The flashing lights danced across the building walls. Despite the drizzle, a persistent burning smell hovered over the streets.
There were cars everywhere, firefighters, ambulances, emergency vehicles. The police patrol service was trying in vain to restrain the crowd. I could see fear, confusion, bewilderment and pain on people’s faces.
The cordon kept breaking and coming back together. Someone was screaming desperately.
The news had spread quickly and the crowd consisted mainly of the relatives of the victims. I pushed my way through with difficulty. The fire had been extinguished, but the five-story building complex had burned right down to the ground. Even the roof of the club had collapsed, leaving only the blackened walls.
Emergency medical tents were being erected right in the street. Clusters of spotlights switched on. I could hear screams coming from all directions, it was still chaotic, the cold wind pushing acrid plumes of smoke into the ground.
“The capsules were set alight from the inside... The servers were exploding...”
“Ilya! My God! Ilya!” A woman broke through the cordon, ran to the ambulances, tripped and fell.
“Help, damn it! North exit, we need medics!”
I was pushed aside and almost knocked down.
Coughing and swaying people were coming towards me — another group who had been saved. They were completely disoriented. Their clothes were stained, burned and torn, and horror was written on their faces. Some of them were helped into the tents, where the doctors met them.
The surrounding skyscrapers were as dark as the night. Not a single window was glowing in the radius of several blocks. The network was down. The communicators weren’t working. Emergency services were using radios.
I’d seen this sort of thing before. Mainstream was attacked using an electromagnetic pulse generator. An army sample, turned to maximum power. The VR capsules were stuffed full of electronics and much less protected than military machines. Cybernetic components didn’t just fail from an EMP, many parts heated up to critical temperatures, then caught alight and exploded. That’s why there were multiple fires on all the floors of the club!
It was a terrorist attack. Whoever did this knew that the VR capsules wouldn’t hold.
I gazed around me with no idea of what to do or how to help. Suddenly, I noticed a familiar face in the crowd parting to let an ambulance through.
“Avicenna! Wait!”
He turned around, stared at me for a few seconds and then remembered, “You’re Max’ friend.”
“Yes! Is this because of VR?”
“It’s the Dark ones!” Avicenna nodded, sitting down on the wet curb. “I’m sure it’s them. Today we repulsed their assault on the castle and drove them from our lands. The Shadow clans had nothing going for them... Bastards...” he spat on the ground and asked, “How did you get out?”
“I wasn’t here.”
“I finished my shift an hour ago, too. I hadn’t even reached home...”
“Max and Sasha. Have you heard anything about them?”
“I have no idea about Max. Sasha was taken away with severe burns to Clinical Hospital No. 3.”
“What’s his surname?”
“I don’t know. His nickname’s the Analyst, but I don’t know his surname.”
He stood up and walked away, becoming instantly lost in the crowd and leaving me on my own again.
* * *
I spent the morning in Clinical Hospital No. 3. Max seemed to have disappeared into thin air but I had managed to find Sasha.
They didn’t let me into the ICU. I left my communicator number with the doctors and asked them to call me when Sasha’s condition changed as they were keeping him in an induced coma. No relatives turned up even though the main channels on the spherovision were constantly reporting about the tragedy in Mainstream Club and scrolling through the victim names.
I returned to Max’ apartment with a heavy heart. Many things weren’t making sense. Why did we need virtual reality, where rampaging assholes could do whatever they wanted, and if they suddenly started losing online, they eliminated their opponents in the real world?
Yes, I knew that huge amounts of money were involved in the Edge of the Abyss, but I still couldn’t accept what had happened.
Nevertheless, I had to go back. Jeb was waiting for me. Another life broken by VR. I couldn’t understand how we’d come to this — knowing each other only by nicknames, hiding behind avatars, loving and hating in cyberspace while living and dying alone in the real world...
The VR panels slid open and the rigid bed rose obligingly.
While the neural interface was being set up, I glanced through the news of the virtual world.
…
A sensational twist in the battle for the Mongoose Citadel.
For the first time in the Edge of the Abyss’ recent history, the alliance of Shadow Clans has managed to gain a foothold away from the Dark Frontier. Having simulated a panicked retreat after failing to storm the castle, the Shadow Clan forces switched to an unexpected counterattack, found a breach in the defense and broke into the Clan Hall, holding it for an hour.
The Mongooses have lost control of the citadel. According to unconfirmed reports, the strongest combat clan in the Russian cluster is now on the verge of collapse.
