by Scar, Rick
“Raven,” the archer called to Will after they’d cleaned another cursed place. “Honestly, you would have long stopped doing this boring stuff if you could read my thoughts on it. Why can’t we take a break and a trip for that tablet Pandora’s servant told you about? Or we could locate another one for ourselves!” The adventurer’s eyes were shiny, his body trembling all over with excitement as he dreamed aloud.
The rogue facepalmed at hearing such a ‘brilliant’ plan. Daltaro’s other ideas were no better. Once he’d even suggested killing the Swarm Queen, so awfully bored he was with the dull grinding.
“I’m telling you this for the tenth time, but you’ll be roasted by a lightning bolt right on the spot unless you have those gloves I showed you. And—another thing I’ve told you ten times before—we’re doing the right thing by cleaning this forest. You can’t know what—or whom—we’ll find around the next tree. Though I really hope we won’t come across any more runaway demons.” Will smirked.
He then cut himself short, staring behind Daltaro’s back. There, taking shape in the tree shadow, was a tall female figure with a hooded face.
He could not see her eyes; the shadow cast by her hood was impenetrable, hiding the upper half of her face completely and breathing magic. Only the white fangs jutting out from beneath her upper lip betrayed her as a non-human.
“So it’s you whose blood smells so delicious to me,” the woman sang as her thin lips coated in black lipstick curved in an avidly thirsty smile.
Chapter 104. You’re the One I’ve Been Looking For
B y distributing XP 30:70 between himself and his pet, Will had developed Hades to Level 8 and his own character to Level 71. Sure he begrudged spending the bulk of his XP on his pet, but he realized this move was strategically wise, paying back many times over in the long run.
When feeding the first body to the pup, Raven had wondered how it would look. How could such a tiny (albeit swiftly growing) creature possibly devour a large, six-foot monster’s body?
Things turned out to be both rather simple and unusual. Coming up to the dead mob, Hades puffed up suddenly and, closing his jaws on the monster’s body, he returned to his past size. Immediately after that, he went out of reach. Absorbing the monster’s body, the pup took a couple of steps and collapsed to the side, kicking out its small paws. The pet went into a coma-like state through overeating—Will only discovered that by checking its status.
Name: Hades
Status: Energy digestion
Duration: 6-24h (longer for higher-level monsters)
Due to the rune stone creating a separate living space for the pet, Will could rest assured that the pup wouldn’t get killed in a fight while in this helpless condition. The rogue had gotten this stone from a magic shop, paying as much as 700 gold at the time, but his convenience was worth that. If his Cerberus-to-be died, Raven wouldn’t have been able to summon it over the next two weeks. Besides, killed pets lost a portion of their XP just like killed players. Will knew that from the game wiki.
Now, facing an opponent who was apparently stronger than regular mobs, Raven rejoiced at Hades being safe in the rune stone, and he praised himself for overcoming his greed back then to spend a fortune on this item.
Breaking his rule of not applying Identification to sapient creatures (he’d gained many levels up and lots of handy skills since establishing this rule, after all), the rogue inspected the female stranger.
Name: Rinnah – Shadow Order Adept
Level: 103.
Health: 50170
Rank: ??
Hey, what? The Shadow Order? Inscrutable are the ways of the Taargada Forest.
“Wanna play? I love cute kittens like you. Let’s see how good you are.” Her voice fell to a whisper, then she vanished into the shade.
- 100!
…and the next moment the rogue received damage that seemed to come out of nowhere.
- 100!
Another invisible blow struck him from behind.
“Daltaro! Don’t shoot!” Warning his companion, Will applied Leap to get as far from the tree shadow as possible. “Listen to me, you wild woman!”
“Ahahaha.” Her soft laughter came from all around at once. “You do have some delicious blood, boy.” The rogue even seemed to hear the enemy lick her lips.
- 100!
She seemed to play with Raven, landing neat cuts with perfectly round damage. The rogue used to be unsuspecting that anyone could do that.
- 100!
“Are you blind? Can’t you see the ring I wear?” Struggling to detect her, Will advanced his hand with the ring in hope she would take notice.
- 100!
“Are you deaf, too?” Raven was boiling with rage. Everyone he’d met in this forest was no ordinary character. As the only player on this location, he had to deal with all of it alone.
Revelation Sphere! This skill would remove any invisibility. Will hoped that included the sort used by the shadow adept, but…
- 100!
Will’s Warrior Spirit passive skill increased his health by 10%—now it was 1,474 points. But this sharp-toothed creature reduced it by 600 effortlessly over some 20 seconds!
She landed her cuts to strange places, avoiding his tendons and vital organs. Two wounds on his back beneath the shoulder blades, two at his armpits, and two slashes forming an X across his chest.
Soul Cry!
“You little rascal!” the enemy screamed in an offended voice. “No respect for your senior at all. I’ll teach you a lesson.”
- 100!
Once she landed this blow, Raven activated his Finger Snap—and it reached an enemy too engrossed in her play.
