Chapter 2 – Punishment

[Beginning Integration…]

[Preparing first floor…]

The world faded out around Jack. He watched as the marbled floors of the penthouse disappeared beneath him and Chuck. He couldn’t move his head, his arms, even his eyes were stuck staring dead ahead at Chuck. Best Jack could tell, the world had disappeared around them. Just him and Chuck suspended in time.

Oddly shaped rocks appeared one by one, round stones piecing themselves together where the ground should be. A cobblestone road built itself underneath them. Jack could feel the earth being remade under his feet, lightly vibrating as each piece locked into place. Next came a sky of perfect blue. Rather, an impression of blue, as he was still unable to command his body to look around. The sun kissed the back of his neck as a warm breeze tousled his hair. How was he frozen, but his hair wasn’t? It was at this point that Jack realized he really needed to scratch his nose.

Next, came various structures, big and small, medieval in nature, built from wood and stone. Then, people. Jack could barely see out of his peripheral vision, but he could sense them. It was a lot of people populating around him appearing from seemingly nowhere. Jack tried to rein in his racing thoughts and wild heartbeat, trying to cut through the whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck mantra echoing in his head. Focus on the mission, he thought, in an attempt to calm himself down. His gaze, unfortunately still locked on Chuck, was actually helping. Staring at his bloodied and broken face, frozen in time, reminded him he still had a job to do. Who cares what’s happening? Just kill Chuck. Focus on that, he told himself, latching on to the thought.

[Transportation of realm designation: Earth–Complete]

[Welcome to the Tower]

The message disappeared and time unfroze itself, or rather, unfroze Jack. He felt all his strength return, the momentum of his knife driving downward. He could stop… But he wouldn’t. The knife pierced straight into Chuck’s heart, sliding in with little to no resistance. He watched as Chuck’s eyes bulged, his body spasming. Jack gave his nose a much needed scratch. People started screaming.

It wasn’t Chuck who screamed. He was suffering from a heart shish kebab. It was everyone else. Jack gripped the knife, ripping it out of Chuck and jumped back into a stance. Chuck gurgled a death rattle as blood spewed out of him like a fountain. The screaming grew louder. Jack glanced around. He was in some sort of city square, people of every sort surrounding him in various states of confusion. The ones closest to him, the ones who had front row seats to Chuck’s assassination were the ones screaming.

You have killed climber Chuck Rose

+2 Skill Points

A message popped up in his vision again. He scanned over it. Kill confirmation. Nice. He didn’t know what these things were that kept appearing in his vision, but they were as helpful as they were annoying.

Achievement: Fastest Kill

In all the towers storied history, never has a murder taken place so quickly into integration. Congratulations killer.

Reward:

+500,000AP,

+Invitation to the Black Centipede.

Another box popped up in his vision just as he got rid of the first one. “God damnit, how do I make these things go away?” He tried swiping at the air with his hands and blinking frantically. Nothing seemed to work.

“Get the fuck out of my eyes!” he finally screamed in annoyance at the stupid achievement thing. Surprisingly, that seemed to work as the message disappeared. Standing directly behind the now gone message was a man in a suit, holding a gun directly at his face. One of Chuck’s bodyguards.

“Oh shit…” Jack muttered throwing his knife at the guard who started blasting. One. Two. Three shots fired. Jack felt like he was watching the bullets come at him in slow motion… because he was. He cocked his head slightly at the weird phenomenon. Then the world came to a halt again.

[Warning: Killing in the Tutorial Village is a prohibited action–You are now banned from the tutorial. Relocating…]

The world went black around Jack and for the second time in as many seconds; he found himself frozen in time, stuck in an endless void. Not again…

[Error… No class detected. Class required before leaving the tutorial village. Assigning Class based on achievements]

[The Tower has assigned you the Cutthroat class]

Another screen filled his vision, showing him the cutthroat class.

Class: Cutthroat - Common

A cowardly criminal likely to mug you in a dark alleyway and leave you for dead

+1 Dexterity Per Level

+Dagger Proficiency [Passive, Common] [Novice-Low] [Error: No core detected]

Class Upgrade Available: 10,000AP

Jack stared at the message. He wasn’t sure what to make of what he was looking at. He didn’t like it though. A cowardly criminal? Bullshit. He focused on the upgrade part, maybe that would let him get rid of this class thing. Another message appeared as he mentally selected class upgrade.