…
This was terrible news. Now the whole region would fall under Dark rule. Another safe area, where many players of peaceful professions had already settled, would disappear off the map. They wouldn’t be killed, of course, but they would be seriously oppressed.
The game finished loading.
…
Welcome to the Edge of the Abyss.
…
The cavern reeked of burning. Enough daylight penetrated through the overhead fissure for me to see the motes of ash swirling in the air.
Jeb poked his head up from behind a mound of stones.
“What took you so long?”
“I had to stay longer. There were some unforeseen problems. Did the Dark players turn up?”
“It’s been quiet so far. Did you find out the sequence?”
“No. We’ll have to figure this out on our own.”
“Forget it,” Jeb waved his hand. “We can’t get through the dwarf cave anyway.”
“But you’re a mage! Haven’t you got any invisibility spells or something in your collection?”
“I do but I can’t use them. My Intellect’s too low. And we can no longer level up here. I think there’s been some kind of glitch. The rats haven’t respawned. The centipedes and spiders have all fled, too. The experience points we got for them were miniscule anyway.”
He was right. The situation was dire.
“What did the miniboss drop? Did you find it?”
“A shield covered with the Protorat’s skin.”
“Nothing else?” I was starting to cling to fragile hopes, but we weren’t going to be saved by a happy accident. As I understood it, miracles rarely happened here. At least, good fortune was carefully avoiding Jeb and I. “Well, I can level my Fame up to 50. Then I’ll have an aura. Here’s the link, take a look.”
Jeb briefly studied the description of the Aura of Fame, then shook his head, “Dwarves are intelligent beings, I agree, but what about the current inhabitants of the cave?” he asked. “Plus, how long are they going to examine you for, anyway? No, Dan, this isn’t an option. We’ll have better luck trying the Deadly Crag portal,” he suggested. “If you extinguish the extra runes, the teleport will switch to local mode and we’ll move a short distance. Here,” he gave me the ring that awarded +1 to Intellect. “I took the Dexterity one for myself.”
I put the ring on and said resolutely, “Let’s go!”
Jeb caught my sleeve. “Dan, wait, you don’t seem yourself tonight, you’re all nerves.”
I said nothing.
“Tell me what happened.”
“People died last night.”
“In the real world?”
> “Yeah,” I sat on the edge of the respawn circle, briefly described the situation and asked, “Tell me, Jeb, is virtual reality worth it? Everything here is fake! Why would people kill for it?!”
“It’s all real here,” he said seriously. “Pain, joy, madness, hatred, friendship. Don’t you agree?”
“I don’t know... I don’t understand it.”
“Then why didn’t you off me when you leveled up a bit? Why did you save that girl, even though she was an NPC? You didn’t even need the experience back then.”
“Jeb, stop trying to ‘fix’ me!”
“Well, you should stop getting aggro. Just think about it.”
Is that how he was talking now? Just like Max had done? I remembered his words, ‘The world turned out to be harsh, but it is the result of our actions.’
Much remained unclear. The Edge of the Abyss seemed less and less like a game.
“All right. Let’s head to the portal.” I decided to end this unexpected and strangely painful conversation.
* * *
We made our way through the narrow and reeking passage. Soot coated the walls. The torchlight illuminated long, horizontal burn marks. It appeared that the Ifrit had passed this way in its search for a way out.
The boulder that Jeb had previously rolled aside had split into several fragments, and we had to pause to remove them from our path.
The hall with the teleport, fortunately, had not been damaged. The runes glowed dimly in the dark.
“Wait, let me catch my breath.”
I’d been on my feet for more than a day with no sleep. The VR capsule’s system had warned me several times about the likelihood of an ‘emergency exit for medical reasons’ and I’d been angrily swiping these messages away with a flick of my pupils.
Right, no time to sit around. I took a sip of water from the flask and approached the stone circle.
Unlike the portal in the Scorched Lands, this one was working properly. I didn’t need to waste my mana to activate it. My problem was extinguishing the extra runes. I hadn’t discovered which artifact was the key so I used both.
I had a sense of foreboding. In all the time that I had spent in the Edge of the Abyss, I had only felt a momentary charm at the very beginning, and then the digital world had shown its teeth, throwing me into a series of respawns.
Driving away the unhelpful thoughts, I concentrated on the runes.
“Jeb, get ready!”
The first Abyss symbol went dark.
The Crystal and Amulet were vibrating in my hands. I wouldn’t be surprised if they only worked as a pair.
The second rune faded.
Now a viscous hostility emanated from the stone, as if I had been pierced by some dark energy, not amenable to normal human understanding. My nerves were wound tighter than a guitar string. I felt rapidly hot and cold. The third magic symbol began to flicker as if it sensed my confusion and indecision.