“Hey, what are you doing? You vermin!” Falling out of the shade, the enemy stood, shaking her head. Her hood fell off, revealing a young and very pale girl still struggling to regain her senses.
The skill’s duration was reduced somewhat by the fact her level was much higher than Will’s. Without putting her hood back on, she stared at him. “I know no junior adept in our Order who looks like you. But if you were a Latian spy trying to win my trust and infiltrate, my cuts would have removed your disguise. So you must have found this ring somewhere. Please tell me—where exactly did you get it from?”
“So that was a test?” Taking a detached look at what she had done, Will concluded that was quite plausible. The shadow adepts were no fools to immediately trust anyone wearing the Order’s ring.
“Answer me, young man,” she demanded like a strict teacher. “Where did you get it? We’ve returned the rings of all the adepts killed over the past ten years to the Order.”
“Oh, really? You’re just the one I’ve been looking for. Ahahaha. I’d already started to think I’ll die before I ever found your Order.” Laughing with relief and retrieving the dead adept’s remains, Raven started his story.
***
Emma joined Ascension rather late, but she never regretted doing that once trying out the game. It was a wonderful new world full of opportunities for a video geek like her.
She would often watch the videos made by others, saving those that looked interesting or well-made. That was how she’d located the first video by White Raven: the player who’d sprinted into first place in no time and then remained there till his fall, like a dragon in his cave.
The video started as Raven appeared from the portal. Next, it depicted him killing all those stupid and presumptuous players. Emma was captivated by his charisma and the apparent purposefulness of his doing that to the other players. He was not just killing for the sake of it; he seemed to be pursuing some important goal, and those idiots had intervened.
The death of fifteen players was witnessed by millions. The numerous comments expressed astonishment at such a great damage done by the TOP, and even more at his very plain gear.
This battle was well on its way to staying the most discussed topic on the web for a few weeks at least, but only a few days later, another fantastic video was uploaded—th
is time about his adventures with the Rollin’ Dice clan. The video editor had not actually done much work; the only thing apparently added in was the smooth transitions between battle scenes and mystery solving.
Getting the message about the dungeon boss setting off for a journey, everyone was utterly puzzled by it. Now the Rollin’ Dice provided the much requested answer to this riddle, their video quenching the players’ thirst like a gulp of fresh water and reaching 5 million views in just a single day.
Emma was one of those fascinated by that mystery. Seeing the video, she badly regretted just one thing: that she had not been the person making this great material into a video.
The video was a paid one, but the price was low, so it set two records in just a day: the number of views and the number of sales.
The purchased video could be downloaded; Emma did that immediately. Copyrighted by Rollin’ Dice, it could not be uploaded to the web. Emma was not going to do that, anyway. She just wanted to see what she could make of this video.
She’d been doing her best on it for two weeks. The result was staggering. She could see that, but she also knew this video could not be uploaded so she only showed it to her friends, rejoicing at their delighted faces.
That would have been the end of her small experiment if she hadn’t told Leah, her close friend, about it.
“So it’s your brother looking for an editor?” Emma asked skeptically, assuming Leah’s brother was an ordinary player whose videos did not have much action. “What’s his nickname?”
“Um…I haven’t asked.” Leah shrugged, taking another bite of her poppy seed muffin. “So what should I tell him? Are you in?”
“Well. Give him my contacts. And a link to my page.” Emma smiled. My game videos are probably more interesting than his.
***
Emma was in her dormitory room, browsing through the forum news, when an email popped in.
Will Thompson? Who’s that?
She turned to her roommate. “Leah. Is your brother’s name Will?”
“Yeah. Why do you ask?” Leah was at her desk, as usual, doing and overdoing her homework. She didn’t even turn to look at the other girl, too busy making some drawings in her copybook.
“A message…Well, I’d rather not distract you.” Clicking the link, Emma received a list of several dozen videos expanding before her, accompanied by the following text:
Hi. My sis probably told you about me. Let’s get down to it. I’m your chance to make your dreams come true. Use it. I want the first video emailed to me in a week. Just do it, young dreamer.
Phew. What a pompous dude. Smirking, Emma clicked on the first video.
…
“WHAT? White Raven?!” Jumping up, she pointed at her screen, screaming to drive Leah’s attention.
“Are you okay?” Leah asked, apparently wondering why her roommate was acting so weirdly.
“And you? Are you really clueless your brother is the whole game’s Number One player?”
How could one possibly share an apartment with a TOP player and stay so clueless? How could a TOP’s sibling be unaware of his accomplishments—and even his game nickname? That was beyond Emma.
“Oh. Sorry. I just don’t get it. If you are all right, could you please stop distracting me?” Saying that, Leah returned to her homework.
“Huh?!” Emma gaped at that, her finger still pointing at the screen. “Well, that’s Leah the Nerdy, I guess.”
Coming to and sitting back at her desk, she smiled and put her headphones on to get fully immersed in the adventures of Ascension’s most mysterious player.
Chapter 105. You’ve Liked My Blood, Haven’t You?
