by John Gold
I spend the rest of the day at the arena, watching the other gladiators and learning as much as I can. The mages use familiars to boost the damage they do and the number of spells they can cast, though they can’t combine them into a single devastating attack the way I can with my streams of consciousness. It’s like the flames coming from the nozzles of a plasma engine. If you have three nozzles directing their flames at the same spot, the temperature there rises. Still, it won’t be as high as the temperature of one flame that’s three times as powerful. It’s basically the same with my streams of consciousness and the familiars the other mages have.
The warriors have skills that let them increase their health—the amount of damage they can take tells me as much. On the other hand, they all rely on their equipment, and not on their mastery. If Femida were here, she’d beat them all to a pulp.
In a word, the world surged on ahead while I was lying in my coma. The mages are better, some with the same resistance I had many years ago. I need a better sword and a better shield, but first, I need to go find Femida.
As soon as I step into the tunnel, the stone door closes, cutting off my escape route. It’s the first dungeon I’ve ever been in. What can a mage who restores 30000 mana a minute and has eleven streams of consciousness do?
“Attribute window.”
Name: Sagie (LJ)
Level: 847
Experience: 1186150/1861200 (971090 left until the next level)
Race: Human
Class: Mage
Basic attributes
Strength: 660
Agility: 660
Stamina: 660
Intellect: 6315
Wisdom: 851
Available attribute points: 0
Additional attributes
Speed: 500
Athleticism: 660
Morale: 660
Survivability: 660
I spend all my attribute points on intellect, so I have plenty of mana. After activating stealth, I set off quietly down the dark tunnel. The dust that kicks up hangs in the air, tickling my nose, and I feel my hearing sharpen. I sense a slight draft. The soft sound of my own footsteps echoes off the wall, my imagination filling in the rest of the picture.
Far off in the distance, I hear bones scraping together, not to mention the lingering grunt of a dried zombie. The smell of sulfur drifts up on the breeze—there are demons around here somewhere.
After walking through the tunnel, I lean up against a wall with a stone button. My perception outlines it in green even in the complete darkness.
I’m about to press the button when I hear a zombie rubbing up against the wall. Its fingers scratch the stone, the sound of the scraping bone eating its way into my head. The seconds drag by, and sweat breaks out on my hands. The living corpse continues mauling the stone, bleating slowly. I want to run, but the fear holds me in place. I can’t breathe. Frozen, my hand still hasn’t reached the button.
Finally, the scraping stops, and the sounds start to recede into the distance. The timer shows me that I went three minutes without breathing.
The wall slips softly to the side, the path to the city of the dead looming in front of me.
Notice: You are entering the city of the dead.
One of our own, your ability, will be turned off while you are in this location.
Just like I thought, the old buildings are well-preserved. The empty stone chalets stand next to stores, the latter already rotting and collapsing under their own weight. The windows in the buildings are gone, and it’s almost like something is watching me from the darkness, evaluating me and whispering back and forth. Claws scratch against stone as something runs away off into the distance. I feel light vibrations in the air coming from each house, vibrations so light that I would take them for a breeze if there were somewhere a breeze could be coming from. The air above each stone arch shines a ghostly silver color.
My curiosity gets the better of my fear, and I glance into one of the empty windows.
Ghost, Baron the Dog, Level 2477
The dog appears immediately on the other side of the window and stares at me. It’s half-rotted, with just one eye left, but it starts barking in an attempt to attract the attention of its masters. A couple of other ghosts are sitting on the floor at a low table. They’re almost like real people, smiling and chatting noiselessly. Despite how close I am, I can’t sense their emotions. The dog whirls around to bark at its masters, and they look up and see me. They’re brothers, twin ghosts. Off they run toward the door, the dog hot on their heels, and I do my best to make as little noise as possible as I dash off down the street. The door opens with a creak, though I already dove into one of the piles of construction debris. The ghosts fly past slowly enough for me to catch their names.
Ghost, Brook Menira, Level 2511
My back is slick with sweat, I stop breathing, and my heart skips a beat. They’re going to kill me! They’re going to find me and kill me! My perception is working overtime to the point that I sense something moving slowly toward me from around the corner. It’s small, and it’s looking for me.
The dog steps out from the other side of the corner, limping on its front right paw. It’s following my scent straight to the pile of trash I’m hiding in. A second later, and we’re looking each other in the eye, his soundless barking calling the brother ghosts back from where they are down the street. My heart pounds, and soon they’re both kicking away at me.
Damage received: 53750 (ignored: 12500000)
6400/6400
I break into hysterics, laughing as they kick me. Their soundless cries mingle with the dog’s soundless laughing, not to mention the neighbors running out soundlessly to see what’s going on. My crazed laughter resounds atop it all.
“Dead sun! Maximum.”
A round, silver sphere appears above the crowd, flaring and destroying the ghostly bodies with its light. Silence reigns, the mute cries are silences, and the buildings settle still further. Great, my clothes are ruined. The street is empty save for the young man laughing loudly as tears pour from his eyes.
