There was a wall of his beloved half-zombies back in the tunnel’s mouth. Dozens of rats and moles stood there, each of them of a half-functional variety. I readied the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] for stabbing in case they came over.
“UUuuuuur,” the face on the wall said. The vibration registered low enough that it hurt my ears.
“Oh, yes, I’m listening. Sorry.” Frankenstein stood a bit straighter.
“Uuuur?”
The face couldn’t be speaking in actual words. If it was, then my [Red Imp] racial would pick it up. No translation box came into being like there had been with the [Lithium] Requiem chanted.
“UUuur,” it said.
“Right. Yes, Lord, I saw your poor eye.” Frankenstein winced and looked sad.
The wall too seemed vaguely upset. It was sluggish. Almost like a stroke victim where part of the face didn’t respond.
“Uuuur.” It groaned a low tone again.
I bit my tongue trying to prevent the back of my jaw from aching.
A moment of weakness
Total health loss: 75%
I tried not to roll my eyes. The little girl Voice in charge of all these messages was citing the reason for all of my problems. It was an endless series of weak moments.
“Fixing it is above and beyond any abilities I have now.” Frankenstein bowed. The coattails made him look similar to a butler bowing before royalty.
“Uuuur Uuurg.” The wall moved a bit again. More dirt fell from above.
I tried to understand exactly what was going on here. Requiem and I had gone a huge distance underground, and somehow there was a… I don’t know, underground giant sitting here?
“Oh. I’m sorry, I haven’t properly introduced you. Lord Gwar, meet…” The Traveler blinked a little. “Well, I don’t actually know his name. I’m sorry, I’ve failed you.”
“Uuuuurrrrr.”
“Spite? That’s a good name, Lord. Your suggestions are perfect as always.” Frankenstein smiled. “Congratulations on your exquisite new name.”
Background Altered:
[Nameless] removed
Spite name added. Unique status confirmed
[Spiteful] characteristic added. Actions which hurt, annoy, or offend someone will increase synchronization
That was weird. Having a name came with an interesting benefit. I tried to figure out which was more valuable, [Greed] or [Spiteful]. Though given the way this situation was going, building my synchronization bar would be worthless. How much longer would I be able to roam free before needing to conclude things with Requiem?
He was probably out there right now trying to bring events to a close, and I was trapped in a stupid green circle. My current desire was to drive the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] through his backside and be done with this.
“Uur. Uuuughhrrrrrr,” the wall said, shaking my self-reflection.
“Thanks. Iguess?”
This was worse than Shazam and Arnold talking. At least their hands wiggling back and forth were clearly words. There was a pattern to them. This wall just said the same noise over and over. From what I could tell, Frankenstein was making up the giant face’s half of the conversation.
“Nnnnnnuuuu.” The wall’s lips slowly turned downward in a pout. “Nnr ruuu.”
“I know. He found the Eye of True Sight,” Frankenstein said. He managed to keep a straight face despite the severity implied.
At least now I had a name for the necklace Requiem had picked up.
“Rrrrrghhh. Uuur.” Dirt rumbled around again.
I wanted to stab the face until it stopped. Wait, that was the [Red Imp] act talking. I wanted to press the fast-forward button on this conversation. The most realistic part of Continue Online had to be the inability to skip other people’s talking.
“Well, Lord, I honestly had not expected Requisite Ass to find someone willing to work with him. I believe he’ll be headed to the castle soon.”
“What areyoutalking about! I wantedtokill him! A lot! With stabbings!” I shouted each stream of words as they occurred to me. Throughout the entire conversation, I managed to stay inside the stupidly annoying terrible green circle.
“Uuuuuur?”
“I know, right? Aren’t you his summon?” Frankenstein spun toward me and did that head-tilting process again.
I wanted to shove a pair of shades on his face. He seemed incomplete.
“Not by choice!” I stomped a foot. It was actually a lie; I was chosen to be Requiem’s familiar, but the Voices had a separate mission for me.
“Uur.” The giant face disapproved with its tone.
