by R J Triveri
“Dante?” River finally asked quietly after a moment. That got his attention at least. “Are you seriously going to fall for that?”
Her friend looked at her, a little confused. His face bled embarrassment while his words said another. “What do you mean?”
“You really don’t see it?” she asked as she cocked her head a little at him. As he shook his head, she sighed and almost exploded. “She’s playing you, Dante! You’re a mark to her. God, you’d think no one ever flirted with you before.”
Dante was taken back at the words and felt a little bit more embarrassed as the weight of the commentary set in. “Can’t I enjoy when someone takes an interest in me?”
“Not when she’s competition,” River said bluntly as they reached the front of the line. “We don’t even know anything about her.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it.”
“Doesn’t mean it won’t wipe us either.” Her frustration saturated each word and only got worse as she continued. “Look, I know it’s hard to believe, but not everyone has your best interests at heart, Dante. For someone with such a high perception, you can be so gullible.”
He nodded, not wanting the argument to continue while the SIFS was up and running. “Can we just drop it?”
“As long as you keep an eye on my back,” she conceded. In a single movement of annoyance, her hair flowed with her as she turned back to face the gate. “I don’t need you distracted this early in the game.”
This isn’t a game, Dante reminded himself, but River was right about one thing. If so many of the solo runners were wiping so early, it wasn’t a good sign for them. He had to keep his head clear.
A moment later, a message flashed across his screen and made his muscles clench.
The Pits are now ready for you.
A new party option is now available.
Would you like to enable your SIFS chat?
“River?”
“Oh God, no! Not on our first run,” she answered as she gave the formless voice in their heads the group’s answer.
Response Accepted.
Chat will not be enabled for the duration of the round.
Good luck.
A moment later, the pair vanished as the doorway opened and a burst of light heralded them into the realm of the Pits.
Chapter Ten: Spin the Wheel
Much to River’s surprise as the pair materialized into the new arena, her stomach didn’t feel like lurching violently out of her chest. With a silent thanks to whatever god assisted her, she found herself quickly in a new, more-than-welcoming element of her life as a familiar set of sounds assaulted the pair. Despite the smaller venue, the crowds were just as dense as they were in the arena. They were so close, River could make out facial features and bodies without too much of an effort. Surprising her again was her second audience dictated by the SIFS interface. In the upper right-hand corner of her screens was a small, white eye icon with a rapidly growing number that she could only assume were the stream watchers.
“Holy shit,” River said to herself and turned for a moment to Dante. His face held as deep of a surprise as hers did, but it only lasted a moment. He gave her a strange look and made a motion for her to stop talking with his hand, bringing it across his mouth to drive the point home. Without a hint of her normal reluctance, she graciously accepted his advice and took her words somewhere more private.
River Hexi => Dante Rior: I’ve got seventy thousand viewers and climbing!
Dante gave her a quick nod, and, with his acknowledgment, River figured that his viewer count had to be just as high as her own. Thankfully, none of those seventy-five thousand people were allowed to send messages or chat during the Pit fights. That, and the stress of the fight, would have just been far too much for either of them to handle at that moment. Though she couldn’t read Dante’s expression as well as she could read her own thoughts, River was sure he had to be just as stunned with the current count.
“It’s an amazing place, isn’t it?” Dante said, covering for her surprise in the best way he knew how. Without his words and with the wonder of the two audiences already on her, she would have never noticed just how simple the Pits were. With the outside arenas as her first impressions, the Pits weren’t really what she’d consider all that special. It was a giant, open area of laid gray bricks that didn’t have much detail to call their own other than the wear that just eked out a path towards the center of the area. The floor, the walls, the arches, the stands full of fans, and even the supports for the domed, stained glass roof were all the same width and length.
Dante Rior => River Hexi: And you were worried I’d be the one to blow our debut. Keep your cool, River.
River straightened at his words as the familiar voice of the narrator hit the airwaves and quieted the crowds with its priority setting.
Materializing in a practiced form in front of the pair, the Narrator of the Pits flair for the dramatic was only exceeded by its glaring yellow-and-black-striped suit and the shifting emoticons it used for a face.
In the eyes of River, the narrator was like some teenage texting nightmare brought to life.
As of that moment, the narrator wore a simple, bulging, yellow smiling face with large, black, soulless eyes to speak its potent words. “Alright everyone, the moment we’ve all been waiting for has come! For our not-quite-midday Picnic at the Pits, let’s hear it for the woman with a blade as dangerous as her attention span, River Hexi!”
Smiling at the applause, it took her a moment to realize the insult that had been hurled her way but could say nothing as the voice of the yellow face continued.
“Let’s not forget the Seeker that’s still seeking a reason to stick around, Dante Rior!”
As if its words were a weapon, their viewer count dropped like a critical hit to under sixty thousand.
“Now, since you two are new to the game…” The viewer count continued to drop with each tearing, derogatory remark of the narrator. “I’m going to give you the chance at the wild card!” Like a healing balm, the count shot up like a rocket as the smiling emoticon grew into a toothy, sideways grin. “Would either of you like a refreshing Re-spin, an option full of intrigue and danger, or are you just going to stand there and wait for the crowd to decide for you?”
