was getting too close for him to remain like that, he gripped tighter on his knife.
He really was anxious. I had cornered him. In an act of desperation he wildly swung his knife at me.
That, however, was the last time he would see his knife, because I ate it when it was about to hit me. Now, cornered and without weapons, his eyes could only plead for his life. This time, not rain nor sweat was running down his cheeks, but tears were.
Finally, the man sunk to his knees.
'Let this be a lesson to you. Next time value your life more and do not attack me recklessly again,' I said, You hear me?
He nodded.
'Don't worry. I will do it fast,' I reassured him and then put my finger on his forehead.
I ate a hole in it and he fell a few seconds later limp on the ground.
He was scared, after all… I turned away from the corpse. Now to the other guy—oh, he left.
The back of his shiny armor was the only thing I saw as he ran away as fast he could. Great, now I can devote myself back to the quest.
Hmm… where was I again? Ah, right! So, this town is most probably stuck in a time loop. But, then…the fisherman should have revived. Maybe it takes its time, like that one house.
But I still don't know how to solve all this. I guess I should search the mayor.
He, the cause of all this, was still my only lead. And so I was about to visit his home, but when I was outside on the plaza, I saw a purple light shining out of the mayor's office.
With utmost certainty I would find him there, I thought and instead chose the office as my next destination.
Before I entered the mayor's office I stopped and thought about what had happened the last time—he simply ran away. To not let this mistake happen a second time, I went downstairs and ate the doorknob, so that he could not escape that easily.
As I was about to enter the office, I heard a sick laughter and then the mayor talking, "Hehe, thanks to those wayfarers I can finally get rid of this curse! Maia, soon we will see each other again! Just you wait."
What the hell is he up to? I got a bad premonition and went inside.
The mayor was at his desk, grinning maniacally. From his cut wounds (he probably had inflicted himself) flowed his blood in masses into cups with weird substances in them and the purple fire resulting from it illuminated the whole room.
What he was doing, definitely did not look right, not even to me. I feared the worst and I had to stop him, but some kind of force didn't let me get closer.
'Stop! What are you doing?' I shouted with such a force, that it stunned the mayor for a moment. But his insanity didn't let him stop.
"You can't stop the gods' will!" lightning and thunder underlined his shouting and laughing.
"Now for the final touch." The mayor grabbed a bag and pulled something out of it. While he was at it, more blood dripped down. It was not his blood. He had pulled out a little boys head, whose eyes were still crying—even after his death mourned his body—and put it on the middle of a magic circle on the desk. Afterwards he pulled out another thing out of the bag, this time it was a heart. I didn't even want to think about whose heart it was.
"Eyi kohvrakii Exvetraha'ar Lahvit!" The mayor screamed. His voice was getting deeper, beyond human capabilities, and his eyes were bleeding as his pupils were widening. Then he did it—he bit into the heart, like it was an apple.
And then, silence.
The purple flames in the cups disappeared, the crazy clocks stopped working, the storm outside disappeared and the force no longer kept me out of the mayor's reach.
"Ha! Ha! Ha! It worked!" he shouted, laughed and jumped around.
It worked? I felt defeated. The hell! That can't be it!
I felt like punching this guy…hard, very hard. But then I would probably take damage myself and die. The thought of killing him also enticed me, but the quest—
Something was wrong, the quest was still on-going. There had been no new system message.
The mayor also seemed to notice that. Nothing of his enthusiastic self from earlier remained, he just stood there at the window and looked out. Motionlessly.
People were going out of their homes and gathered at the plaza. Whether old or young, man or woman, they all walked the same. Absentmindedly, lost, soulless.
Soon, when enough people had gathered on the plaza, they began to scratch and bite each other. No. It no longer would have counted as biting, rather, they were eating each other—alive.
We couldn't keep our eyes off of this massacre. At times like this I thought, how could a game be this cruel. Although it was a game, it certainly did not feel like playing one, it was more like living it and then I had to see so many fucked up things since playing this. I wondered if Ianus' Gift really was a present for us or not.
The mob continued their unreasonable mayhem until no one was standing.
If we thought this was the end, then we would have been seriously mistaken. The actual disaster began afterwards, when the dead were crawling towards one collective point.
A thick miasma came flooding from the monstrosity, which was slowly taking form.
The mayor hysterically bumped into me as he was about to run away, but he had been so focused on his little ritual, that he never realized that I had been in the same room with him or even standing next to him at the window. However, now that he saw me flinched his already messed up face even more and spurted outside, leaving again a reeking puddle behind.
Outside was the abomination peacefully growing into a humanoid form. Limbs, heads, skulls and bones stuck out all over it. The thing made of flesh—of real humans, let out a deafening roar.
The roar stunned the mayor, who just happened to break through the door to escape from this hell.
And then spoke the abomination, "Foolish maggot. I have to thank you, mortal, for summoning me.
"Last time you swindled your way out of the deal," it looked at the mayor, "but now you came to your senses and delivered the promised sacrifices.
"Tell me, what do you desire this time?"
The man in question, however, was in no way able to answer in that condition. That was what I had thought at least, but in reality the mayor shamelessly said, "I-I-I…want…to be with my wife again."
"So be it," it said.
All the miasma around the abomination suddenly retreated back inside it and it stood proud on his feet. But everything and everyone it touched or even came close to, withered and rotted away. "Come, come with me."
Beware, Lahvit has descended!
You failed the quest "The Mayor's Sin"For failing a quest in the worst way possible, you receive severe punishment.
- 18 Levels
Error!
+ 7 800 Infamy
Error!
Health, mana and stamina will now regenerate half as fast for +3 weeks (even outside of battle).
Additionally you will not gain any Experience for +2 weeks in-game.
You received a title!For having brought huge calamities twice in a row and at the same day, you get the title "Chaos".
Where ever you go, where ever you are, only misery awaits everyone. Around you monsters will become more vicious, droughts will befall those who seek water, plagues will find the righteous, tyrants will rise, souls will be damned, good will turn evil…
You are the bane of all, the evil everyone tries to avoid, the reason for every cataclysm.
You are the Harbinger of Chaos.
- 10 000 Luck
Your bad luck affects your surroundings.
This title can't be unequipped.
Reading the new messages, which popped up in my view, I thought, Well…fuck it. I am done, and left the game.
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Ugh. Imagining what I wrote made me feel sick. Should I add the mature tag?
Anyway…need something merrier to write… MORE Chesh the next chapter!
Thankfully I finally remembered how I renamed the company's name. "Cable Corporation" turned into "Nomad"
Now I like it :)
This part was the shortest until now…well it actually was just the continuation of chapter 5, but whatever.
Now I need some answers from you guys, it's something which has been bugging me already since a long time. Is the pacing of this web novel actually good? I feel like it's somehow slow, because I have those three POVs and I want to get the story going >.> can't wait to get to the exciting parts.
By the way, please, PLEASE give me some feedback. Kyrenox did it and I am really glad he did. You guys are the only ones who can tell me something about my story… Friends from real life either don't know English that well or are like this: "It's good." -.-
And yes, scumbag author reads the comments, even if he does not reply to each of them.
Well, that's it from me.
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