W atching one video after another, Emma did not stop until dawn. After playing the last one, she spent some ten minutes in silence, making sense of what she’d just seen. Sure many things had been cut out or not filmed at all; almost every next video was set in a different location. The very first video showed Raven fighting a mosquito-like monster of unknown level (!).
Which location was this crazy one playing in to even come across such a thing?
Unfortunately, there was no footage of those very battles that powered his soaring to the top, but even these videos… Every other one she watched made her heart beat faster. She could see…she could already see the hell of a storm they would send across the web once published.
Now she saw what Leah’s brother meant by dubbing himself her dream chance. She’d be the one helping him become famous. After that, she’d be famous too, with her videos watched by millions. Painting this picture in her mind, Emma slapped herself on the cheeks and shook her head.
Focus!
That was when it fully dawned on her what kind of an opportunity—and burden—she’d got. Emma wondered why a player of that level would approach an unknown girl like her. As a TOP, he should’ve already made a fortune.
With a weekend upon her, she decided to take a brief sleep and set to work right after that. Starting on the task without proper rest, she could have messed it up, disappointing Will. She could not let that happen. She would be a real fool if she failed to grasp at a stroke of luck like this.
***
You’ve completed the Messenger quest.
By chance, you’ve met a shadow adept and passed her the information you’ve got from the dead adept.
Reward:
+ 45 Shadow Order approval points;
+ Chance to meet the Order’s head.
Attention! To meet the Shadow Order’s head, you need to convince one of the order members to arrange this meeting for you. The Order’s head is a hermit. No one but an order member can make him break his solitude.
Current attitude status:
The Shadow Order 45/100 — neutral
“Where did you find these remains?” Rinnah examined the bones of her order’s dead brother, the message in her hand.
“The Skiavra village. A human settlement over…” Glancing at the map, Will pointed behind his back. “Over there.”
“I see. Honestly, I didn’t personally know any of those who disappeared more than twelve years ago, because that is exactly when I joined the order.” She stopped, pondering over what to do next. “The information is already outdated and of no value, anyway. All your effort was in vain, boy.”
“My intention was to honor the memory of this man doing his duty. His last thought before he died was about the Order. And I’m really surprised to hear words like these from another member of the Shadow Order.”
The girl watched him with curiosity as he sang like a nightingale, wondering what he was up to, but that was not an easy thing to do with Will. The only thing that could betray his true emotions to you was his broad smile when anticipating a gain.
“You deserve praise for that. But you must understand, I can’t bring any strangers to our abode. I must get the order head’s permission for that. Give me the remains, and I’ll come to meet you in a month, at that very village where you obtained them.”
Rinnah waited for the rogue to pass her the junior adept’s bones, but that was the last thing Raven was going to do. Not now. Not when the much-desired specialization was so close at his hand.
“Hey, wait. Why a month? Can’t we do it any faster?”
“No. The head almost never leaves his reclusion. And the journey is a long one.”
“I can’t give you the bones. Sorry. No way. I’m a Messenger of Gods, in case you didn’t notice. We are bound to complete any mission we take. At all costs.”
“A mess…what?” The pale girl clapped her eyes, apparently clueless of what he was talking about.
“Um… Is your abode completely isolated? Do you have no way of knowing what’s going on in the outside world?”
The girl’s eyes narrowed at the pity in his voice. Deep within them, one could see the storm coming.
“Haven’t you heard of the prophecies? Or maybe you don’t even know the once-endless world is now split into lots of floors?”
His irony-dripping voice made the order’s member angry.
“You should have more respect for the Order and your seniors, you impudent boy. I’m 53 years older than you,” Rinnah told Raven, who hardly ever respected any in-game titles or ranks. He would only do that for the sake of his future gains…which was just the case now.
“You’re right. Yes. Please pardon my bad manners.” Will bowed slightly with a smile. “Let me tell you about that ancient prophecy.”
***
Listening to the rather brief intro made by Will into a ten-minute story, Rinnah watched him skeptically. “So you’re saying you messengers are immortal?”
“I’d rather not prove that on myself as a living example, but you can ask my friend about it.” The rogue made an inviting gesture towards the archer who was as silent as he always was when Raven talked to any strangers.
Rinnah smirked, arching her brow. “Are you suggesting I rely on your friend’s words?”
“I’m not going to die right now, anyway. Please don’t ask me to. Let’s get back to our business. I’ll give the bones only to the head of your order. Personally.”
“Don’t play with me, kitten,” she sang in a tender voice, hardly concealing a threat. “You’re not the one calling the shots here.”
Taking a few smooth steps towards Will, she suddenly put a knife to his throat.
“Um.” Smiling gently, Raven took the blade with two fingers to move it aside. Bending down toward her ear, he whispered: “You’d better look around, dear shadow sister.”
Frowning as she could feel no threat from the rogue, she looked back—to see an arrow topped with a small dragon head, aiming at the middle of her forehead. The dragon’s jaws dropped snowflakes, a breath of cold coming from the arrow.
