The plan was simple.
Don’t antagonize anyone. Don’t threaten anyone. Be nice. Show that I am worthy of their trust while also sharing stuff that makes them feel the same. Try to be useful or perhaps even valuable.
Unfortunately, all of this seems like a stretch.
They are armed and armored adventurers. I look like a half naked pencil pusher escaping from the place they are most likely thinking of raiding next. And all I got is a fire axe. And a bad leg, which I am pretty sure they noticed but chose not to comment on it. Maybe they are just nice people?
Yeah, not much of a point in staying on the defensive. Still, I will do my best to not step on any toes. Especially Finn. The guy just keeps glaring at me and frowning.
Sure, I could play the meek lost guy. Except I would never be able to stomach it. Better to just enjoy my time and try to get some information before they go into ‘adventuring mode’.
It’s not like I can do anything else. My whole experience since waking up is going up a pipe, then going down a hose, crawling and hiding in the sewers, sabotaging a vending machine, boobtrapping a big grate, swinging my axe a grand total of seven times and getting screwed by three rats.
I wonder what they would say if they knew my best combat move so far consisted of bleeding all over the place and screaming alone in a dark corner. Because that’s literally what I did to literally take down those four crocs. At least it sounds like good joke material.
At some point I discovered that I didn’t like being without my shield. I felt sort of unprepared, almost naked. The axe did bring me a little sense of safety, but it wasn’t the same.
Not that it would matter much if they decide to be done with me.
Well, better to come clean and see if they are actually nice people or not. Worst case scenario, I am dead. But like I said, if they plan on doing it, there’s nothing I can do about that. And I am not fond of waiting. On the bright side, they might appreciate the fact that I have some spine.
“So, I woke up in what I now know was an instance,” I began, my voice firm. “It was my office. At the university. Everything was… different. People were frozen in crystal.”
Gareth nodded slowly, his expression grave. “We’ve seen it first hand. The crystallization… it’s a terrible sight.”
“So did I. My friend was taken over by it right in front of me before I bolted,” I continued, my voice getting a little gentler. “He passed me some spirit shards. Told me to escape. To come back for him.”
Elara, the woman with the staff, placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “It’s a cruel fate. But you are not at fault.”
“Yeah, I know.” I murmured. But why would I think it’s my fault? Anyway…
“Then I used the shards he gave me to get more information, so I could escape, I spent six of them in less than one minute” I said, focusing on the facts, avoiding any emotional details. “It told me about the merging of worlds, the Myriad Realms, the temporal instances.”
“The System is… impartial,” Gareth said, his voice hardening slightly. “It offers information, and also other things that might help, but it doesn’t offer help itself.”
“Then I found out that I needed ten shards to exit the instance,” I continued. “And I only had four left by them. So, I promptly spent them on getting more information.” I gave a dry chuckle. “Maybe not my brightest moment, strategically speaking. But at that point I found it to be a necessary investment for my survival.” Very much so.
A few of them chuckled along with me, easing the tension slightly.
“We actually checked out an instance not far from here,” Finn, the glaring and frowning bowslinger, spoke up. “Right after it… formed, I guess you could say. We saw a bunch of crystalized people, just like you described. But there wasn’t anything else. No visible creatures, no resources. Nothing.”
“One of us even went inside to take a look,” Bronwyn, a woman with a scarred face and a no-nonsense demeanor, added. “Confirmed the crystalized people, just like the System said there would be. But came out empty handed. Nothing but blue statues.”
Gareth nodded. “It seems some instances are… barren. Empty. Like echoes of what once was. We didn’t figure them out. Not yet at least.”
“This one isn’t barren at all” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I manage to get more shards and make my way out, but I would give it a bad review if I could.”
“We were actually still learning about how instances work,” Gareth said. “For example, now we know that the first person to enter an instance doesn't need to pay any shards. But it still costs ten to exit.”
“And dungeons are the opposite,” Elara added. “You pay to enter, not to leave.”
“That’s… not what I experienced,” I said, furrowing my brow. “I didn’t have to pay to enter the dungeon in my instance.”
They exchanged glances, a knowing look passing between them.
“A dungeon?” Gareth asked, his voice containing a hint of doubt. “Within an instance? That’s… unusual. Are you sure?”
