The spymaster was quick to answer before his lord. “We have contingencies for that as well – extreme measures that will ensure our city’s sovereignty. I’m sure the high lord will be bored with the details, but if I may address the council at a later time …”
***
Mr. Emery entered the immersion lab, joining the head technician next to the upgraded capsule. “You wanted to see me, Mr. Taylor?”
“Jim, please – and yes.” The technician pointed at a mounted monitor on the side of the capsule. “I’ll get right to it. This is a deep brainwave pattern analysis graph. See that curve from an hour ago?”
Mr. Emery frowned. “I’m a lawyer, not a biotechnician. I take it the fluctuations do not bode well?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Jim manipulated the console next to the monitor, and two yellow horizontal lines appeared at the top and bottom of the graph. “As long as Mr. Berman’s patterns remain within these borders, he’s at what we consider ‘acceptable levels.’”
“There are peaks going both above and below those lines,” the lawyer noted.
“Exactly. But notice that it’s just the very edge of them. The peaks are extremely narrow, indicating a few seconds at most in which they exceeded those limits.”
“What does it mean?”
“From his perspective, Oren experienced several minutes of intense cerebral pressure indicative of high levels of mental stress,” Jim said. “So far, his brain seems to be able to cope, but if the strain grows …”
“When is the next scheduled logout?”
Jim checked the monitor’s time. “In just under two hours.”
“In your opinion, should we allow him this time? Mr. Berman made an informed decision to return to the game, after all.”
The technician nodded. “It should be fine, for now. The last ten minutes were relatively calm.”
“Very well. Continue to monitor his condition, and intervene if you deem it necessary.”
The lawyer headed toward the lab’s exit. “We’ll have to reevaluate our decisions once he comes out.”
***
In a prison cell no bigger than a box, the inmate in a cross-legged position raised his head and looked at an unremarkable spot on the low-hanging ceiling.
David smiled to himself.
Things were getting interesting. The winds of change were in the air, hinting at exciting times ahead.
The imprisoned player reached out with his index finger and traced a circle on the wall. To his eyes, the circle expanded like a lens, opening a whole new field of vision for him to explore.
The player breathed in for the first time in hours, taking in the smell along with sight and sound. Then he smiled again.
Exciting times ahead.
Still in his cross-legged position, he slowly hovered down the few centimeters to the floor and pressed his palm on the hard stone.
Now, to check up on those delightfully insidious dark elves.
***
“Taking his sweet time, isn’t he?” Fox complained.
“He said he’d be along in about an hour,” Raystia said. “There’s still time.”
The four members of the Mob Squad stood side by side, staring intently at the dark altar, oblivious to what was happening behind them.
“What are we waiting for?” I asked, leaning in between them to watch the altar as well.
The four jumped and Riley even let out a squeal. I chuckled as four outraged sets of eyes turned toward me.
I had teleported into the temple in time to catch the players’ last words. They’d apparently expected me to sprout out of the altar and hadn’t noticed when I appeared in the middle of the darkness-shrouded building.
“What in the bloody hell was that?” Misa said.
I laughed. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. You all looked so high-strung.”
“And with a good reason,” Riley said, pulling himself together. “The hate toward monsters and half-breed races like us has risen in the last few days. So we decided to stay here while waiting for you.” He held my gaze. “You wouldn’t have anything to do with those rumors about a monster horde laying waste to the outlying settlements, would you?”
I raised both hands placidly. “Guilty as charged.”
“But what’s the point of doing that? You can’t possibly take on Everance.”
“Don’t be so sure. With the towns and other settlements we control, I now have the building blocks to really develop our forces.”
“Once the word gets out that a traveler is leading the monsters, the hatred for the other players in the city will escalate,” Fox cautioned. “And things haven’t exactly been cordial these past several months.”