I pulled myself together. My head was spinning and my mind went fuzzy. It was very difficult to maintain concentration.
The third rune twisted and finally faded. A golden glow appeared over the circle!
“Dan, it worked! You did it! This is a normal portal. The kind that was in use before.”
Why was it that I wasn’t expecting any good to come from this? Was it paranoia?
“Let’s go! Together!”
Jeber_Arium and I stepped into the light together and the underground around us fragmented and faded.
“Dan!”
I went rolling head over heels down a slope.
…
You have discovered the location Sinister Forest.
You have obtained the coordinates for a lost teleportation stone.
Reward: +5 to Fame if you list the coordinates on public maps.
…
I smashed my shoulder into a fallen tree trunk and leaped to my feet as I scanned my new environment.
I was surrounded by a dense, ancient forest growing over a mountainside. A stream gurgled nearby. There was moss everywhere, a strange one, green at the base with gray, as if faded, thin hairs at the edges.
A menacing howl came from close by.
“Jeb, where are you?”
“Here!” the voice came from somewhere below me.
There was zero visibility due to the thick undergrowth.
The clean air, filled with the scents of the forest, was intoxicating.
The beast howled again. Closer this time.
“Jeb, hold on! I’m coming to you!”
The ferns around me shook. The trembling foliage clearly showed the mob’s progress. Did it seem to be ignoring me? I shouted, trying to get its attention.
Like in the case of the brown bear, a message flashed immediately,
…
You have used a battle cry. Your Strength and Stamina have temporarily increased by 1. The aggro radius of NPC opponents has increased by 10 meters.
You have caught the attention of the large mountain wolf.
…
The gray shadow stretched out in a jump but I managed to block with my shield.
The Stamina bar dropped slightly. My Life points stayed almost the same and the wolf sprang back, clearly discouraged by such a turn of events. He crouched low to the ground, growling and baring his teeth. He was about to leap again.
That’s right. He bounded forward and struck with his paw but I blocked again, staggering a little yet managing to slash at him with my sword.
Blood splattered, the wolf rolled away and suddenly let out a lyrical howl.
The bushes shook.
A pack!
Rapid gray silhouettes approached from all sides, bounding towards me. A large, seasoned male with smoky fur stood out among the ordinary wolves.
…
??? A creature of the Abyss. Level 32.
…
No wonder. So close to the portal, there were probably heaps of mutated NPCs!
I fought back as hard as I could. The bloodied shreds of my leather jacket no longer gave me any protection.
Two wolves thudded down the slope as I had gotten them both with a slashing blow, but things were looking bad. My Stamina was disappearing faster than I could regenerate it. I was holding on so far, thanks to the shield found on the Deadly Crag. The sword did not disappoint either. It was quite long and well-balanced, allowing me to keep my enemies at a distance.
Here came the smoky wolf! The leader of the pack leaped from far away, instantly knocking me down like a battering ram.
I got back up at once but my Life was flowing away together with the inflicted Bleeding debuff, and everything swam before my eyes from the Stun.
How annoying would it be if I was sent into respawn again... The anchor point was still the same... I would have to wander through the underground again but this time alone.
“Dan, get away from them!”
Risking a broken neck, I began to roll down the slope.
I still couldn’t see Jeb and had no idea where he was.
I was suddenly enveloped by a minor heal aura, which eased the pain and stopped the bleeding, and in the next moment, a fireball struck the smoky male right on the haunches!
The leader of the pack howled and fell back from me, turning sharply to search for the new threat.
I didn’t miss the opportunity and finished off one of the wounded animals. Go Jeb! He had thought to climb a tree and was now using fireballs like a sniper with the help of the salamander skin glove.
I had to help him.
The realism was making itself known again. It was difficult to run up the slope and the Stamina consumption doubled! Having lost sight of me, the pack (the smoky wolf and four others with rather singed fur) had surrounded a sturdy pine. The mobs tore at the trunk with their claws, leaped up and gnashed their teeth, but they couldn’t reach Jeb. He had climbed high enough but had unfortunately used up all of his mana.
I looked at the frames more closely. The enemies’ lives were in the red zo
ne. I had managed to seriously wound several of them as I fought back and the fire had not been to their liking either. The leader’s HP had halved thanks to several hits!
Noticing me, Jeb dropped down to a lower branch and began assiduously aggravating the wolves with his spear, keeping their attention on him.
Edge of the Abyss (Respawn Trials Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 17