Achievement received: Titanbane. Thirty-third rank.
Kill an opponent 1650 levels higher than you.
Reward: +165 to all attributes
Level 850 unlocked
15 attribute points available for distribution
It’s my mental resistance that saved me. Normal ghosts can only attack mentally, and there aren’t any mages or material opponents here.
My dead sun killed twenty ghosts, all of whom had run out of their houses to help beat me up. I’m not going to be able to use it for at least another hour.
The ghosts are immaterial, so I don’t get anything from them. All I have left on me is the striped shirt and pants they gave me at the clinic. The cat’s indestructible costume has made it through everything.
Getting up and brushing myself off, I strain my senses as far as they’ll go. The incident with the ghosts told me that my hearing is practically useless, and even my imp eye, despite my heightened perception, has a hard time making them out.
But my hearing does pick up the scratch of claws coming from the corner, so I dive into the newly-empty house. The light tapping gets closer. Soon, I can tell that the owner of the claws is walking on four legs. Shutting the door, I grip the knob with one hand and cover my mouth with the other. The claws scratch their way to the doorstep. I can hear it breathing, sniffing, looking for clues. Then, it starts scraping at the door. Scratch…scratch…scratch… My hair stands on end, and I stop thinking, not to mention breathing. It’s sniffing from its spot on the doorstep. A second goes by, two, ten, a minute…and silence. It’s standing there waiting for the tiniest sound, though I still haven’t breathed. The claws make their way to the open window… It’s quiet, like the pause before a leap… Then, the sound starts moving away.
I take my shoes off, go over to the window, and glance out carefully to see who my mysterious guest was.
Undead, Possessed Rat, Level
2397
It’s the hairless corpse of a mummified rat the size of a dog. After running to the intersection, it turns right and meets a friend. The eyes and folds of their skin glisten with a green color, making them even more terrifying. All my experience hunting tells me that they’re running from an unknown enemy.
I didn’t think things could get any quieter, but they do. Everything that could make a sound freezes in expectation of whatever the creature is. I hear my heart, a drop of sweat making its way down my cheek, the blood pumping through my veins. Still, I don’t hear his footsteps, movements, or breath. Nothing.
Undead, Piroxis Aransky, Level 2788, raid boss
The demon’s body is heavily damaged. The remains of a spear stick out of his left shoulder, and one twisted horn is broken. His wings have been reduced to stumps, his muscles are already rotting, there’s a hole in his chest covered by transparent flesh, and the skin has sloughed off his left hand completely, leaving bare muscles on display. The sledgehammer he’s dragging behind him doesn’t make a noise, even if it throws up sparks as it scrapes along the remains of the paved road. The stones kick up and fall soundlessly. An evil spirit has found refuge in the body of the dead demon, and it’s enjoying a sadistic game of chasing the rats.
The demon stops and turns slowly to look directly at me. He can’t possibly see me in the gloom, at this distance, in the empty house. A green light flickers in his dead eyes as the demon tries to find the unbidden guest. A rat squeaks from the street, and the raid boss jerks his way into the dark alley without looking back.
Air reserve running out in 5 seconds… 4… 3… 2…
I breathe in, breathe out, and calm down. Anri and Greta’s response to my accepting their quest makes perfect sense now—an ordinary player would grow gray and die of fear without making it a block. And I’m supposed to find the demonologist guild with monsters like that walking the streets of the dead city.
The doors are too creaky, so I climb out the window. Any sound is like a siren, attracting the locals to run up and attack. Giant possessed rats and crazy ghosts hunting them. And this is just the entrance to the dead city.
I walk through the complete silence, using stealth and glancing around constantly to see if I’m being followed. Every time a ghost happens to notice me, a dog barks noiselessly, or a splinter makes the slightest sound, I get jumped. Still, even during the fights, I’m the only one making any noise. The local ghosts are incapable of making a sound, though they hear each other perfectly. It’s like I’m the ghost who can’t hear anything, there to plague the people living in the dead city.
The second thing I notice about the city is that new ghosts appear startlingly quickly. I barely have time to dive through a window and leave a building behind me than I’m already being chased by ghosts from another building I’ve already cleared. Half a minute later, I’m getting beaten up by a familiar crowd. During one battle, I hear the clacking of claws coming from the intersection—their owner is on its way.
“Rose of death! Maximum!”
The black flower blossoms in my hands, and a second later the whole crowd is covered by a cloud of black pollen. The ghosts turn black before disintegrating. Ten long seconds later, and they’re all dead.
Level 852 unlocked
25 attribute points available for distribution
I dive into the broken lattice of a drain. The water is long gone, leaving just dry dirt and piles of old trash behind.
The scraping sound gets up to a couple of meters from my left before continuing on down the street. My heart practically stops when the demon steps on the grate above me. A second later, he’s off after the rat, leaving the same way he came. His sledgehammer catches on the grate, knocking off some shards that drop right onto my face. The demon walks off in complete silence, leaving me hiding and afraid to breathe. The quiet is starting to get to me.