[Upgrade Class for 10,000AP? Y/N]

What’s an upgrade for a cutthroat? A pirate maybe? That seemed like an upgraded version of a cutthroat. Please make me a pirate. He focused on the ‘Yes’ option.

[Upgrading Class…]

[Class Upgrade Successful]

Class: Rogue – Uncommon

A prowler of the night. A dexterous killer or nimble thief. The rogue is the ideal candidate for deeds not spoken of in public.

+2 Dexterity Per Level

+1 Focus Per Level

+Dagger Proficiency [Passive, Common] [Novice-Low] [Error: No core detected]

+Sneak [Passive, Uncommon] [Novice-Low] [Error: No core detected]

Class Upgrade Available: 150,000AP

Jack’s heart sank a little bit. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but this wasn’t it. It sounded so lame… He selected the class upgrade option again, noting it had gone up in price considerably. This next one better be something good. Jack had no idea what the hell AP was, but he was positive he didn’t want to be spending it like this.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

[Upgrading Class…]

[Class Upgrade Successful]

Class: Hitman - Rare

A hired killer of the worst variety. Known for taking any job and doing whatever necessary to complete it. The hitman is a ruthless killer unbound by any code of ethics. Pray a Hitman never comes for you.

+1 Strength Per Level

+3 Dexterity Per Level

+2 Focus Per Level

+Dual Strike [Ability, Uncommon] [Novice-Low] [Error: No core detected]

+Dual wielding [Passive, Uncommon] [Novice-Low] [Error: No core detected]

+Sneak [Passive, Uncommon] [Novice-Low] [Error: No core detected]

Class upgrade unavailable: Max rarity achieved for this level.

[The Tower has assigned you the Hitman Class]

[Adjusting base stats]

Being frozen in time was the only thing that prevented Jack from screaming in rage. Even worse still, he knew somewhere out there Hannah was laughing at him. At least I’m right about hitmen being scum. Even the message thing agrees with me.

The world faded in around him, apparently done with him. Jack dropped down with little to no ceremony in a dimly lit stone hallway.

Quest: The Cursed Dungeon of Andurian.

Quest Tier: Rare

Quest Sponsor: The Tower

Objective: Traverse the dungeon within the allotted time and lay claim to the cursed treasure within.

Time: 120hrs.

Reward:

10,000AP

+1 Level

He stared at the screen, and then promptly threw up. Apparently twice was the limit on times he could interdimensional travel before throwing up. Good to know.

“Get the fuck out of my eyes,” he said, causing the quest thing to disappear. He rolled over onto his back, staring up at the stone ceiling while running through the day’s events. His head hurt. His body hurt. His everything hurt. He desperately needed a drink. This was shaping up to be his worst hangover yet. Well... Not the worst, but it was at least on par with the morning after that job in Saigon. Almost.

There was a small popping noise above his head and a white square materialized out of thin air, landing directly on his face.

“Fuck. Ow.” He said, wincing as the corner of the square hit him directly in the eye. He grabbed the paper and propped himself up against the wall, trying and failing to wink away the pain in his now-watering eye. He inspected the paper. It was a thick cardstock. There was a black centipede painted around its border and he couldn’t tell if it was actually moving or one of those weird visual tricks to make it look like it was crawling around the edge.

Invitation to the Hall of the Black Centipede

Type: Key

Tier: Rare

An invitation to the Hall of the Black Centipede

[Use now? Y/N]

Jack immediately selected no and tossed the invitation to the ground. He’d had enough teleportation today. He was done with that weird party trick.

Jack stood up off the ground. Pushing himself off of the adjacent wall, he took a deep breath of the stale, musty air, and gave his new location a proper inspection. There wasn’t much to look at, really. It was a large, dusty stone hallway. Torches lined the side of the wall in either direction. Behind him, the torches came to a dead end. He walked in that direction first as the other way the torches disappeared into ominous darkness.

What was this place called again? The cursed dungeon? That couldn’t be good. Jack reached the end of the hallway. Turns out it wasn’t a dead end. A giant seam ran up the middle of wall and two handles were on the door. No matter how much he pulled and yanked, it refused to budge. He even scoured the dusty walls in hopes of a secret lever. Nothing.

With a resigned sigh, he turned and walked the other direction. His stomach had growled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten anything in… He wasn’t sure how long. He glanced down at his tactical pants and, for the first time ever, regretted not carrying food in all the pockets that lined them. He would be sure to always fill them with snacks from now on.

