by John Gold
The gong sounded.
LJ stood there motionless, the air around him growing thick and beginning to buzz. Silence settled in his head… His entire reason went blank—a little more, give me a little more.
“So, you know who I am, little one. Our sacrificial lamb! You’re apparently a thief, and you saw my old portraits in those books. But don’t worry, I’ll kill you quickly in deference to the belief you have in me.”
LJ looked at his opponent and felt his deepest memories start to quiver. There were no voices—they’d been engulfed in the silence. Yes, they were silent, as was LJ as he stared at his enemy. The oath! The vow given long ago! His head buzzed, it hurt, but his enemy stood before him, and he had no desire to run. There was just an emptiness and a ringing in his consciousness. God… Enemy… Family… Fem… Home… Blood. Empty consciousness…
Tullius couldn’t stand being scorned that way.
“Watch yourself, worm!”
There was an explosion. Sagie grabbed his head.
“You!” It hurts so bad, my heart hurts, mama, it hurts. “You!” Father, sister, blood. “You shouldn’t have awoken me!” Memories flowed in a river of pain and suffering. Everyone he cared about was dead, and the good part of his soul had gone with them.
LJ the cat melted into his consciousness. In his place, Sagie returned to the world.
***
Kilaya was watching the battle from the special section of the stands set apart for the Coliseum’s technical staff. People were only allowed there by invitation from the city magistrate.
The cat and his opponent Tullius stepped out into the ring. It was rakish clothing and two black daggers against bare hands. Kilaya could sense the cat’s emotions—he recognized his foe. Either that, or he took him for someone he knew, though there was a strange feeling, as if the cat was trying to remember… The cat’s identity was shattering. For the girl, it felt like anxiety, alarm, and a foreboding that something terrible and irreparable was about to occur.
She burst into tears again, seeming to fall into a pool of pain and suffering. There was almost nothing left of the cat’s identity, and the girl could barely keep the rage and pain she was feeling from bubbling over.
The cat turned black in a fraction of a second. His fluffy tail collapsed to the ground. In the meantime, the thief teleported over and sank one of his black daggers into his opponent’s shoulder. The cat, in turn, jumped to his right to avoid the critical hit, grabbed the thief by the arm, and fired an enormous fire ball at him at point-blank range. The explosion threw the thief backward ten meters, leaving the sand to melt where he’d been hit. The echo of the explosions resounded through even the most distant stands. Tullius, however, picked himself up calmly, turned, and laughed, a vile smile on his face. His clothing was in one piece; he hadn’t taken the faintest sliver of damage. It was hard not to be impressed by his resistance to physical and fire damage. The thief slipped his daggers into his inventory and bathed in the ovations pouring over him—everyone loved his invulnerability. Everything about him screamed that there was nothing anybody could do to him.
The cat crumpled to the ground and cried. Kilaya could sense his tears and helplessness—he was barely holding out against the onrushing hysterics. All the cat wanted to do was leave, the battle of no interest to him. There was some other reason for the pain and suffering he was experiencing.
He stood up, waited for Tullius to turn his back, and knocked him down, face-first. Twisting the thief’s arm behind his back, he pressed his head into the sand. Dragon breath flashed from him. Apparently, Tullius wasn’t the only one with incredible resistance—the cat couldn’t care less about the melting sand. Kilaya could see the two sinking slowly into the pool that was forming. Minutes went by, and Tullius started to jerk, attempting to get his assailant off him. Nobody thought the cat could continue using dragon breath for six minutes. They didn’t even think that was an attack he could use in the arena in the first place.
Tullius’ health bar started to drop. While the previous two battles the pair had fought had been considered overly cruel, with the thief torturing his victim, and the cat daring to kill his enemy by plunging his own sword in his crotch, Tullius was drowning in a pool of glass. Bubbles started to come to the surface as the thief’s lungs emptied. The stands were silent… The cat was drowning his opponent in liquid glass, and there was nothing Tullius’ resistance could do to save him.
Kilaya’s friend pulled her away from the spectacle.
“Hey, Kila, why are you crying again?”
“Anderson,” she burst out, wiping away tears, “he’s been crying the whole battle. He didn’t want to fight anyone, and there isn’t anything left of the cat. What was saving him from the pain is gone. Now, he’s just a bundle of bare nerves, so sensitive and so vulnerable. He just wanted to leave, but Tullius started making fun of him.”
The girl buried her face in Anderson’s chest and bawled. It was cases like those that kept shamans from using contact empathy.
A couple of minutes later, Tullius’ name disappeared from the tournament standings, and LJ’s did the same a little while after that.
***
My head is buzzing, my hands are shaking, I’m crying, and why is it so loud? It’s muddy and wobbly. I need to get out of here—they could find me.
I remember how to move in stealth mode, so I quietly leave the gladiator room. Really, I want to get as far away as possible. There are too many people, there are too many gods, and it’s too noisy.
