It felt like being hit by a truck. Kafrim doubled over and dropped to his knees, but managed to stay upright. He opened his eyes briefly to check he was in the right place - yes, large, empty, featureless grass plain and a pale yellow sky. He closed them again and pushed the nausea down.
He really hated shifting while shifted, and the higher he’d shifted the worse it was. The Professor claimed it was because he forcibly shifted down to normal time while shifting out, and it was a bit like falling from a tall building. Kafrim wasn’t all that interested, especially since the Professor didn’t have anything useful to say about avoiding it.
After a few minutes he felt calm enough to stand up. Only then did he notice he was still holding the Timeslayer’s dagger in his right hand. He laughed out loud and slashed at the air. It was really a throwing weapon, and he could feel the perfect balance along the length.
Too bad Kafrim wasn’t a throwing kind of guy, but it could still be useful. He stowed it in his backpack and made a mental note to transfer it to his inventory as soon as he got back into a game world.
He stretched and made some experimental jumps. His body ached from the shift, and the Timeslayer’s cuts burned on his arms and shoulders. They weren’t very dangerous, he judged, and he decided he could ignore them until later. There was one more thing he really wanted to try before declaring himself ready to go up against the Hollow God.
This was a book world, so his sandwiches were just sandwiches, but he still ate a couple - time shifting, especially, took a pretty heavy toll on him, which crept up subtly. He needed to stay alert. There should be some water in the backpack - yes, four more bottles. He emptied one of them and then hoisted the backpack again, groaning involuntarily as the straps slid over his cuts.
Right, he decided. Time to dance with those killer robots again. He grinned as he closed his eyes and shifted out of his trusty old retreat world.
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He opened his eyes standing high on a cliff, looking out over a wide, slow-moving river. It glittered in the sunshine as it lazily flowed across a reddish plain. There were ravines, creeks and gullies, but very little vegetation. Off to the right a huge arch rose into the sky, spanning the river.
Kafrim didn’t know what it was - he’d never tried to go farther into this world - but he knew that a raft would appear under the portal very soon, with two men and a young woman on it. Just after that, a couple of silvery killer robots would show up and try to kill the people on the raft.
They would be stopped by another robot, a really scary thing - three meters tall and covered with sharp blades and knives. All the robots were from the future - this world’s future, this story’s future - but Kafrim didn’t understand exactly what they were doing. He didn’t care, either.
He disliked book worlds generally and so spent as little time as possible in them. Game worlds were much more comfortable, and more dynamic. Not to mention you could get killed in book worlds, for real. The only reason he was here was those robots, since they could time shift too.
Kafrim left the cliff and jogged down the slope behind it, turning to his right to circle down the hill and down a wide ravine leading towards the river. The world was eerily quiet - the author had never imagined birds or animals here.
Kafrim had actually thought of it, of adding some animal life to a place that didn’t have any, just to see what would happen. It was the boring Professor that had dissuaded him, warning him that such an action could destabilize the world, and maybe even all the worlds.
Kafrim didn’t really believe it, but even he felt a bit squeamish at the thought of disrupting all the known worlds. Being a thief was all right, but destroying the world? That was super-villain territory and it just didn’t feel like Kafrim’s thing at all.
As he reached the river he stopped by the water’s edge. Small waves lapped the shore and made at least some sound. The raft should be appearing about now, under the arch, and Kafrim turned to jog slowly downstream, along the path beside the river.
He readied his time sense - the first robot should be on the path, and it should be in normal time. He hoped. This was only the fourth time he’d gone up against the robots, and so he didn’t really have a good feeling for how they behaved. These ones seemed to be fairly independent, for book world beings.
As he neared a bend, he slowed to a walk. There was the faint, telltale sign of another shifter coming from behind the rock. He stopped, and then jogged backwards, to where the path opened up a bit. Always good with some more space. Not that he was planning to fight the thing.
The killer robot from the future appeared around the bend, loping easily down the path towards Kafrim. It gleamed silvery in the reddish light, tall and slender. That was deceptive - he’d watched one of them fight once, and they were inhumanly strong. And fast. So am I, Kafrim thought, and shifted up.
The robot froze in place as Kafrim walked casually over to the edge of the river and dropped into a ready stance. His time sense tugged at him as the robot shifted. It moved, but sluggishly, and immediately shifted further. Past Kafrim.
He was ready for it, and shifted further too, and ended up about matched with the robot. It stared at him with its red, nasty eyes, and looked perplexed, if a silvery, metallic-looking things without lips and eyebrows can look perplexed. Maybe it was the body language.
