“High risk. Could end up in Labyrinth. It has a stone too. Will be unpleasant.”
“I agree, it’s risky,” I couldn’t deny the necromancer was pragmatic. “But I don’t see another way to return. I wouldn’t want to jump into the abyss. What if that kind of death was final? Besides, if we were to come back within the Labyrinth, no one can prevent us from coming back into the forest. What if we had forgotten to do something there?”
“I agree with the last argument,” Zangar surrendered. “It’s possible to return. It’s not forbidden. Let’s find trap. We’ll respawn.”
“Why go anywhere?” I grinned. “There’s a trap right next to us! We wouldn’t want to leave such a rarity behind, right?”
With those words I lifted the book from the pedestal and placed it in my inventory. Zangar just grinned, and then a powerful jet of fire burnt first him and then myself to ashes. Painful, but that’s the deal. I needed to verify my guess.
“We were lucky,” Zangar said as soon as the system stated that I had only 8 levels available now. We returned to one of the respawn points near the forest, as if the Game did not count us among those who had entered the Labyrinth. “Whom shall we take as new partner?”
“There’s not much point in looking on purpose, we can take anyone. Let’s take him! I pointed at a player crouching in the shadows, cast a more thorough look at him and added, barely able to contain my surprise: “Mage, do you want to stay alive?”
I was nailed by the scared and haunted stare of the desperate player. The very same kid who had pleaded that I not kill him was sitting under the respawn stone, fearing even to breathe.
“He’s weak and helpless. Bad partner,” Zangar assessed the mage who’d curled up in a fetal position.
“I am afraid we are unlikely to find anyone else right now.” The respawn clearing was unusually empty. While before there were always players here, now just the three of us decorated the landscape with our presence. I drew in some air, remembering my army past, and shouted practically into the mage’s ear, making him jump: “Boot camp! Wake up! Ready! Front!! Recruit: name?!”
“…,” the mage, cross-eyed, tried to mumble something, but I was beyond stopping at that point.
“Check mumbling! Answer clearly, concisely, no stuttering! Name!”
“M-marinar,” the kid jumped to his feet and even stood at attention, as if he was actually familiar with the army way of talking.
“Marinar. Level!?”
“First!”
“Your world!?”
“Varnax!”
“Chosen development!?”
“Production and creation!”
“Specialty!?”
“Alchemist!”
“Artifact!?”
“Pulverizer!”
“Why did they leave you here!?”
“Weak and helpless were left behind to die!”
“How much Energy you have left!?”
“Ten units!”
“Do you want to live!?”
“Yes!”
“I can’t hear you!”
“YES!!!”
“Are you ready to follow all my orders, instructions and commands in order to finish the Academy and come out of here alive!?”
“YES!!!”
“Game! My request is to create an agreement with player Marinar. We’ll be partners until completion of the Academy. We’ll get him out of here alive.”
Request is accepted, the agreement is prepared
“Sign it,” I said calmly now, as soon as the kid’s eyes glazed. He was reviewing the text.
“Alchemist is valuable in Game,” Zangar piped up. “In wastelands we teach him. The profession teacher is there. Ingredients are there. No recipes. In Academy Alchemist is useless.”
“We’ll see,” I said with meaning, re-evaluating Marinar. Among the recipes I’d found, two had to do with alchemy. Minor potions for agility and, most importantly, Energy replenishment. If we drag the mage to a professions teacher and provide him with the ingredients, he’d be a very useful team member.
“Here’s group invite,” Zangar said, adding the mage. “New partner needs food. I have little. Not enough to share.
“No problem, I have some,” I offered Marinar the pasty I had received oh so long ago from Dolgunata. At the trader’s I had to stick the pasty under my breastplate to clear space in the inventory. However, the mage didn’t need to know the full path this piece of bread had travelled. It was enough that it could replenish his Energy.
“So, now that we have 12 hours of life now, let’s set out,” I concluded as soon as Marinar greedily ate the pasty. First, we need to go visit all the teachers. Tell us, pretty boy, where did you go and what did you see?”
“Why you say ‘pretty boy’?” Zangar inserted in surprise before the mage could as much as open his mouth. “Can’t you see? It’s woman”!
Chapter Eight. Caves of Tests
“WHAT?!” I exclaimed in surprise, staring at the mage. “You’re a woman?! Why didn’t you tell us at once?”
“I’m a girl,” the new partner babbled. “I thought you knew. I thought that was why you didn’t kill me…”
The mage’s loose robe concealed not only the flaws but also the fine points of her figure; combined with the mage’s slenderness it confused me. As a result I had supposed that the mage was male. I actually went back and reviewed the scene of our first encounter, but even there I found nothing that provided a clue to indicate that Marinar was a girl. Even her voice as she was pleading to let her live was so full of fear and hysterics that only an extremely horny guy would have noticed the notes of a female voice in it.
But now, having finally looked at my new partner thoroughly, I could clearly see that she was a girl. Fine-featured face with aquamarine eyes, short hair that was snowy white, as if over-treated with peroxide, somewhat full lips, delicate hands with long fingers visible from the robe sleeves… There could be no mistake: indeed, it was a girl before us; but why hadn’t I noticed that before?