It’s winter outside. Snow’s falling, but it quickly melts into puddles. The people walking by work it into mud, and the locals are all over the place selling cheap goods and good food. I look for a quiet alley, somewhere nobody’s making any noise. Having found one, I head for the hatch leading to the city sewers. Telekinesis, and I’m down inside, walking along the water. So much time running across the ocean. I never thought I’d use my ability to walk through sewers. There’s all kind of nastiness floating in the water, and rats run by slugs and gigantic worms along the paths on either side of the water. Moss, vines, and other creeping flora grow by the hatch. It’s warm down here.
My head is splitting, my consciousness like an amoeba—my thoughts whirl around, and my body doesn’t feel like it belongs to me. There’s an emptiness in my heart.
Everything is too loud here. My heightened perception enables me to hear all the voices from the street, and I’m right under the market or a lively trading district. I go farther down, farther down, down into the quiet and eternal peace.
I don’t need light—the sound bouncing off the walls is enough. My hearing is sharpened, and that lets me draw the landscape of the old sewer even though it’s hidden by darkness. There are small astral spirits here, too. Soon, however, I notice that they’re getting much smaller. The rats are gone, as are the other little creatures that live in the sewers. It’s just water flowing sluggishly into the unknown of the thick darkness, and my consciousness flowing along with it.
A sepulchral cold settles in. Somewhere up ahead, probably in the wall, there’s a gap the water is running out of. Judging by the sound, it’s a small room—twenty meters by twenty meters. It’s pleasantly chilled and absolutely quiet. This is wonderful.
I don’t use any light, instead feeling my way to a rock in the center of the room. Getting into my meditation pose, I start to work on getting my brain back in order. Something went wrong. Why is it so hard to think?
At least an hour goes by, and I’m starting to get a picture in my head. My doctor called me Bak, though my name is Angie. According to her, I spent five years in a coma and just recently woke up. That’s when they sent me to Clover to go through post-trauma rehab. She asked me if I could remember why I had the stroke, though I didn’t respond—I was LJ the cat. Okay, what else? Milisandra and I ran away from the clinic. Then, she left me at the tavern, and I waited there like a trusting dog for five months.
Oh, I met an interesting god and declined his offer t
o be reborn. Again, it’s just a bunch of muddled memories. What’s wrong with my head?
Judging by the sensations, each outbreak of emotion cuts into my ability to control my streams of consciousness. The first four are working fine, though the other seven are all clumped into one big one. I’d better avoid using it if I don’t want to be in the med capsule in two weeks. The first stream heals me continuously, reflexively, without me even thinking about it. Part of me is still afraid of something, and my mind is constantly coping with that threat.
In other words, I have four working streams and one I’m better off avoiding. Apparently, I’m some kind of indestructible cockroach.
It feels like I’m in hormonal failure. The constant mood swings, the strong worries, and the critical reactions to emotions tell me as much. My hands shouldn’t be shaking, and I shouldn’t be going through spikes of emotion, first rage, and then dejection.
That Tullius was a lesser pagan god, the kind there are a lot of in the world. Back on Feng Island, when I was collecting books on mysticism, I found out quite a bit about the gods. They have a hundred levels, or ten levels for each of the ten altar levels. The ten strongest gods in the world are grouped into the large pantheon. All gods can have up to ten forms, with each altar level unlocking another form they can use. On the other hand, I couldn’t find any information on the nuances involved in selecting forms. Gods can also cast any spell they know—their skill level is equal to their level multiplied by ten.
Tullius was a divinity at somewhere around Level 20, though he was stupid enough to rely on his complete resistance to all types of damage. Back on Feng Island, I was thinking through how I could kill creatures with that kind of resistance, and it was then that I found a book on the world space. It talked about how space has different energy capacities. Complete resistance cannot exceed or be equal to that amount—for example, if the space quantity is ten, the maximum resistance is six. It was that difference that I exploited to injure Talamei during my trial with the League of Hunters.
The last thing I remember from my battle with Leon and Talamei was the world turning red. I launched a meteor, putting all the strength I had into it. Also, there was a resonance activated, and I received a notification about my critical health condition immediately afterward. The previous few weeks in the game, my health had been really bad. It must have been that resonance that led to the stroke and the coma. I need more information, and I know who can give it to me.
Thinking back to Leon and my parents leaves me furious. I can barely contain the madness and thirst for blood. Yep, my hormonal imbalance is making me crazy. I’m going to have to do a complete recovery soon.
I take off the cat costume. It’s time to log out of the game.
Attention!
You are in the middle of obligatory treatment at the Galileo Psychiatric Clinic in Arpa. While in the game, you are being treated at Clover.
Until the treatment is complete, you cannot leave the game. Alice Watson, your personal doctor, and Sam Watson, the clinic director, both need to sign off before that happens.
That tells me that the restriction is tied to my account, not my clothes. The blocked friend list was only around the island, however. Femida is online, though not responding. She may be at a location where chat and personal messages aren’t permitted.
Hm, that’s a dilemma. I’m not sure if I should go back to the clinic and get them to sign off on me or find Femida and figure out what’s happened over the last few years. All my things are at the clinic, and I pulled the money I got for the League of Hunters quest out of the game and into my anonymous account. The orphanage is probably closed—I didn’t send Malcolm any money that last month. I was preoccupied.