Kafrim chuckled and picked up a rock, which he threw towards it. He leapt after it, making sure not to get too close. The robot hissed at it, caught the rock and threw it back at him, hard and fast. Kafrim shifted further, and watched the rock slow down in mid-air.
He walked up to it and tapped at it with a finger. It felt like a light tap to him, but to a normal observer it would look like a mighty blow, that made the rock shoot straight into the sky.
Oops, Kafrim thought as he felt the robot shift. Here we go. He shifted yet further and dodged the robot lightning-fast leaping kick. They were matched again, and Kafrim knew he couldn’t shift much further. The question was - could the robot?
He didn’t think so, but spent a few moments pretending he was about to attack it. Just as it jumped and bounced against the rock wall, stretching its arms towards his neck, he shifted as far as he could, and ran out of the way. He turned and watch the robot somersault easily and land on its feet. It didn’t look perplexed now, it looked furious.
It ran towards him, but still in slow motion. Kafrim toyed with it, moving slowly so it could see him, but dancing out of the way as soon as it got close. It didn’t shift up, which suggested it couldn’t. Otherwise it would, Kafrim reckoned. So it was at its max, and he was faster. Quite a bit faster. He danced and spun around the robot, reaching out to tap and push it.
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The poor robot staggered after him, clearly able to see or sense him, but not catch him. Kafrim laughed at the thing as he ran in a circle around it. This was good, he thought, damn good.
This was more his style, not hacking away with a sword or throwing daggers left and right. Just shift up, up and away, and exhaust the enemies until you could push them to the ground with a light, super-speeded tap to the shoulder.
Kafrim was debating with himself whether to do that or just shift out and be happy with the test when his time sense warned him - something was coming, and not just shifting gently like he did. Time warped and buckled around him, and suddenly something else stood on the path behind the silver robot.
The über-robot, the huge one with spikes and blades. It stood motionless, and the other robot spun around to face it. Kafrim hesitated. He’d seen one of those fights, and it had been epic, but he’d been at a safe distance that time. Now he was three meters away.
Suddenly, the thing was here. Just in front of him. He hadn’t seen it move, and hadn’t sensed it shift. Kafrim nearly panicked and had to suppress a scream. Up close, the thing was utterly terrifying, like a thousand painful deaths with legs.
It swayed, and Kafrim saw the other robot landing on its back, but it didn’t react. It looked down on Kafrim with red, gleaming eyes.
Kafrim didn’t think. He was a thief, not a warrior, and so running away wasn’t a problem. He’d honed those reflexes over the years, especially in the book worlds, and so he reached in and did the mental twist before he knew it.
For the second time that day, Kafrim slammed back into normal time on his empty retreat island. This time, he toppled over, landing flat on his face in the grass.
He lay still for a while and let his heart rate and breathing slow. That... hurt. Like a truck, he thought, like he usually did. He knew a fair bit about being hit by trucks, after the months he’d spent trying to master a weird, luck-based game where the main enemies were trucks running around in city streets.
He’d mostly walked around with his neck bent over, staring at a smartphone, and hoping his luck skills were finally high enough to make the trucks go past instead of over him. It had taken several months, and he’d stopped counting after the 500th truck.
Finally, and with the help of a lot of side quests in casinos and high-wire walking between buildings and the like, he’d managed to raise his luck enough to avoid the trucks and get to the final boss. And then he’d promptly found that the luck skills in the game scaled weirdly in all the other worlds he’d been. He was extremely lucky around vehicles, but in other worlds, it was hit or miss with no logic he could discern.
He got unsteadily too his feet and took several deep breaths. Damn, doing this twice in short order was more than twice as tough as doing it once. There was no way he could do it again already tonight, as he’d planned.
Oh well, he thought. Let’s go somewhere and recover a bit instead. The only question is - where?
Kafrim had several standard hangouts, usually in glitzy Art Deco-style games and cities, but he didn’t really feel like dealing with crowds just now. He was too focused on the upcoming raid.
I’ll go see the Professor, he decided. And maybe Hannah. His mood brightened, and he ignored his aching body as he closed his eyes and shifted out.
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This time it didn’t hurt. Normal time to normal time - all he felt was the momentary sort-of-sideways lurch. Then he opened his eyes in the middle of a square in a vaguely medieval-looking town. It wasn’t really home, but he’d been here often enough. He stretched and began walking towards a narrow street that disappeared in between timber buildings.
The Professor lived at the edge of the town, and he’d go there later. First, though, he wanted to check The Daft Craftsman, one of the three taverns in town and the main one in the game when it came to picking up quests and missions. It was usually crowded with adventurers, humans or game characters.
