Author’s Corner: Due to some reader comments, I went back and rewrote Chapter 49 in order to organize the information a bit more neatly. There isn’t really any new information in the chapter, so you only have to go back to take another look if you want to! With that taken care of, enjoy the chapter!
----------------------------------------
Being locked up in the interrogation room like this was both a blessing and a curse. It was a curse because obviously, the police suspected that I was the ‘Gamer’ killer they were looking for. However, it was a blessing because this meant that I didn’t need to take Faraday into my grove anymore! I hadn’t realized until after the fact, but if I had sent him in there, he would have undoubtedly run into Yang. I did not even want to imagine what kind of things would happen after that.
Shuddering at the narrowly avoided disaster of misunderstandings, I got to work on refining a Seed of Wind. For now, I would just be making it low quality, and then work on making it a higher quality when I had more time. I had at least an hour and a half to do this, most likely. And it was the easiest one to make in my current situation.
Closing my eyes, I focused on drawing in the wind mana around me to create the elemental seed. Naturally, they did not have any methods yet to prevent magic use in the prison, but I’m sure they would in a couple more days at most, once their officers got to the point where they could do it. Until then, however, there was nothing stopping me from working on the method to stop monsters from spawning.
At least, there wasn’t until a ringing voice entered my ear. “Look at the little birdy, lost and alone, trapped in its cage. Such gifts you have, yet wasted. Such potential, unfulfilled.”
“Uh… John?” After the voice rang out, Celeste appeared near me. “What was that?”
“Sound… Looks like he’s got the Sound Affinity, too. I had actually been interested in that one originally…”
“Oh? The little birdy knows his stuff. He knows what I am, what I can do. But the little birdy is trapped in his little cage. All alone with nobody to help.” The voice rang out again, and I tried to focus on it. It was obviously a male voice, but the tones seemed like a dozen people overlapped so I couldn’t identify it. “Did birdy get my message? Did he see the writing on the wall?”
Glancing around curiously, I saw that under the camera in the room, red liquid was dripping out. Blood… He’s probably killed someone to write this.
As the blood dripped down the wall, it began flowing in patterns, forming letters. “Lives remaining: 10.”
The message confused me for a little while, but I had the feeling that he was wanting to play a game of life and death with me, for some strange reason. Maybe it was because I was a druid? “Why are you doing this? What could you possibly gain?”
“Why, experience of course. The world is a game, I am merely a player.” The voice called out to me after I questioned it. “It’s not long now before what has happened will come to pass. Before the end, let’s play one last game. Hide and seek, what do you say? I’ll hide, and you come find me. But be quick, or the boys in blue will be the ones to lose.”
I grimaced at that, using a quick application of Metal Manipulation to break the handcuffs and open the door to the room, before using Wind Manipulation to amplify my voice. “Somebody get in here!”
I could hear the voice cackling as it withdrew, though the writing on the wall remained. A pair of officers soon ran in with their guns unholstered. “What did you--!” They paused as they saw the writing on the wall.
“He’s close.” I said to them, and one nodded to his partner, who ran off down the hall.
“What happened?” The one remaining asked. Naturally, I checked him with my Aura Sight, and was relieved that I was not left alone with the killer. I began explaining what had just occurred, including the voice and what I was doing when it arrived. When the officer saw the broken handcuffs, he grumbled under his breath.
With a slight sigh, I fixed the handcuffs using the same magic that broke them. “You need magic defenses, otherwise people like me could walk out whenever they wanted. He’s picked out ten people, and it sounds like they’re all cops. I don’t know how he chooses, but he has.”
At that point, the other officer came back, and whispered something to him. The one that had been staying here had his eyes widened and he looked at me. “Come with me.” Naturally, I was inclined to follow the people with guns who were walking towards their own deaths. They led me to a much larger room, with several desks manned by other cops. “Folks, we’ve lost contact with the chief. His home AI reported that he never got back home, and tracking his car showed it abandoned a few blocks away. Matthews and Johnson, I want you two to check it out.”
Of the two that responded, one was surprisingly not human. For the most part, he looked human, but his head was a bit taller, and his eyes were pitch black. Out of all the officers here, I could count the nonhuman ones on one hand. Thinking for a moment, I looked to the officer that had taken charge. After confirming once again that he, and everybody else in this room, was clear of the Blood Affinity, I tried to get his attention.
“What is it?” He glared over at me.
“I’d check the roof. The blood on the wall…” I didn’t get the chance to finish speaking before his eyes went wide again, and he sent someone to investigate the roof as well. Even if the druid’s mana control was excellent, there had to be a range. At least, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to control the flow of water that detailed from more than a few dozen meters. And the easiest way to make it flow like that would be if the blood came from a higher source, such as the roof.
Once the people were all dispatched, the leading officer looked to me. “Okay, kid. What can you tell us about druids that we don’t already know?”