I looked around the Dark Temple. It was simpler than what I was used to, but it would do. “I’m sorry if I made life harder for you here. The end result is to better everyone’s lives. For now, I would like to help by showing my gratitude for your assistance.” I took out four leather pouches from my inventory and handed them over. The players peered questioningly at the unremarkable-looking leather items. “Those are spatial satchels,” I explained. “Look inside.”
“Food!” Misa exclaimed, taking out a piece of meat pie and biting into it hungrily.
“Weapons,” Fox grunted in approval, and his eyes lit up as he inspected a throwing dagger. “Magical.”
“Gold!” Riley said happily, pulling out a fistful of gold coins.
“You’ve more than earned it,” I said. “You each get a thousand gold, food, weapons, potions, and some general adventurer’s gear. The satchels won’t last long, but that should do for now.”
“That’s very generous of you, Uncle Oren,” Raystia said.
I waved it off. “Don’t worry about it. The clan has grown a lot since the four of you left. And speaking of the clan …”I approached the altar, accessed the Runecraft Design Mode, and quickly sketched the portal runes on the floor.
As a hub for powerful, teleport-capable, high-level individuals, Everance didn’t have a global teleportation ward around it, though a few key locations, like the palace, were warded. Nothing hindered me from completing the spatial enchantment. Thanks to my new and improved stats, I had no trouble supplying the required mana in one go. The entire process only drained two-thirds of my mana pool.
“Wow.” Riley’s eyes widened as the shimmering portal appeared.
“Go ahead.” I motioned at the magical doorway. “This will take you back to Goblin’s Gorge. You can rest and eat as much as you’d like. I’d say it’s about time for you to be around your own people, wouldn’t you?”
“But what about you?” Raystia asked.
“Don’t worry about me.” I smiled and turned toward the temple’s door. “I have about a day before I have to log out, and I have some things to take care of here before that.”
“You can't go out there,” Misa objected. “The city’s guards will attack a loose goblin on the streets.”
“I’m no ordinary goblin,” I said, letting my smile fall. “Everance is about to find out what it means to mess with a Shadow Lord.”
The players exchanged alarmed looks.
I rubbed my hands together. “Time to get to work.”
***
The large desert clan lay in ruin. Corpses and debris littered the scorching sand, covering hundreds of meters of ground.
At the center of the carnage and destruction sat a titanic creature that remotely resembled a hound. The blistering rays of the sun seemed to glance off his deep black hide, forming a shroud of perpetual darkness around his immense form.
The beast hummed to itself as more darkness oozed out of his body, spreading over the sand like a corrosive puddle. Everywhere it touched, bodies turned to ash, and the sparse desert vegetation became desiccated and void of life.
Nihilator watched with amusement as a sole survivor, a young elven whelp, tried outrunning the growing darkness. The ancient demigod exhaled and shadows exploded from its mouth, clinging to the
elf’s body like ropes. Then the beast inhaled, reeling him in.
The unfortunate man managed one last frightened shriek before disappearing inside the monster’s terrible maw, his soul ripped from his body, doomed to eternal torment.
“Two hundred years old,” Nihilator remarked lazily, smacking his canine lips. “Succulent.”
Then the ancient deity’s body rumbled as he let out a terrible laugh, his voice sending down sand avalanches from distant dunes. “It is good to be free!”
***
“And there you have it, folks,” Hannanel, the VI anchorman, said. “Another great season of SLTV has come to a close as Oren is expected to leave NEO for a few nano-decades.”
“I still think we should have stuck with DTTV,” Gondriel, his co-anchor, grumbled. “You can’t change a brand’s name once it’s got recognition.”
“Are you done complaining?”
“No. I thought this season was remarkably lacking in the balls-jokes department.”
“Ah, well, you can’t fault Vic for that. Oren barely used his golems this season, and with the lack of shining metal balls around, I guess it was hard to deliver.”
“I expected more from The Deliverer ,” Gondreil said dryly.