Yep. Certainly a doubt. Distrust or curiosity?
“It had a system message and everything,” I said, mimicking the way the text had shimmered in the air. Dungeon Detected: The Rat Warrens. Level: 1.
“Rats?” Rhys, a quiet man with a dagger at his belt, finally spoke up. He grimaced. “I suppose they were giant rats. If so, those are nasty. We’ve encountered them. They’re tougher than they look.”
“So, you managed to come out of an instance that had both monsters and a dungeon?” Gareth asked, frowning slightly and looking meaningfully at Finn, a strong hint of suspicion in his voice. “That’s… really quite a feat.” He said while looking at Finn, but still talking to me. I assumed.
Finn shrugged while looking back at Gareth. Saying nothing. But I was sure he was actually saying quite a lot. I’m not liking this.
Gareth turned back to me. “Dungeons within instances work differently,” Gareth explained. “They don’t… replenish, or regenerate, or whatever it is they do. They’re static, contained within the instance. Perhaps that’s why they don’t charge a fee.”
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“That makes sense,” I said, nodding slowly. It was a logical explanation, fitting with the System’s cold, transactional nature.
This wasn’t so bad. Even if not very useful so far, I was learning about the mechanics of instances and dungeons, for free. But the way they keep looking at each other is not reassuring at all.
I also learned something else, something interesting: some of them didn’t have poker faces, unlike Gareth, and seemed somewhat impressed with me. Surprisingly, Finn, despite all his glaring and frowning, almost whistled when I talked about the dungeon. Perhaps he is not as strict as I thought?
They were impressed that I got out of the place. This could be useful. If they saw me as worthy of their time, they might be more willing to share more. Maybe even some resources. I wouldn’t complain if they had a shield no one uses stashed in one of their big backpacks.
Or maybe see me as worthy competition or even a threat, which might be a problem.
Regardless, the conversation flowed, fueled by the warmth of the fire and the shared experience of surviving in this strange new world. The group, having clearly spent a considerable number of spirit shards on System queries, were surprisingly forthcoming with their knowledge.
They seemed to view me as a newcomer, eager to share their insights. I noticed some hints here and there that perhaps they are interviewing me, as in thinking about recruiting me to their group. I was somewhat happy about that.
But I will be even more happy if I manage to recruit them instead.
“So, about rescuing people from instances,” Gareth began, swirling the remaining water in his cup. “It’s tricky. We’ve tried it a few times.”
“There are two ways to ‘clear’ an instance, so to speak,” Elara explained. “Either you eliminate the source of the instance – the threat that created it in the first place – or you rescue everyone trapped inside.”
“But simply rescuing everyone doesn’t always solve the problem,” Finn added, his brow furrowed. “We learned that the hard way. We pulled a group of people out of an instance once, thinking we’d done a good deed. But it turned out that the act of clearing the instance without dealing with the core threat just released it into the world outside. Made things much worse.”
A chill ran down my spine. That might explain why some instances were simply barren. In most cases the threat is dealt with and the instance cleared completely. But in other cases… the threat won, but, still locked within, it hides. Waiting to be unleashed. Did they think of that?
“So, if I wanted to rescue my friend…” I began, my voice trailing off.
“One person is easy.” Finn said. “You go in. Find the person. Spend five shards to get them out of the crystal and haul ass out of there with the twenty shards you need to exit in hand. And that’s it.”
“Not that simple with monsters around.” Said Gareth while frowning. “Especially monsters that like to move in packs and ambush you for fun.”
“For fun?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Yeah.” Flinn said while sighing. “They can’t kill you. So, eating you is out of the question. All thanks to the whole crystal thing. But they still keep doing it. For the fun of it. Like a cat playing with mice.”
“In short,” Gareth said while glaring at Finn. “Not easy at all. Reaching the person you want to set free might be hard, and ‘hauling ass’ will just end up with you falling into a trap or ambush.”
Finn scratched his head and gave me a crooked smile. “Gareth is right. Sorry. I might have given you the wrong impression, what I mean was that getting a single person free is easier since you don’t need to actually defeat the monsters, but that doesn’t make it easy at all.”