“Yes indeed, Lord. I also prefer undead. They’re much more stable.”
Whatever it said must have been an insult toward me. I was only trying to do what my quest said. Requiem’s abusive nature made it easy to want to stab him.
“Uur. Urr,” the wall said.
“Well, I’ll ask him.” Frankenstein turned to me and smiled happily. He crossed one hand over his heart and held the other up, palm outward. “Would you like to help me kill your master? It’ll be fun, I swear.”
“That’s kindofthe pointofmy existence.” I glared at him.
“Really? Will wonders never cease.”
“Uuurrrrrrrr rrr. Uh.”
“Yes, you may rest again, Lord. I’ll talk to him,” Frankenstein said. He bowed to the giant wall again, which made his coattails flip up.
“Hey, uhh, tellhim I’m sorry aboutthe eye!” Now that the floating eyeball with its evil squiggles was vaguely attached to a thinking creature I felt kind of ashamed.
“What?”
“We, I, uhh, kindofdropped part ofa ceiling ontoit and made a splat.” I toed the ground with one of my gross-looking feet.
“Oh, that. Yes, I already knew. I lied earlier. My minions have been reporting back to me everything you and Requisite Ass have done. That’s how I knew it was safe to come down here.” He frowned. “Though I wish I had known sooner.”
“Then whydidn’t you know Ihave been trying to kill him!” I hopped up and down in irritation. It was amazingly fun under normal [Red Imp] circumstances. The game world bolted me with another tingle of pain, which made me scowl.
“Well, you’re very bad at it,” he said.
“Shut up!” My quick response sounded childish. It wasn’t fair. I had been trying to off the abusive player for days and failed.
“No you!”
“Ahhh! Stabbbbings!” I drew back the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] and tried to extend it into the Traveler’s face.
He fizzled out with the strange wiggly darkness. The end result was his face looking confused while I looked stupid.
“That’s an odd weapon.” He tilted his head. The guy was kind of flighty.
“Whatever dieinafire twice.” I flipped him off and felt perfectly happy with myself. A positive marker flickered across my synchronization bar, citing [Spiteful] as the reason.
The wall behind us looked to be completely asleep. This way there would be no more of that mind-numbing groaning.
“Will you help me get rid of that brat so I can finish this quest?” Frankenstein looked childishly hopeful.
Just how much time did he spend working with legal jargon? Did this guy ever get out of his house?
“What’s initfor me?” I took the chance to play up my [Greed] angle for a few more points. It was fun to pretend to be a little jerk.
The man pinched his nose and sighed. “Undead even solve their own needs. Fifty half-rotting rabbits and I don’t have to farm them carrots.”
“That’s special.” I tried to play up the [Nasty] trait while pushing this [Greed] aspect a bit more. Apparently the game approved. I had a long way to go before one hundred percent, and every little bit helped.
“What exactly do you want?” He sighed and shooed off the wall of undead standing in the doorway. They slowly faded with odd hops and clumps of movement.
“I took half a Seer’s Tear from Requisite Ass.” I loved that nickna
me for the younger man. He was such a brat and deserved it. “Can you get me the other half?”
“Uhhh…” Frankenstein fiddled with his coat and shuffled both feet. “I guess. But I should probably get something in return.”
“You suckat dealing,” I said.
“Yeah. I don’t get out much. Just me and the computers.” He sounded ashamed.
Part of me completely understood though. If it wasn’t for the house call nature of my job, we would probably be exactly the same. I wanted to go easy on the poor guy. He was certainly more likable than Requiem, if a bit over the top with his attire.
“Okay. Iknowwhere Requiem is. If you can freeme and getme the other Seer’s Tear, I’ll help you kill him.” I put out my end of the deal.
“Really? Just for…” He clammed up. “Deal struck! You won’t go back on it, right?”
“No! I needhim todie!” I gnashed my teeth. That Traveler’s earlier taunting about how he planned to bleed this place dry pissed me off. It went against everything William Carver believed in. Mistreating the entire world of Continue Online wasn’t allowable.