Thinking about it, I shook my head. “All I know is that he has at least seven elements all above 5%. Fire, water, wind, earth, light, blood, and now sound. He should also have Nature Magic, but that’s all I can tell you. Each druid is different from any other. I can tell you that his control range shouldn’t be able to exceed twenty meters, unless he knows tricks I don’t. He probably also has Divination, which would have let him hear what I was saying in the interrogation room.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Wouldn’t sound have done that?” The officer asked. I swear, eventually I’ll get his name.
“Not unless he was in an adjacent room. He’d need to be able to extend his Mana Sense to me with enough detail that he could feel the sound mana I released. And, if he did that, I should have been able to sense his mana.” I did my best to explain to the person who more than likely hasn’t even set foot inside the game.
“So, what does Nature Magic do?”
“It is a magic that lets you control and replicate the effects of plants and animals. Alchemy can be replicated with Nature Magic, but it can also be used for my own shapeshifting. He probably uses it for poisons. And I’m guessing you’ve figured out how he chooses his victims…”
The man gave me a cold glare, but a moment later, the officer he had sent off to check the roof returned. “It’s a blood mess up there, Monte.”
Ah, so his name is Monte. I nodded slightly as the ‘new chief’ grumbled. “Dammit.” He then looked at me. “You said that you can read a person’s affinities by looking at them?”
“That’s right. I’ve already checked everyone in the room. One of you looks to be a druid in training, but not with the Blood Affinity. My guess is he was going to be the one to create your anti-monster zone.”
Officer Monte glanced over to the person who I had noticed to have druid affinities without me needing to point him out. “What level are you now?”
“Just.. just twelve, sir.” The officer responded, looking over to me.
I decided to ask first. “You don’t have your grove yet, right?” I could see that his Light and Fire Affinities were just below 5% with Celeste’s help, so he shouldn’t have it established yet.
“No.. Not yet.”
I gave a sigh and decided to throw him a bone. “You should hurry up and get it. Once you do, you can bring items over with it.” I had the feeling that I was going to regret doing this, but I pulled my companion bracelet out of my grove. Blue lights stretched out from my chest and went onto my wrist as the item formed. “That includes your companion bracelet. If you have that with you, and get the Identify software, you should be able to read affinities.”
The man gave a surprised nod as Officer Monte turned to look at me. “You can bring items out of the game?”
I nodded to him. “Items, animals, even people. Anything in the grove can be transferred over.”
“Then why doesn’t the inventory transfer?”
I had been wondering that myself, but Celeste provided me with a theory. “According to my companion, people are born with the power to have an inventory. It is linked with their body. However, the grove is embedded into their aura on an undetectable level. Since our auras essentially cross back and forth, so does the grove.”
Officer Monte seemed to consider that for a moment, and then gave the unnamed druid officer(coincidentally Officer Forest) the next few days off to finish his grove. Likely, he was planning to use the grove as a means of smuggling weapons out of the game. Not the worst idea, and precisely why I pulled out my bracelet, rather than one of my own weapons.
Around this time, the two officers that went to check on the late chief’s car returned. Before they even spoke, I could tell from their expressions what happened. Thankfully, Monte could too, because he didn’t ask them to report. He simply looked at me and sighed. “Alright, whether I like it or not, you’ve become a part of this. Your information is useful, and the Gamer will likely lash out if we send you back. He only targets people that don’t play NeoLife, so more than likely you are safe. However, the people around you aren’t.”
I thought about it, and if he only targeted people that didn’t play… “There are only ten officers that don’t play the game, aren’t there?” He nodded his head slightly. “He might not be strong enough to kill like this if the person has a level in the double digits. If that’s the case, he just picks out the people that couldn’t have possibly leveled up yet… Then again, from how he talked, he seemed to be at least a little insane, I think..”
“The worst ones are never really crazy. Everyone just thinks they are.” Officer Monte looked out towards the others. “Faraday, I want you to have Haverson called back in. He’s our highest level diviner right now, and we need the help. Hulett,” he turned to look at me briefly. “Do you have any methods of stopping the attacks?”
“I’ve got one that could work, as long as he hasn’t practiced the Void Affinity. But it would only work if the target is near me. Though, the easiest way is to just have the ten people log in to the game and level up a couple times.”
He shook his head firmly at that idea. “Not an option. We’ve been specifically ordered to keep a batch of people out of the game, including the chief of police. That way, if something big came up that was caused by the game, we’d have people unaffected.”
I had to admit that his reasoning was solid, but the scream that tore through the building a few moments later made me really wish it wasn’t.
Quest Accepted!
It's All Just a Game
Rank ★★☆ Investigation
Some people just can't handle the pressure. Some people go mad. Find the one that's killing in the name of a game before you reach your own Game Over.
Time Limit: The rest of your life.
Rewards: Increased familiarity with the Oakland Police Department, +2 Levels, Hidden Skill
Failure: Everyone you know dies.
I really did not want to be part of this quest, if I could avoid it...