The street is a twisting one, and I pull myself up and leave the accursed place as soon as the demon rounds a corner. The road signs tell me that the bank is behind me, Fateful Intersection straight ahead. In my hurry, I don’t let the words written on the dried-out board sink in, something I almost regret when I just about step out onto a small crossroads. It’s just one step, but the air is much thicker. It’s a perfectly round area with a well in the middle. I get the terrible sensation that something is about to pop out of the well, almost feeling the space down there getting a little cramped even if I don’t hear anything. Whatever’s down below comes up, attracted by the smell of a human.
Ghost, Evil Water, Level 2411, local boss
The enormous, nasty pile of ectoplasm oozes over the side of the well and makes a sharp, prolonged sound. I realize what the yell meant when a crowd of ghosts comes dashing out of the houses straight at me. There are several times more of them than usual, and they start doing more than a million damage. Pressing in, they kick me as they yell soundlessly, the Evil Water getting closer and closer. When it’s just half a meter away, I unleash the best weapon I have against ghosts. Fire!
“Fire storm! Maximum!”
There are still too many of them. The Evil Water starts to drown me in ectoplasm, and I can’t help but think of the time I drowned Tullius in melted glass during the tournament. The ghosts continue kicking me, making it impossible for me to get up and throw off the local boss.
Dragon breath incinerates everything around, leaving me to sink into the melting stone making up the road. The Evil Water, at the epicenter of the damage being done, evaporates in a second. The powerful stream of fire, which reaches to the stone arch above us, finishes off the ghosts too.
I don’t even get any loot from the local boss. Also, claws start scraping toward me from the end of the street, so I know the demon is nearby.
The only place there is to hide is the well the Evil Water came from. And my hair is sticking straight up—the scratching claws and quiet squeaks are almost on top of me.
The well is ten meters in front of me; the squeaking rats a couple meters behind me. My senses tingle, my amplification kicks in, I leap forward, and I suddenly find myself lying on the bottom. I breathe in. I breathe out. My consciousness is starting to even out, and my thinking becomes clearer. As my hands and feet reach for the walls, I feel nothing but dust and a few pebbles that fall off. A shadow falls on me—one of the rats is blocking the exit.
Don’t breathe, don’t look, don’t think.
It hangs motionless over the edge of the well.
Don’t breathe, don’t look, don’t think.
My heart practically stops, I’m frozen with fear, and my palms are slick with sweat. The rat is fifteen hundred levels beyond me, and there are just two of them for now…
The part of the well sticking up above the ground is swept away right along with the rat. That sledgehammer is going to haunt my dreams for a year. Just one soundless blow, and the rat dies without a single sound or squeak. There’s no cracking or crunching of bones—just some stone dust filtering down onto my face. Neither the demon nor the rat is to be seen, just the silence, which I’m starting to fear more than anything else.
Three long minutes tick by, each feeling like an hour. It feels like I’ve been here forever.
The dirt eats its way into my body; sweat pours off me.
Damage received: 88110 (ignored: 12500000)
6400/6400
I’m being attacked from below—the Evil Water respawned and is already climbing toward me in an attempt to knock me down. My hand slips, a rock lurches, and the remains of the well are about to collapse.
I can’t take this anymore! I need to sit and relax.
Like a wild animal, I move as noiselessly as I can into an alley. My bare feet slip noiselessly along the road, and I head toward the border of the dead region as my ears pick up every sound and every little vibration in the air. There aren’t as many buildings with crosses on the door, and the buildings themselves look richer. I’m in the business district. It was buried underground by the earthquake, so the h
ouses, shops, and rest areas are completely lifeless. Nobody’s attacked me since I left the residential part of town. Still, I see more living undead and possessed demon corpses running around after rats.
In one of the little courtyards on the outskirts of the residential district, there’s a pair of skeletons sitting next to each other. It’s a gazebo with a ruined roof where a couple is drinking transparent tea. The silvery liquid pours into their mouths from their cups, and the skeletons chat about something with arms gesturing actively. Even their heads are thrown back, probably laughing… Still, it’s completely quiet. I see their empty eye sockets filled with green light, the ashen hair still on the woman’s skull, and the remains of decayed clothing. It’s absurd surrealism. After the demon with the sledgehammer, I didn’t think anything could surprise me, but this… What if I die here?
My perception works much better in the business district, saving my life at least twice. I sneak up to a tall fence, noticing that there isn’t any trash around the corner column. My perception highlights the base of the brickwork. From there, my curiosity takes over—if there’s a way up the wall, I can get to the roof of the neighboring building and keep going from up there. The brickwork is in good shape - too good, in fact. It’s like somebody has been taking care of it all these years.
With just a meter left until I reach the corner, the bricks fly apart, and I’m greeted by the skeleton of a mummified human. He opens his mouth and shrieks noiselessly.
My reflexes take over. A dragon flame ends the skeleton, melting him into the wall, though I’ve been trying to use that spell as little as possible. The fire burns too loudly.