Gareth snorted. “To do things properly, as the system states, you have to be able to handle whatever created the instance in the first place, anything else might not work” Gareth finished.
“It’s a gamble,” Bronwyn said bluntly.
“How so?” I didn’t see how it could be a gamble.
The conversation shifted to the System itself, its cold, transactional nature, and its seemingly insatiable hunger for spirit shards. I waited for the two subjects to be linked.
“The System charges a single shard for most basic information,” Rhys explained. “It seems like a small price to pay. And it is. For one question.”
“But it’s deceptive,” Gareth interjected. “Because you never get the full picture with just one question. You have to ask a dozen, maybe even more, to get a good understanding of anything you want more information on. And each single question costs a shard.”
“It’s a clever tactic,” Elara said, shaking her head. “It gets you hooked. You start asking questions, and you realize you need more answers. And to get those answers, you need more shards.”
I listened intently. I had experienced this firsthand, spending over half my starting shards on basic information about my situation. I desperately wanted to ask them about the best ways to acquire shards, but I held back. It was too soon. I didn’t want to appear too eager, too desperate.
“To prepare for an instance you need to know about it.” Gareth said. “This takes quite a few shards and even then you might need to do some scouting. Those are risks you take without even knowing if it will be worth it. It might just be a waste of shards.”
“A gamble.” Bronwyn said.
“And then there are the dungeons,” Gareth continued, his tone shifting. “They’re a different beast altogether. Unlike the one you found, they replenish after about a week, or so the system tells us. New monsters, new loot. And yes, there’s loot within it. Actual magic items, according to the system.”
“That’s why they charge you to enter,” Finn added. “It’s a recurring resource, a reliable source of spirit shards. And don’t even get me started on the possibility of a magical item.”
Then Gareth mentioned something that made my blood run cold. “Time works differently within instances, you know?” he said, his voice low. “It passes much slower. Ten times slower, according to the System.”
“Ten times slower?” I repeated, my voice barely a whisper.
“Yes,” Elara confirmed. “An hour outside is only six minutes inside. A week inside is just a little over a day outside. And instances have their own day-night cycles as if they are completely disconnected from the outside world.”
The implications of this were staggering. My time in the sewers, the hours I had spent hacking at those roots, the day I had spent mapping the tunnels… it had all been compressed. I had spent far less time inside the instance than I had thought.
But at the same time, the system said I spent 78 days in the crystal… local time. Then, the whole time I was in there since this whole mess began…
“So, this whole thing started less than ten days ago?”, I asked.
“Yes.” Gareth sighed.
And my last shard was gone.
[To speed up the establishment of flourishing native civilizations the system creates instances where time flows faster to allow the swift resolution of conflicts. Within this accelerated time flow most of the recharging functions of the system are deactivated to prevent the wastage of resources. Only those worthy of the power or blessings of the system are allowed to enter or exit such instances, to either use them or destroy them. Time outside the instances flows normally. The energy harvested from instances can be used to boost the recovery and recharging functions of the overworld to better help natives to advance to the required threshold before joining the myriad realms. Acceleration factor for time flow within instances: tenfold.]
I just couldn’t help but give out a self deprecating smile while shaking my head. And here was I, thinking that it had been almost three months. I worried a lot about that. How foolish.
Some people might think I would be offended. Tricked. Or such other bullshit. Nah. No way. What this really means is that I might be only ten days behind others. Not three months. Good.
And if I make use of these instances properly, I can advance much faster. All I need is a bow like the one Finn has and I could shoot the crocs until they bled to death. Like shooting fish in a barrel. In a place where a week of hard work means over two months of results. Awesome.
But then reality crashed into my plans. I was still half naked, with a fire axe as my weapon of choice, no shield and no shards. Oh, and a punctured leg risking infection.
It’s a solid plan. I’m the one who can’t handle it.
I couldn’t care less about the confused face of the people in front of me as I shift from thoughtful to happy and then excited before dropping my shoulders and sighing depressively. I was never one of those people that constantly worried about what other people thought of them.
But perhaps I should pay more attention to such things.
Because not even five minutes later I was in a combat ready instance with a reverse grip on my axe while doing my best to not look directly at the once friendly group that slowly converged towards me.