When I was a cat, I heard a couple of players say the name Sagie. Maybe, they recognized me; maybe, they just had me confused. Either way, I need to change the way I look and find out what’s been going on in the world. The cat outfit draws too much attention.
I put it back on and scroll back through the logs to the moment of the battle at Airis Castle.
Achievement received: Godkiller
Kill one divinity.
Reward: +100 to all attributes
Achievement received: Godkiller. Second rank.
Kill three divinities. Killed: 4.
Reward: +200 to all attributes
I got them all! Talamei and Miridia were next to me, and Leon was on the wall. Plus, Tullius. Hm, maybe not. There were a lot of divinities on the field of battle that day, and I could have killed someone else. The ranks don’t increase linearly, so I need to kill another three for the next one.
Achievement received: Scythe of death
Kill one hundred opponents at your rank or higher with one attack.
Reward: +50 to all attributes
…
Achievement received: Scythe of death. Third rank.
Kill ten thousand opponents at your rank or higher with one attack. Killed: 13702.
Reward: +150 to all attributes
The odd part is that killing an opponent a thousand levels higher than you or three gods doesn’t seem like that much. But killing ten thousand creatures with one attack? I put all my strength into that meteor, and I even killed myself with the recoil! It was incredible, especially if you take into account my level and the strength I had. Questions, questions, questions.
But that wasn’t all my achievements.
Achievement received: Life of the saints
Create a place of strength by yourself.
Reward: +50 to all attributes
…
Achievement received: Divine refusal
You refused to be reborn as a god of your own free will.
Reward: +100 to all attributes
For all my achievements, I have +20 for working with father to level-up, +100 for Titanbane, +20 for the strongest attack in the world, +200 for Godkiller, +150 for Scythe of death, +50 for creating a place of strength, and +100 for Divine refusal. In total, it’s +640 to all my attributes.
I lost five whole years! Everyone I knew must be light years ahead of me. Femida… I miss her grumbling and lectures on the pre-space era. We didn’t even really exchange contact information! All I have is my friend list.
I need to relax, so I sit back down in my meditation pose. My breathing evens; I listen to the rhythm of my heart. There’s an aura of death around me, and ghosts float about in the dark. I can’t help but think of my swim in the Styx and my victory over the boatman.
Wait a second! The boatman! The Gray Lands! My parents were sent there, so that means you can get there from Hell. Still, that brings up a few issues. For example, the places I was in haven’t been recorded by any of the players during their time in the inferno. Also, I can’t forget about the cloud of mental damage in the shroud and the lords flying around it. But nothing is impossible, and that means I can find my parents in the Gray Lands.
Time’s ticking—I can’t just stay here. I’ve already lost five years, and I need to figure out what to do next.
“Attribute window.”
Name: Sagie (LJ)
Level: 847
Experience: 782010/1861200 (971090 left until the next level)
Race: Human
Class: None selected
Main attributes
Strength: 640
Agility: 640
Stamina: 640
Intellect: 4405
Wisdom: 826
Available attribute points: 1480
Additional attributes
Speed: 500
Athleticism: 640
Morale: 640
Survivability: 640
Derivative attributes
Physical damage: 320 (strength/2, but no less than 1)
Carrying capacity: 1600 kg (strength*10/4)
Mana: 23510 (wisdom*10)
Health: 6400 (stamina*10)
Strength: 6400 (stamina*10)
Health restoration: 6400/minute (survivability*10)
Mana re
storation: 6400/minute (morale*10)
Strength restoration: 640/minute (athleticism*10)
Running speed: 51 km/s (1+speed/10)
Defense: 5
Resistance
Physical damage: 15.27% (damage ignored: up to 81422/second)
Poison: 12.60% (damage ignored: up to 47368/second)
Fire: 35.62% (damage ignored: up to 1177204/second)
Electricity: 18.35% (damage ignored: up to 292021/second)
Mental damage: 35.52% (damage ignored: up to 1155597/second)
Cold: 16.52% (damage ignored: up to 120577/second)
Skills
Cooking: 261
Trap setting and disarming: 19
Archery: 252
Swimming: 306
Breath-holding: 343
Stealth: 251
Life Magic: 811
Mind Magic: 268
Space Magic: 598
Earth Magic: 266
Water Magic: 258
Fire Magic: 331
Air Magic: 258
Light Magic: 277
Dark Magic: 250
Meditation: 521
Hand-to-hand combat: 118
Perception: 896
Necromancy: 250
Blood magic: 268
Chimerology: 250
Ritual magic: 271
Artifact creation: 254
Poison-making: 25
Ointment-making: 25
Metal reinforcing: 25
Wood reinforcing: 25
Body enhancement: 302
Swords and daggers: 177
Professions
Herbalist: 388
Fisherman: 259
Tailor: 271
Blacksmith: 268
Carpenter: 308
Miner: 72
Mason: 244
Abilities
Imp eye
Undecuple consciousness
