For a moment darkness enveloped me and then I was tumbling into the corner of the little shop where I had entered the ‘Punishment Environment’. Groaning, I rubbed my face in the game and in real life. Shaking my head, I groaned, “That was a hell of a ride.”
Sitting up and pressing my back to the wall I took in the individual who had escaped with me. A giant skeleton sat there regarding me with eyes of icy aquamarine flame. It was wearing a suit of full plate armor enameled black and red and carried a shield with the symbol of a woman immolated in flame. Braced against the wall beside the skeleton and loosely gripped in its gauntleted hand was an elaborate spear. When Lydia described the skeleton there was a note of trepidation in her voice:
Sakurai Megumi Level 35
Tier E
Weakness: None
Resistance: None
HP: 7111
MP: Unknown
What in the hell was wrong with Lydia?
Did she need a reboot?
Raising an eyebrow, I muttered, “Sakurai? So your name isn’t Kyo?”
She looked up at me sharply and gave a small nod as she said, “That is my name but I think you can call me Megumi if you wish. I was only Akechi Kyo because the one who called himself Kami wished me to play that role.”
She did not seem to be unnerved by her new condition.
Narrowing my eyes I considered the weight of what she had said. Alright Catacomb, this seems a little beyond dark. I know they are just NPCs but what are you putting them through here?
She looked at me and cocked her head, “I don’t remember much. I have scarce visions about my past but I believe we have met before and that we were comrades.”
It seemed she remembered the alpha tester who came before me. Just like I’d done with the strange Mist Hunter who had greeted me at the portal I decided that if I wanted to follow this quest line I needed to play the role I’d been given. Who knows what I’d missed out on by revealing the truth to Magda?
“Excellent,” I smiled and stood to help her up.
“I promise you I will help you find your friend. I wasn’t just saying that.”
She nodded and looked into my eyes as she said, “Somehow… somehow I knew that.”
Offering a smile and a nod, I was shocked out of the moment by Lydia’s voice, “Mal, Olivia is at the front door. She says that it is an emergency.”
Frowning, I looked away prompting Megumi to ask, “Is something wrong?”
Shaking my head I sighed, “I have to go,” I looked toward the strange red skeleton Remnant and the door to the village of Steps.
“We are in a Village filled with pirate types on an island,” I looked her up and down, “I sense you can handle yourself. I will meet with you as soon as I can.”
Giving her a description of Mystal and her crew, I explained the situation. She got a distant look in her eyes and said, “I feel as if I know that name. Perhaps I can learn something about my past from this Mystal.”
She nodded and said, “I’ll look around the island and find Mystal. If we are going to find Nomura I need to get stronger and perhaps there are opportunities here.”
“Alright, I’ll be back soon,” I offered her a weak smile and pulled my headset off.
–
The blood red light of the dive room flooded back into my vision.
Above me the monitor showed the log out sequence and the time, 11:47 pm. When I hit the key on the arm of the dive chair all of my suit clips disconnected in rapid succession. Sweeping my feet out of the chair and to the ground I made my way toward the stairs. Frowning, I paused and reached down to grab the envelope from the table. At the exit I threw on my robe and carefully slid the envelope into the pocket before heading upstairs.
At the front door I could see a clearly distraught Olivia on the security plate. I pulled the door open and smiled with concern, “Is everything ok Olivia?”
She looked elated to see me and wrung her hands together as she seemed to struggle to answer before saying, “My mom’s boyfriend is kind of going on a rampage right now…”
Cutting her off I asked, “Pedro, right?”
Frowning, I thought, “When did she tell me his name?”
She looked surprised but nodded, “Yeah, he gets like this sometimes and when he does he never gets angry with her. He just starts screaming at me and… Is it ok if…?”
Frowning I ran my hand over the envelope in my pocket and felt my ire rising at my plans being disrupted. No, this kid had been nothing but pleasant. Biting down my anger I offered a tight smile and said, “No problem, kid. You can use my mom's or gram's bed.”
She hurried in and gave me a hug before heading into the living room and giving me a concerned look as she asked, “How is the testing going?”
Giving a dismissive wave and a small smile I replied, “Simple stuff. I knocked out a sidequest and got acquainted with the world. Plenty of the NPCs seem to know the avatar, so I guess the alpha tester was pretty popular?”