Not to mention Xin. I had tried not to dwell on her during these last few days. This entire silly situation had started with helping her. I shook my head to get rid of that train of thoughts.
“Okay. Well, you’re compelled to stay there according to my minions. The only way I can free you is an unbinding ceremony.” Frankenstein was already bending over the ground and chalking in something. It looked familiar, very much like the original circle that Requiem had used to summon me.
“Dothatnow.” I tilted my head and watched him make the circle bigger. He was amazingly precise.
“It’s not all kittens and rainbows. I’m a really bad summoner for living beings.” He looked down and frowned. Every few steps he would add a symbol that looked vaguely like [Lithium]. This was my second experience with it.
“Whatever.” I crossed my arms and started tapping one foot. Waltz? Salsa? Part of me wanted to hum, but being zapped repeatedly for days had fixed that habit.
“And if you die, there’s no coming back.” Frankenstein looked at me for a moment.
I shrugged. “Sounds likea winwin. This place is terribleIhateit all.”
“It’s death, little demon, and even I can’t pull you back across the void.” His face scrunched on one side.
“And the tear.” I threw out a hand.
“Okay. Sure. That was the deal. I’ll unbind you, and you tell me where Requiem is so I can send everything to crush him.”
“Willthatwork?”
“I’m out of options.” Frankenstein looked slightly bashful. He turned up to the giant face missing an eyeball and seemed sad. His lip stuck out with a small pout.
“Howabout I tellyou all his moves?”
“I already know about the blazing sword and his aura,” he muttered while turning back to the circle. He seemed to be studying the densely packed symbols for anything that might be missing.
“How abouttheblackhole? Big, mean, sucksin everything. He does a stupid chant to fireit up,” I said while gesturing with my hands. The [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] was planted into the ground.
“No, that’s new. See, this deal is already paying off.” He smiled. Frankenstein seemed like a kid in a candy store when things were going his way. That was less annoying than his whiny attitude when Requiem had chased him off the first time.
“Thereisone more thing.” I picked up my weapon. The [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] got another quick twirl before being stabbed into the ground again. The action kept me busy while waiting for other people to talk.
“Really?” He looked confused for a moment, then nodded.
“Tear first.” I put out a hand. “Tear, I tellyou. You freeme, I tellyou where he is and we kill him.”
“Wait. Let’s do the unbind first. That way we’re staying even. It’s only fair.” Frankenstein went back to his chalk outlining with a lot more haste. He waved a free hand at me. “I’ll scribe out the rest of these runes. You just wait there.”
“Bestdayever.” I glared at the final runes being written on the ground.
He used a different sort of chalk for the bigger shapes. Steam wafted off of the white and pink markings. They were pretty clear with [Dark Vision].
“Here we go.” There was a final spot for his hand. He placed it inside a smaller circle.
Everything tilted sideways and the pain started. It felt familiar. My neck burned as it did every single time I disobeyed Requiem’s orders, but this occurrence went deeper. It felt like the second time I’d tried to end it all. The feeling of digging into my own neck with a screwdriver came to mind.
Now I wasn’t sitting in the circle with Frankenstein; I was reliving the moment of the past. That had been my second moment of weakness where I tried to cash in everything on the hope of an afterlife. Then the alarms in my house flared to life and the machine called an ambulance. The neighborhood had a first response unit that bashed past all my security locks and got me sedated and stabilized. False blood had been pumped into my body, and the next day, I woke up in the hospital.
It was like that moment all over again. Only on the outside, during that moment where consciousness slipped away, it wasn’t the floor of my home. It was this cave with Frankenstein that faded. On the other side was Hermes, looking over a sprawling battlefield. I turned my head for a moment thinking this was a weird version of heaven.
Shazam sat there. She gave me a thumbs-up, and the world spun away again. The pain continued to wrack a course along all my nerves. The idea of pressing the log-out button was too far removed. Then everything snapped and the world rang for a moment. I was back in the cave with two system messages in front of me.