I reviewed the video of my first meeting with Marinar once again. Indeed, all those telltale features were there. However, even Monstrichello was kicking Marinar with his boots as if he had no idea she was a girl. But why? Hadn’t he noticed anything either? But he was from Earth. It’s not really customary to kick and beat women‒ it’s actually frowned upon‒ and Monstrichello is not the type to change his ways quickly. As if some mindwarp came over him, myself, the other Paladins who were calmly watching while we…
Mindwarp! Stop!
The scene of the first encounter with Marinar was shown to me for the third time. Dolgunata wasn’t with us any more – we had managed to kill her by then, banishing her influence from our minds. But had we fully overcome the druid’s influence? What if that bitch had forced me to consider that she was the cat’s meow? It’s not as though I hadn’t seen beautiful women before… Why had it suddenly seemed to me that Dolgunata and the goddess of beauty were related? I opened the Book of Knowledge and entered “female players” in the search field. Then I stared at a very long list in astonishment... It turned out that I had previously encountered women within the Academy; moreover, I killed a few dozen during the brawl at the respawn stone. However, not once had it occurred to me even remotely that there was a woman in front of me. No‒ just another player, nothing else! Blasted druid! May she rot in hell rather than get granises for the Paladins! I’ll come meet the group. Take them under my hand and send her to have some rest! Enough is enough!
Case initiated: “Evil Incarnate” (Slots available for: 9 more cases)
Description: You consider that the druid Dolgunata tramples the Game and/or social rules by actively suppressing players’ wills and forcing them to perform actions useful to her.
Task: Investigate this case and deliver a verdict
Case investigation: Not applicable; the case was initiated by the Judge himself
Period of limitation of action: None
“Guilty!”
The verdict practically jumped off the tip of my tongue, but I bit it just in time. Not now! First of all, I needed to find the Paladins, free their minds from the druid’s influence, ensure their support, and only then go around delivering verdicts. I had no doubt: If I were to make my decision here and now, the Emperor would not approve it. I needed to approach this self-initiated case carefully and thoroughly. Trying to resolve it in a swoop, as I had with Nartalim, wouldn’t work.
“Tell me about yourself,” I asked the mage, snapping back to the moment. Enough bothering about the druid‒ let her have fun with the Paladins for now. Marinar blushed, lowered her eyes and then started her story, stumbling on just about every word.
Our new partner hadn’t chosen a class for herself. Quite the opposite: she was that hapless kid chosen by the Game itself. She came from an agnostic highly developed technogenic world totally devoid of magic, and was used to even, friendly relations with people. Marinar couldn’t even imagine that somewhere not only could a different world exist but other races as well, different from people both physically and emotionally.
It was completely unthinkable for her to realize that people were not only not friends, but rather enemies to each other by default. Marinar was confused and susceptible to the influence of those around her who were more experienced; they decided everything for her, chasing some short-term advantage for themselves and their class. She didn’t know what mages were, and definitely had no idea what they could do nor of what they were capable. In her world she had been a quiet but promising biologist; despite her youth, she was very knowledgeable about physical and chemical processes occurring in living tissues and methods of manipulating them; for that reason she decided to become an alchemist. Marinar decided that the knowledge from her previous life would be a good aid in attaining mastery of alchemy and magic. That was why Marinar accepted her class with stoic fatalism: I didn’t want this, I didn’t expect this, I didn’t train for this; but now that it has happened I’ll work out how to figure it out. Once the genocide started Marinar refused to participate, so the mages wrote her off as useless. They wouldn’t even allow her to go through training. But they wouldn’t kill her either, having decided that death from Energy depletion was more painful than from the hand of another player. Then she met us, was scared, pleaded with me not to kill her, and, finally went through with her first training session. The players gradually left the forest; that made it possible for Marinar to train with one more teacher and practically reach level 3. But then she encountered a player mad at the whole wide world. He killed Marinar in passing, as if slapping a pesky insect. In response to my question who it was the girl simply shrugged: someone in dark steel armor. Not like mine. She didn’t recall either name or class.
Unfortunately, Marinar hadn’t activated video recording, so we were unable to see the player so mistreated by life. After yet another assurance that from now on the girl would follow all the instructions issued by Zangar or myself, we took her to all the teachers in order to complete her training. Amazing, but by now there was no one else in the forest besides ourselves: everyone had left for the Labyrinth. Had it not been for Marinar, who had sat for ten hours under the respawn stone bemoaning her deplorable fate, we might have not have met anyone! Next time we should plan more thoroughly. Too much had hinged on “maybe” and “off chance”. There should be no place in the Game for these words altogether!
“Welcome, recruit!” We approached the attack abilities teacher and, before sending Marinar to him, I decided to complete my own training. “Have you decided to train some more?”