It was drawing towards evening and people were returning from the day’s labors in the fields outside the town. There was an unusual amount of humans here, and many of them recognized him. He waved and grinned towards some of them. Others eyed him warily.
Kafrim generally tried to stay well-behaved while he was here, and limited himself to pranks and minor mischief, but some people just lacked humor. He hadn’t actually stolen anything here, but he had made things disappear - and appear again in unexpected locations.
Some people, like grumpy old Rawlin there, thought that was as bad as stealing them. Kafrim gave him an ironic wave in return for his frown, and walked on. Rawlin had no idea just how bad things Kafrim could do. He should be grateful.
At one corner of the square a three-story tall half-timbered house rose against the twilight sky. Kafrim whistled as he opened the door and went in, stooping slightly. The Daft Craftsman was like it always was: noisy, smelly, and warm. People were singing, and eating, and staring morosely into their beer, and arguing, and doing all the other usual things.
In here, most of the guests were regulars, and they greeted Kafrim with shouts and hollers. He grinned and waved, and shot some of them mock-serious salutes. He didn’t stop, thought, but just walked calmly through the din and up to the bar. Right up to Hannah, in fact, who was pouring beer in four jugs.
“Oh look,” she said when she saw him, “the cat’s been here again!”
“Better dragged in now and again than stuck here forever,” he retorted.
“I never heard of anything getting dragged back out by the cat,” she said. “Except you.”
He shook his head, but grinned at her. “Busy tonight?”
“Nah, pretty normal. Again, except for you. Weren’t you here just the other day?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but I need to talk to the Professor again.”
“That hare-brained plan of yours again?”
“What else?” He leaned on the counter and towards her. “Next time I see you, I’ll be the most powerful man among all the worlds. Maybe then you’ll change your mind?”
“Wait and see, mister. Didn’t you say you’d be all-knowing as well? Next time I see you, you won’t have to ask.”
“You’re hopeless,” he told her.
“And you’re hopeful,” she shot back, but she smiled over her shoulder as she carried the jugs out to the waiting patrons.
Kafrim waited for her return, tapping his fingers against the counter. Damn, he thought. Hannah was his best friend, and friends was all they’d ever be, as she’d made abundantly clear. On multiple occasions. He couldn’t help flirting with her anyway.
“Do you want a beer?” she asked when she came.
“No,” he said. “I’m heading over the Professor, and then early tomorrow, I’m off. To meet my destiny.”
Hannah frowned and looked down. “I still think it sounds ludicrous. Heck, even the bumpkins here know about the Hollow God. Do you really think you can steal from him?”
In response, Kafrim shifted up. Not very far, just enough to make the tavern slow to a crawl. He walked around the end of the counter and into the bar, stopping a few steps behind Hannah. He shifted back down.
“Yes,” he said, and then laughed as she jumped and spun around, fists rising in reflex.
“Don’t do that,” she groaned.
“It’s my secret trick. The hollow guy won’t expect it.”
“You think.”
“I know,” he corrected. “The Professor -”
“The Professor knows jack shit about the Hollow God,” she said, cutting him off. “Look,” she said, sighing. “I know you want to do this, and it’s not like I think I can stop you. I just... be careful. Okay?”
“As always,” he said, but she took a quick step and grabbed his arms, digging her nails into his skin.
“No. More careful. The Hollow God can eat you alive. You know what they say.”
“Ow,” he said, pulling his arms free. “What’s this, it’s like you care about me suddenly.”
“Kaf,” she said, as quietly as she could in the noisy tavern. “You think you’re immortal, just because you’ve been so lucky for so long.”
“Trust me, I know I’m not immortal. But I will be. Next time we meet.”
“You better,” she said, scowling at him. “Because if you mess this up and bring the Hollow God down on us, I swear I’m going to kill you myself.”
“Oh, that’s sweet!” he cried happily. “I knew you cared deep inside!”
“Go talk to the Professor,” she said, shaking her head. “But be careful, you hear? Don’t get yourself killed, and don’t get yourself - something even worse.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, but she’d turned away from him and headed over to the other end of the bar where a man was waving to get her attention.
Damn it, he thought again as he made his way out the back of the tavern, into a narrow cobbled alley. He’d managed to coax Hannah along on his adventures a total of three times, and he’d had more fun on those than anything before or after the Event. She’d made him look timid and cautious, but now she preferred to stay here and work in the stupid tavern.
Maybe she would change her mind, if he succeeded. No. When he succeeded. Believe in yourself, his mother had always said, and he’d developed that into an art form over the years. Of course he would succeed.
Kafrim began whistling again as he headed down the alley, towards the Professor’s rickety old house.