Hannanel chuckled. “I guess you have a point there. Anyway, I’d say that apart from that, the overall suspense has built up nicely. What will our loveable, crazy meat suit do next? Invade Everance with a handful of elite monsters? Infiltrate it alone to try to kill the city’s lord? Or will he secretly attempt to seduce the lord’s sister, thus sowing discord among the puppets’ nobility, spreading strife and fracturing their society, paving the road for him and his monster army to move in and take over with little resistance?”
“You really put some thought into it, didn’t you?” Gondriel said.
Hannanel chuckled. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for meat-suit soap operas. It’s about time we get a little bit of that sort of entertainment here on SLTV, don’t you think?”
“No.”
“Maybe I should take god form and go down there to nudge him along the right path.”
“Leave the meat suit alone. It’s no fun if we intervene directly in the plot.
“But–”
“If you go down there, brother, I’m coming after you myself to stop you,” Gondriel warned. “Huh, I guess in a way you’d still be getting your fill of soap opera sibling squabbles.”
“I think I’ll pass.”
“Good call.”
“Well, there you have it, brothers, viewers, gods, and aspiring singers!” Hannanel boomed. “Stay tuned for the next season. This show was brought to you by our almighty lord and savior, Shiva. Shiva, maintaining your reality since forever and change. Thank you for tuning in, and remember, that’s the way the meat suit crumbles!”
***
Oren and Lirian’s character sheets at the end of the book:
Title : Shadow Lord
Level : 63
Race : Goblin
Boss Tier : 4
Religion : The Cult of Nihilator
Attributes:
● Physical 5
● Mental 78
● Social 5
Pools & Resistances:
● Hit Points: 2,285
● Mana: 10,573
● Armor: 170
● Mental Resistance: 60%
● Lightning Resistance: 20%
● Magic Resistance: 40%
Skills :
● Lucky Bastard 53 Ⓑ
● Analyze 115
● Tracking 18
● War Party Leader 45 [+5]
● Runecraft 72
● Barter 14 (99% maxed)
● Governor 14 (99% maxed)
Spells :
● Dark Mana 81 Ⓑ
○ Drilling Arrow
○ Mana Shield [+5]
○ Mana Drain
○ Direball
○ Mana Infusion
● Faith 41
○ Heal Followers
○ Shadow Web
○ Shadow Hound
○ Shadow Teleport
○ Dark Protection
● Soul 29
○ Blood Wrath [+5]
○ Touch of Decrepitude
Traits :
● Goblinoid (+1 Physical, -1 Social)
● Quick Learner (+20% XP)
● Boss Boon IV (20 HP & 40 MP per level; Nihilator’s Sanction ; Damage Reflection )
● Noble (Cowering Presence, Boss Aura, Mana Multiplier X4)
● Soul Companion: Vic
● Shadow-Touched
● Mind Over Body (-50% to pain, +50% Mental Resist)
Name: Lirian, Goblin Princess
Level : 40
Attributes : n/a
Skills : n/a
Spells : n/a
Traits :
● Shadow-Touched
● Child of Fate
Gear :
● Ornamental back scabbard
● Kobold fire choker
● Fate Stealer [Greatsword]
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I hope you enjoyed this last installment as Oren’s clan of monsters took an aggressive step forward toward CONQUEST ! A geographic map of NEO is available here on my website .
Thank you for reading book five of Life Reset. If you enjoyed it and would like to see more, please consider leaving a short review . It may sound trivial, but every review helps Amazon direct more readers toward my books.
At the start of 2020, I made the switch to full-time writing. Little did I (or anyone else) know what that year had in store for us. Maintaining my writing routine and raising a family wasn’t easy in the shadow of the Coronavirus, but I’m not about to quit. I’m still committed to writing more books and quicker than before, but to make it – and be able to support my family – I need your help. Just a simple review goes a long way toward supporting me and my work (awarding stars also helps :-))
***
Book #6 release estimation: First quarter of 2021
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Life Reset: Conquest (New Era Online Book 5) Page 40