She started to say something when she looked up in shock through the house’s front door. A car had pulled up outside and parked.
“That isn’t Pedro is it?”
She hurried past me and waved a hand indicating that I should stay inside as she ran down to the gate. A man climbed out of the car and walked up to the gate. I couldn’t make out his features in the darkness. He was only a tall slender silhouette but I could tell he was tense.
Olivia spoke to him in tense whispers for more than a minute before the man slammed his hand on my gate and growled loud enough for me to hear, “You need to take this seriously. This threatens everyone.”
Rolling my shoulders, I growled a shout at the gate, “Yo, wanna keep your hands off my property chief?”
His head snapped toward me and he shouted a response, “Mind your own business…”
Olivia cut him off with a harsh whisper and even though the man looked in my direction once or twice more the rest of their conversation was calm. I watched him climb back into his car and drive away. As Olivia approached the house again, a tight smile on her face, I asked, “Who was that?”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
She waved both hands and chuckled, “A friend of mine who is just worried about how crazy Pedro has gotten.”
Looking toward the dark gate one last time, I scratched my chin before going back inside. That handled, I showed Olivia to my mother’s room. Once she was settled, offering several more ‘thanks’ for the place to sleep, I went back into the kitchen.
Fishing the pristine envelope from my robe pocket I looked at the single word written into the top for a long moment. Grimacing, I fidgeted with it before tucking it back into my pocket. Snatching my Patch Phone off the counter I, despite the hour, tapped it and said, “Call Sydney Cross.”
The Patch rang a few times but I hung up with a shaking hand. Wiping away a stray tear I looked at the bottle of whiskey on the kitchen counter muttering, “Tomorrow.”
I went into the bathroom and took my pill and gave myself a solemn look, every ounce of forced personable attitude drained from my expression and I sighed. With that, I went to bed.
–
Waking up early the next morning I noted the door to my mother’s room was still closed. I told Lydia to give Olivia a few tasks for the day and made my way into the basement with a cup of hot coffee. Caffeinated and hooked back into the game the dark screen of my HUD lightened to reveal the shop I had logged out in. Needlessly stretching my avatar’s muscles I stepped over to the entrance to the Imprint environment I’d been in the night before.
The red skeleton turned to regard me and I noted that someone had left a scroll on its desk. I peered back down into the now empty void below the shop and walked over and rolled out the small scroll in front of the oblivious red skeleton:
“Malcolm,
I met with Mystal and her people. I did indeed learn a great deal about my past as well as yours. Mystal’s ship is on the western side of the island.
I will see you there.
-Sakurai”
My eyes hung on that first word for several long moments, my heart skipping a beat as I stuttered, “Ho… how does a game character know my name?”
Accessing my HUD controls I took a photo of the message before saying, “Lydia, could you send this image to Catacomb with the following text:”
“Catacomb,
What the fuck?
Your friend,
Malcolm Voss”
“Are you sure, hon?”
Giving the roof of a shop a cold glare I growled, “Did I stutter? Send it.”
My anger surged through me as I considered the strange message. What kind of game did this company think it was playing with me? They hire me and then dox me as a joke? My life was chaotic enough right now without this horseshit. I was going to find this NPC and find out exactly how much of my personal information they had let their AI scrape into her personality.
Pulling down the goggles I’d gotten in the strange alternate realm, I ducked out into the Village of Steps. The wind still battered the outside of the village but had the added sound of thunder. The bodies of my enemies from the day before were gone. After a final glance back at the still quiet and oblivious skeleton, I made my way out to the walkway overlooking the village below. Above me the sky that had been filled with stars and the distant spiral of light at its center was filled with black clouds.
Despite the tumult above the village itself seemed devoid of life. All the windows and doors were closed and I couldn’t even make out any light sources giving signs that the villagers were still there. Leaping from the upper walkway, I hurtled toward the ground, activating Blood Mist to burst apart and reform into a standing position.
Without pause I turned and made my way toward the somehow darker world outside the village. The sand outside the village, unlike the fine gray powder around the entrance portal, was jet black. What should have been an ocean appeared to be shifting dunes of silt the same color as the sand at my feet. A flash of purple lightning snaked its way through the darkened clouds.