“Re-spin?” River asked. Dante hadn’t said anything about a re-spin option.
Dante Rior => River Hexi: Don’t!
But the damage was done as the toothy grin become much more dangerous as the voice boomed once more.
“Re-spin! I knew you two weren’t wusses,” the announcer confirmed, turning fully into a gray shark with a more pronounced, angular smile as surprise lit up River’s eyes like a wildfire. “The wild card is live, folks! Let’s take a spin and see what happens!”
River Hexi => Dante Rior: Shit. Sorry!
Dante Rior => River Hexi: It’s okay. He’s just an ass.
Dante’s mind reeled as the center of the room shifted and something rose out of the decorative carnage. From the concerned look on his face, Dante expected the sounds of grinding bricks and cracking stone, but none of that came. Instead, the bricks shrank, twisted, or just outright gave way to the cheering of the crowd to accommodate the new addition. With the new device came an unnatural silence. Triggered or not by their new narrator, the pair tensed.
With its face flashing from the smiling shark to a more serious, yellow emoticon, the announcer continued as the floor silently did the same. “For those of you that don’t know, Re-spin can have all sorts of fun consequences! The floor can become lava, the sky can fall, food could become your worst enemy! Anything is possible. In addition to a brand-new round, our intrepid heroes will spin the wheel and test their luck!” In River’s opinion, the narrator was enjoying her mistake far too much. “Which of you will take the first spin?”
“Seeing as I got us into this mess…” River said, letting her voice wander for a moment, but remembered where she was and looked towards the stone spin
ner. “Might as well make this fun, right?”
Her confidence carried her away from Dante and up onto the raised platform to the spinner. She studied it for a moment, running the options through her head. The spinner had quite the number, too: Rules change, location change, event change, credit drop, challenge level up, challenge level down, and true wild card. None of them would be in their favor, unless credit drop was going to shower them with enough credits or bytes to let them retire.
Dante Rior => River Hexi: Please let this spin be better than your usual luck…
River ignored him as her hand wrapped around one of the pegs and spun the wheel with all her might.
“And we’re off to the races, folks!” the announcer cheered as the clicking of the spinner was amplified tenfold by programming and by the even eerier silence as River walked back to Dante.
Her stance oozed confidence as she feigned boredom with the clicking. “Can’t we make this end quicker?” Inside, she was a wreck as she watched the number wobble in their flux state. The longer it took, the fewer viewers the pair had. “We’re getting old over here.”
Dante said nothing as his ears focused in on the clicking. The way he stood exuded confidence, but River knew his tells better than that. The way his hand fumbled with his right pocket, the way his eyes watched each tick of the wheel, she knew he was trying to think his way out of any problem that might pop up from the wheel.
Ignoring the hidden tells, the announcer grinned broadly at the pair with yet another emoticon visage.
“Someone’s eager to get started,” it joked as the face shifted into a grim reaper for just a moment before it spoke again. “Death come for everyone, Ms. Hexi. Don’t invite it too soon.”
The audience didn’t seem to like it much as her numbers took another drop.
“Death can fuck off. We’re here to win!” The jump in her numbers confirmed her response was just what the pair needed tonight. “And I’m not the only one that thinks so.” She confirmed it by putting her hand on Dante’s shoulder, getting him to smile just a bit as she did.
Graywall Announcer: Pits => River Hexi: Not bad, Newbie. Glad you know it’s nothing against you.
River only smiled, choosing not to respond as she looked to Dante. She could see the anticipation growing as he shifted his weight from leg to leg. Above it all, it wasn’t hard to tell why his smile grew with the slowing of the clicks. It was just another in a long line of his oh-so-hidden tells. It told her one things above all others; he wasn’t just resigned to whatever fate was about to befall them. There was so much more to it than that.
Adventure?
Challenge?
Danger?
Deep down, River knew that Dante lived for it.
“Click, click, click, baby!” the announcer spoke to break the otherwise silent arena. Silent if you discounted the voices in their heads. The slowing continued as silence consumed the space between the pegs’ clicking against the pointer. “And….”
The pair’s display changed quickly to watch the last few spaces tick by.
“Shit,” River said as the credit drop tile passed. There was one option they wouldn’t learn about today.
Three more clicks echoed in the otherwise silence, and the selection was made.
“Looks like it’s time for a location change!” the announcer declared with a little more excitement than River would have liked. Dante’s face only brightened. “Today’s location choice is…” With the announcer’s words, the tile for the location change changed itself into… “A dungeon! The dungeon location is now up for a vote! SIFS’ers and others, head to your provided link and vote. Where will we be going for today’s event? The Dungeon of Glass? The Cavern of Shadows? Oh! Maybe the deadly Ocean’s Jewel!”
A quick minute passed, then another, and another. Five minutes crept by like a careful spider’s footsteps before a voice boomed in the silence and declared their fate to two worlds. “It looks like we’re going to be taking the fighting to… The Ruins of Tenebrae! But you know what that means, folks! A dungeon run also gets a rules change!”