[Unbound] status added!
You are no longer bound to this plane. Any events that reduces your health to zero will cause your summons status to release completely. All orders given prior are now no longer in effect.
Total health loss: 99%
My health reached critical. My vision was blurred and every limb felt leaden. I tried to flutter my wings, but they flopped uselessly.
“Are you okay?” Frankenstein asked.
“Tear. Nowthe tear,” I muttered while trying not to heave. My insides felt as if they were in turmoil. The quick back and forth between characters had been mentally exhausting. It was as if I’d run two miles while being dehydrated.
Frankenstein handed over another small marble object. I ran it through [Identification] and nodded.
“I’ve held up my end,” he said. “So. You should still be able to tell me where he is, Spite?”
Luckily I had a quest marker that told me exactly where Requiem was. That was one of the perks of needing to kill him as a player. “Yes. Icantell. Aboveground now, north, fivemiles maybe.”
Frankenstein became even paler. He started shaking. “My castle.”
“Youhavea castle?” I said, but it was too late. The man had already whooshed away with his red squiggles of darkness.
There I sat with a second [Seer’s Tear] cleverly marked on [Identification] with a two-of-two symbol. Only the first one was somewhere in my belly and had been traveling through for hours.
The Voices above didn’t bless my [Red Imp] self with a player inventory or even pockets. I had no strap to hold it down and clutching it in my hands was useless. I went with swallowing the second [Seer’s Tear] to let it join the other one. A [Greed] and [Self-Serving] pop-up confirmed the action.
Synchronization: 85%
After a moment it occurred to me I should have been in pain, but wasn’t. Then I realized this jewel had been more rounded than the one I claimed from the giant eyeball. Maybe because the wall face had handed it over to me made a difference.
I was stumped on how to get out of here. Requiem and my autopilot had made it through part of the dungeon. The giant face wasn’t about to answer me, judging by its frown. My health was dangerously low for much more of this.
There was
an unlit torch on the wall above me. My wings stuttered and tried to fly. I made it to the torch by pulling myself up with chubby arms and weak flaps. It took me nearly ten minutes to get a spark going from rocks in the cave and using the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] in a sort of file shape. I was lucky this torch was intended to be lit. Game mechanics and practice camping with Shazam on the mountain helped.
The dying torch light triggered my [Flame Regeneration] skills. Warmth washed over me, chasing away the chill of reliving my neck pain. It also woke up the wall with a vague groan. A remaining eye rolled slightly to look at me.
“Really?” I looked at the giant half-a-face wall.
“Unnnh.” It groaned at me.
My undead-mud-wall-to-English skill didn’t help decipher that. The eye shut and what existed as a mouth went slack.
At least now I could fly off this stupid green circle. I jabbed the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] into the ground to try to muss it up. The circle flashed and reconstructed moments after my attempt. The effort gained me a few more percent points on the bar.
I wanted to log out, but my poor little [Red Imp] self would remain lost in the dungeon. There was a quest marker that pointed at Requiem Mass, but it was far away now. My autopilot could probably handle a few of the smaller creatures, but this dungeon must contain at least one more boss monster. Hopefully being on vaguely peaceful terms with Frankenstein would prevent any other boss-level creatures from attacking me.
There was no way I could handle one of those myself. Not with my current body and skills. Even Hermes would be hard-pressed to survive, and he had a lot more [Brawn] and [Endurance] after all those weeks on the mountain training with Shazam.
Then there was this stupid summoned status that refused to shake itself off. I had been given a brief glimpse of Hermes’s side of the world during the unbound spell process. My main body or character seemed to be sitting on the hill over a huge castle. There were at least two armies clashing below. I tried to remember the timing. That must have been the war my niece and that man Arnold had talked about.
So as a result, my goals were clear. Stab Requiem in the back to get this quest completed. Get back to my Hermes body and help out in the war to keep my niece alive. I may be an old man who would only get in her way, but that didn’t mean I would let anything bad happen.
Continue Online The Complete Series Page 73