My Blood Cloak snaked out behind me, twisting and writhing as if it had a mind of its own.
My voice was full of venom as I asked myself, “What did she say? Her ship was to the west?”
Pulling my hood up, I set off down the beach at high speed.. To my right the silt waves shifted and rose, lit in the occasional purple flashes. To my left the small island was littered with trees with broad plum colored leaves and golden trunks. Booms of electric energy shook the sand beneath my feet as I rounded several trees to a surprising tableau.
The ship I expected to find sat askew in the silt just off the shore. It was completely engulfed in flame.. A group of figures milled around the beach near the burning vessel. They were all wearing equipment similar to the three operatives I’d killed in the village earlier and of similar races. Analyzing them, I found they were the same types of mobs with one exception.
Order Boatswain Level 40
HP: 7900/7900
MP: Unknown
Weakness: Electricity
Resistance: Unknown
This figure was a gargantuan hulk at least three meters tall with four arms and smooth green and black skin. He carried two heavy long handled cleaver like blades on his hips and was wearing a black vest and a dark red bandana. He marched around the camp they had set up ordering the other smaller creatures around.
Still seething from Catacomb tucking my name into the game, I ducked into the sparsely wooded area out of sight of the group of mobs that had certainly committed some act of violence against the NPCs I needed to talk to. As I went, my Alertness and Herbalism skills pinged herbs and roots that would be helpful in crafting what I needed. I grabbed what I could but given the pressing situation, did not waste much time.
Sitting with my back against a tree, I summoned up the Rune Carving tools in my inventory. Sifting through a huge pile of ingredients I planned to take the time to assure that this encounter went quickly. I slotted an entire twenty Lesser Electrical Explosive Wards to craft and had Lydia read my notifications while the timer ticked down.
You have gained 1 level in the Assassin Role.
You have gained 3 levels in the Analyze skill.
The Analyze skill is now available for advancement to the Master tier.
You have gained 4 levels in the Alertness skill.
The Alertness skill is now available for advancement to the Master tier.
The Investigator Role is now available!
You have gained four levels in the Disguise skill.
You are now Trained in the Disguise skill.
You may now store up to five permanent disguises for immediate application.
You have gained one level in the Unarmed skill.
The Unarmed skill is now available for advancement to the Master tier.
You have gained two levels in the Herbalism skill.
Congratulations you are level 40.
You may choose two statistics to raise by 15 pts each.
Choose three abilities associated with the Blood Dancer class.
Congratulations you are level 41.
You gain 950 hit points
Since my stat increases were offered every four levels and new abilities offered every five levels, forty was a particularly significant increase. I applied my fifteen point boosts to Agility and Spirit to aid with my overall damage and the effectiveness of my wards.
My Assassin Role advanced by a single level but gained no abilities. In addition Analyze, Alertness and the Unarmed skill advanced to Expert level nine and were available to advance to Master. Locked into the Assassin Role I locked Alertness and Analyze as Master skills, leaving myself two more advancements. I suspected that when I advanced Rune Carver and Herbalism to the maximum that they could be advanced at this time they would be my final choices. The two choices netted me a pair of interesting abilities.
Alertness: Nothing short of magical invisibility fools your senses. You are immune to the blindness condition. You know the position of every creature and trap within thirty meters. Finally, you know the general position of magically invisible creatures even if you may still struggle to strike them.
Analyze: Critical Chance increases by ten percent. Every target has a weakness and you know them.
There were three choices to advance my class.
Fashion Slash (Modification to Blood Cloak): Your Blood Cloak becomes a weapon that can slash into your foes.
Blood Soaked Blades: Your weapons become coated in a sheath of sharpened Essence. This effect increases the base damage and Critical Strike chance of your weapons.
Waltz of the Mad (Modification to Crimson Dance): Building on your advancement into Mesmerizing Dance targets lose their debuffs to damage and instead must resist your Charm with their Spirit. If they fail they become confused and see your face in every nearby target. They may turn on each other in their madness.
All three were amazing and since I would still be able to choose between the remaining two in five levels I chose Waltz of the Mad. It looked like I would be fighting a lot of foes soon and this looked like it would pay off quite well in situations like that.