A sigh escaped River’s lips as Dante pumped his fist. This just wasn’t her day to show off.
“Instead of just watching them fight a few mindless fake Wild Ones at a time, we will be racing into the depths of Tenebrae to face off against the dungeon boss who needs no introduction, Omnida, Lord of Shadows and keeper of the Ruins! An as-to-yet unfinished and nearly unreported dungeon!” Despite the lack of a verbal response, River could tell that the viewers took his words to heart by the way a new frenzy of views grew in the corner of her vision. “Despite this, we’re going to set a few ground rules. As usual, the normal Wild Ones, including our boss friend Omnida, will be replaced with replica ones, and the loot tables will be wiped clean as a baby’s bottom.” The shifting emoticon settled once more on the toothy sideways smile. “However, I should warn you of one other… complication of this event. As much fun as it would be to see you stumble all over yourselves, you really should beware of any other combatants that may already be in the instance. Whether they like it or not, they’ll be joining you in the race. Just like you, if they get knocked below twenty percent, they’re out and back to the nearest safe area! That way, you’ll keep the dragon’s share for you and yours.”
“Sounds like a blast,” River commented after processing the event rules, and looked to Dante. She felt a pang of guilt as the event type changed. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Now they were in a possible human conflict instance again; but to her surprise, Dante was looking at her the same way.
“I agree,” came his reserved response.
River’s eyes widened, but she said nothing to him.
“Let’s get this show on the road then!” With a flourish of its hands and a loud boom as it brought them together for a clap, the two were gone. As a lingering wisp of smoke from their sudden teleportation blinked out of existence, the announcer’s face changed to that of a thick-rimed, glasses-wearing, know-it-all emoticon. “We’ll be back in five as soon as they get their bearings, folks!”
In its position of privilege, the Pits announcer watched as the viewer count only climbed, and the SIFS feed cut out for everyone but the three as it vanished with a clap of thunder to join them.
Part Two: Tasked
SIFS Entry: Influence
Influence is the power that a deity has in a region. Influence can be gained in a multitude of ways to enhance the power that a deity has to change Incipere. The most common method of gaining influence currently is belief. It is also believed that more hostile actions can push influence in a greater capacity one way or another.
Each Inciperian can only gain 9,999 influence.
In real time, influence of the four gods is as follows:
Unum of Incipere: 42% (Focus of Power: Graywall - Ciber)
Ella of Shadows: 42% (Focus of Power: Unknown - Inaris)
Priam the Hidden: 6% (Focus of Power: Temple - Ranar)
Rani of the Moonkin: 10% (Focus of Power: Siris - Ciber)
Created and updated by: SIFS System Administrator
Last Updated by SIFS user: Joe_01
Chapter Eleven: Race into the Shadow
5:00 until the stream is re-established.
As if given a push, the pair tumbled through the administrative portal with a rather rough crash. Kicking up dust in his wake from the lonely nature of the location, Dante rolled as he landed and did his best to not take a serious hit. River, however, was a different story.
“Hell!” spewed crudely from her lips as she collided with the hard, unyielding stone of the dungeon floor. She may have had an advantage by being a dexterous class, but that didn’t mean she always remembered which foot came first.
River Hexi: Damage Received - 98% Integrity Remaining
“Damn it!” came soon after her party got the damage warning and her integrity fell in kind.
After a hushed laugh, Dante turned and offered his friend a hand. “Are we done yet?�
�
She looked at him as her face streamed from a small contort of pain to the flush of embarrassment. “Not yet.”
“Not yet?”
“No.” Giving a cursory glance of the area, she nodded as a wry smile painted the embarrassment on her face. “I still have another.”
Dante laughed again as he took his hand back. “Then by all means before our audience returns.”
She looked at him, thought for a moment, then sighed. “Shit.”
“That’s it?” Dante’s face fell as her curse fell far below his expected threshold.
“Yep.” And a bright smile plastered her face as she sprung back to her feet without his help in the way only a dancer could. “So, what do you know about this place, Dante?”
Opening his windows, Dante flipped panels from his map to his inventory and took out a blue leather-bound journal he used to document his dungeon research. “Not as much as I’d like.” It was a rare admission on his part, but it wasn’t without merit. “There just isn’t enough recorded on it. Tenebrae is a newer dungeon that’s never been confirmed as cleared. Weird enough since it’s only got two city-sized levels and a third level dedicated to the boss’s chamber. There’s a rumored roaming boss as well, and the stairs change location every instance too. I know we want this done quick and clean, but there’s no easy way down and no set path. Not to mention who might already be in the instances that got compressed into ours. It is a popular spot for farming spawn oil and shadow pelts.”
Not for the first nor the last time, River sighed and thought about how to handle their situation. “Kill on sight?”
Dante shook his head as he thought things out a bit further. “Let them make that decision. If they get in our way or attack us, they’ll regret it. If they want to party up, we could use a healer or a true tanking class.”