Jack followed the torches down the hallway until he no longer could. Once he reached the last torch, nothing but darkness awaited him. He took a moment, slowing his breathing and really listening, focusing intently on the darkness before him. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, a familiar feeling rising in the pit of his stomach. Something was out there. He couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything, but he knew something was out there.

Mastery upgrade:

Focus

Novice-Low --> Novice-High

His heart skipped a beat when the weird message thing popped up in front of him again. He was going to have to do something about that.

“Get the fuck out of-“ he said before cutting himself off. There has got to be a better way. He stared at the message, focusing on it, then thought to himself ‘fuck off’ and the message disappeared. Nice. With that, he took a tentative step into the darkness. Nothing happened, so he kept walking, keeping his hand glued to the wall as he crept further down the hallway.

His eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. He took slow, tentative steps, ears trained for any noise at all. There was something creaking in the darkness now. Jack could hear the slow grate of something being dragged across the ground. He stared down the long, dark hallway. Something was there, moving towards him. As the… thing moved closer, its shape became more human like. It was a white man. A very white man.

“Hello?” Jack said, the words coming unbidden. He almost bit off his tongue in anger. Amateur, he said, chastising himself. Might as well shoot off a flare and let everyone know where you are.

The weird white man had gone from an awkward stumbling trot to a lunge. He swung an enormous axe, a breeze tickling Jack's nose as it barely missed his head. It slammed into the wall, causing sparks to light up the area. Jacks’ eyes went wide. Not a white guy. A skeleton.

He jumped back, turning on his heels to run down the hallway. Footsteps rattled behind him as bone hit stone in a frantic pace to keep up. Jack ran past the first few torches, having gained some ground on the skeleton. He was running fast. A lot faster than normal. It’s adrenaline you idiot, he told himself as he stopped to turn around. He needed a better look at what it was he was dealing with.

He was clearly in shock. He was hallucinating. Possibly on drugs from Chuck's party even. That seemed to be the most reasonable explanation for this. How else would you explain axe wielding skeletons? The thought that he might be going insane actually did wonders to calm him down. Jack looked back down the hallway reassessing his situation.

The skeleton lunged out of the darkness with more agility than seemed possible. It swung its battleaxes in a wicked arc over its head, narrowly missing Jack for the second time and slamming into the floor below, pelting Jack with stone chips as it cracked into the ground. Jack jumped further back into the light of the next torch. Ok, definitely not a hallucination. The skeleton tugged on the axe, but it was stuck fast into the floor.

“Dumbass,” Jack yelled at the skeleton. The skeleton stopped its pulling on the axe and stared at Jack. Its Jaw chattering before it somehow shrieked at him. He was positive that was skeleton speak for “Fuck you”.

“Fuck you too,” Jack said, staring back at the skeleton. That’s when Axie–the Axe wielding skeleton – was joined by Swordie–the sword wielding skeleton. “Shit…” Jack said, staring at his two chattering opponents. Swordie charged him, swinging and missing, his swipes coming in short every time.

“I’m going to assume,” Jack said while evading sword swings and the occasional swipe from Axies’ claw-like fingers, “that you guys keep missing because you guys have no eyes. Depth perception is a bitch, isn’t it?”

Axies response was to tackle him.

“That’s cheating!” Jack grunted, grappling with the freakishly strong skeleton on the ground. “You have got to tell me where you’re getting your milk from,” Jack grunted as he wrestled on the ground with Axie. “you’ve got seriously strong bones.” Axie’s response was to try and bite Jack’s throat. Jack used the body of the skeleton he was grappling with to block swings from Swordie. They chipped away at Axie’s ribs until eventually a wild lunge got his sword trapped between them. Jack used that moment to remove himself from the situation, running further down the hallway as he saw his escape.

The skeletons untangled themselves to find Jack leaning against the wall and smirking at them.

“Later bitches.” He said, invitation in his hand.

[Invitation to the Black Centipede–Visit now? Y/N]

He mentally selected yes, skeletons shrieking in frustration as the world went black around him.

Moments later, he found himself dropped onto a polished wooden floor. He was in an ornately decorated wooden office, candles lighting up his surroundings. He looked up and met eyes with a woman… If you could call her that. Long black hair spilled down over her shoulders, pointy ears poking up through her hair. He met her eyes. Black orbs. Creepy.

“Are those contact lenses?” Jack asked, before all the shadows in the room wrapped tightly around him, shrouding him in darkness yet again.