“Among other things,” I said knowingly. “Among other things…”
Meeting Marinar showed the weak spots in my current development. Maybe it was hard to kill me now, but I was still a weakling against professional head hunters. Dolgunata could easily get into my mind and force me to either deactivate my protection or stop paying attention to other girls. It’s possible that she could do something else of which I was not even aware at the moment; it was time to put a stop to that. That could be done only by one method: locate an artifact property blocking mental attacks. But in order to do that I needed to receive another level for the Book of Knowledge. Which was what I planned to do now.
As practice had shown, the artifact developed not only by receiving new knowledge, but also through processing information that had been received earlier and making correct conclusions on that basis. The main thing was, the Book was supposed to generate a record that hadn’t been there earlier. That’s what would augment the experience. Over the recent past so many unusual things had happened to me that it would really be a crime not to stop and review the video records. What if I missed something important? For example, would I not be interested in the percentage ratio of males and females in our sector of the Academy? What races do players belong to? What are their distinctions? How many players were there when I first spawned here and how many of them have I never seen again? How productive was the genocide of the mages? The more information I could process, the more experience the Book of Knowledge would receive. If time is not an issue at the training range, why not use just one elixir for the sake of additional protection?
Actually, it took more elixirs; now I had only 32 left. However, the result was worth it: I discovered one more “advanced” player. The panther that had killed two rogues was not Dolgunata. That cat was more powerful, more massive and on its right front paw there was some symbol that Nata didn’t have. Undoubtedly, it was a druid, but it definitely was not Dolgunata. That immediately brought up questions to which the Book could not provide answers: did that druid and Dolgunata know each other? Could it be that that player, who traveled in the same manner as I, strictly along the guiding lines, had found the dorn? Why didn’t I see that panther – or any other druid at all, for that matter – in any other video frames? In fact, there were only two druids in the entire sector: Dolgunata and the stranger. There were twelve different classes in our sector and only druids were so few. An accident? Possibly, but from now on I was really wary of them.
It took me a lot of time and effort to raise the level of the Book by one, but I did manage to do it. I ended up looking at the statistics of the players with long, medium and short noses, just to force the Book to generate another record. When, finally, the Game showed mercy to me and allowed the Book to jump one level up, I cried out to the skies:
“I need information on an artifact property that enables a player to block mental influence! A Judge should make decisions independently, not under the influence of other players!”
Request is granted. Access to Temple of Knowledge is provided.
“I see change in you,” Zangar concluded as soon as I returned to the Academy. “You seem older. How many years trained?”
“Many, partner, many,” I responded, looking at the world with different eyes. The artifact property “Spiritual integrity” at level 1 provided just +1 to the “Mental protection”, but even that pittance was enough to throw Dolgunata out of my head. Amazing, but only after visiting the Temple of Knowledge was I able to break off the druid’s mental control — for all that time she’d been “leading” me, controlling my every move. Moreover, I was the one who had granted her that right myself!
A new review of the video set things in their proper places: Dolgunata and the stranger (at that point it became clear that it was a male druid) helped me leave the clearing by killing the mages who rushed after me. After that the man started working on defense while Dolgunata started working me over! She appeared to me in her human form, made me lose my head and give her a link to my map; that automatically showed her my location within the Academy. Then, using the induced infatuation and secret desire of sex, she altered my consciousness: she made me forget our first encounter! In order to receive a fat reward from Archibald! Besides, she did it so well that even though I viewed the video multiple times to level up my Book of Knowledge, I had omitted that point as insignificant! I had seen it, I just never paid a
ttention!
Now that was really scary. One unit of “Mental protection” counteracted “Suppression”, but only within the Academy. I was certain that in the wide blue yonder out in the Game there were puppeteers who would be able to simply eat the druid for breakfast. To realize that right after you return you’d be always doing not what you wanted but whatever you were ordered to do… the Game stopped being all fun and games.
“Marinar, come here.” I called the girl, who was still shaking with fear, and gave her an elixir. “So, here’s a vial for you. You shall drink it only once you are down to 2 units of Energy. Here’s what you need to do: go to the teacher and train to attack. For as long as possible. Any questions? No? Excellent! Go for it!”
“You definitely changed,” Zangar said again, following Marinar with his eyes.
“Yes, sure I did. Tell me, my mysterious partner,” I turned towards the necromancer, “is it not time to share some information? I still can’t figure out the puzzle in my mind: there are four sectors in the Academy; yet you arrived precisely in the same one where your teacher trained. Simple luck or was there something more to it? We’ll have to go together through the Labyrinth and the wastelands in order to get to the Chancellor, but the more I think about our partnership the more I see that it’s not an equal one. You are using me, necromancer! In the very direct sense of the word! The Way, the traps… I am certain there’s more! Maybe it’s enough of one-sided play? How will we go through the wastelands if you are Light and I am Dark?”
“You are right, partner,” Zangar nodded.”Our partnership is unequal. You do a lot. I don’t give information. I warned in advance. Not allowed to say, teacher forbade. His word is law. Either trust or we part. If we part, no reward. The Chancellor won’t give it. Decide what’s more important. Reward or injured pride. I choose reward.”
The Beginning (Dark Paladin Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 28
