Forsaken

by Cebelius

  He had no spices to add, and no idea if what he was eating was poisonous, but decided to rely on his resistances for that. After cooking it thoroughly he found he couldn't complain about the taste. It had a flavor not unlike crab.

  Once he'd satisfied his hunger he set out again, wishing that there were some kind of fast travel mechanism in the game.

  Are there teleport spells in Celestine? he asked as he ambled along, no longer in any particular hurry.

  'Anything is possible, but it is likely your mana is insufficient to cast something that powerful, no matter your affinities or how narrowly you define the spell.'

  That made sense, so he put the thought on the back burner and just kept moving, amusing himself by tracking the movements of the animals that came and went on his mini-map.

  He performed the experiment that he'd thought of earlier, focusing on one of the dots on the mini-map as he said, "Target."

  Giant Centipede

  HP: 4/4

  SP: 8/8

  MP: 0/0

  "Awesome! It works!" he said, fist pumping at the discovery as Hantu's text scrolled by.

  'Magic is as magic does.'

  Given the mana cost, Abram couldn't identify all of the little dots floating in and out of the visible area on his map, but knowing he could if he needed to was a big relief. If he saw something strange, he'd be able to identify it before he faced it and make an informed decision.

  And here I always thought divination was fucking useless in these kinds of adventure games, he mused.

  'This is the first such game you've played that allowed you to spell swap,' Hantu pointed out. 'Were that not possible, would you have 'wasted' slots for these abilities?'

  More along the lines that all the OTHER games I've played weren't so chintzy with situational awareness to begin with, Abram thought sourly.

  'Touché. Now all you need to do is develop spells that will pop golden question marks over quest givers, and lewd little signs over willing women. You'd be set.'

  Abram blinked, then pursed his lips and rolled his head around on his shoulders as he mulled the thought until Hantu added simply, 'Abram. No.'

  He laughed, and let it go.

  He traveled in the same direction for the rest of that 'night,' and again the next, using his drain lightning to kill small creatures whenever he got hungry. He quickly learned that almost everything that lived in this strange underground forest had either thick scales or chitin rather than flesh, and it made sense given the extraordinarily powerful radiation they were regularly exposed to.

  On the third night, he finally reached the wall only an hour into his walk and turned to the right. Within a few miles he came to a place where the trees abruptly petered out as the ground gave way to solid rock and water.

  In front of him was a weird landscape of rock shelves undercut by the gently rolling waters of the underground sea. There was anywhere from a hundred feet of flat space on each shelf to no more than five or six on progressively higher levels, and he realized as he watched the surf that this sea was either subject to enormous turbulence or large enough to have tidal influences. That made him hesitate, because if the body of water in front of him was large enough to have a tide, particularly one sufficient to rise and fall more than a few inches ... it wasn't a lake, or a sea. It was an ocean, or connected to one.

  As he thought about it he realized he was being silly. Seasonal drift in water level would also account for the shelves he was seeing.

  You're over-thinking things, nerd. This is a game. The game designers probably don't even know how big a body of water has to be to HAVE tidal influences. Stop expecting everything to make sense.

  'That last part at least I can agree with,' Hantu chipped in. 'Your idea of what does and does not make sense is still impossibly narrow and presumptive. Besides, your musings assume Celestine has a moon, or if it does that it only has one, or that it/they are approximately the same mass as the one orbiting Earth, or-'

  Yep! Uh huh! I got it! Thanks, asshole.

  'You're welcome. Anytime.'

  With no idea how far he would have to walk, but knowing he still essentially had no choice but to press on, Abram left the cover of the trees and began carefully navigating the rock shelving that girded this underground sea. His agoraphobia had struck him at random during the last few days, and he'd often been forced to pause under the spreading canopy of a tree until it passed. Only the fact that he knew he was underground helped him, along with his increasing confidence that the crystal above him wasn't subject to fracture. He'd yet to see even a tiny piece of it on the ground. Now, though, there were no trees to hide under.

  The lowest stone shelf was submerged but visible, and the one above that was damp, so Abram climbed up to a level that seemed to have been dry for some time and continued to walk. The stone was flat, bare of debris, and more comfortable to walk on than the forest floor he'd left behind which — despite the soft dirt — had impaled him several times with hidden bracken and broken twigs. Without his regeneration the last few days would have been even less pleasant than they were, which was not very. The air here in the relative open space was fresher than it had been in the forest, and there was a mild breeze blowing that he hadn't felt in the trees.

  All in all his mood improved. The view was spectacular in a way, even in black and white. With the water extending past the range of his dark sight to the right, in front of him was an eerie landscape of flat rock shelving that led progressively higher until the shelves faded into a smooth, almost perfectly vertical rock face that Abram knew terminated at the gigantic ceiling of crystal, though at the moment that roof was outside his visual range. The susurrus of the water against the rock was soothing, and the pleasant breeze put him at ease.

  He briefly wondered if he'd be able to find food here, but saw as he moved that there were plenty of objects that still met the weight requirements of his divination hidden in among the rock. Since he wasn't hungry, he avoided them as he moved, not really wanting to find himself unexpectedly embroiled in combat with some weird amphibious predator.

  He'd walked most of the night before he noticed he was being followed, and even then he only really picked up on it because the dots that represented movement were beginning to tighten around him like a noose. Four of the dots were on the shelves behind him, but at least ten more seemed to be drifting along in the water.

  Focusing on one, he targeted it.

  Thrall

  HP: 24/24

  SP: 0/0

  MP: 0/0

  It took him a moment's thought to figure out what it meant when something had no stamina score, and when he got it he felt the blood draining from his face.

  Oh shit.

  He turned, and caught sight of the ones exposed on the shelves behind him immediately.

  They were reptilian, and their bodies seemed made out of triangles. The torsos were point-down triangles of muscle supported by powerful legs, and the heads were point-down triangles that seemed to serve the sole purpose of housing jagged triangular teeth. Their arms were spindly and ended in long, webbed, taloned fingers.

  He couldn't see colors, but the listless sway of the creatures as they walked with slow deliberation confirmed his suspicion that these were some kind of undead.

  He turned and resumed his forward progress, keeping a wary eye on the four on the rock behind him with his mini-map as he searched for a place where he could make a stand.

  Another hour passed, and then another. Abram's stamina was beginning to deplete faster than it was regenerating, and he was forced to slow down a bit. When he did, he made an interesting observation. The zombie fish/reptile things just kept ambling along behind him, moving just quickly enough to stay within sixty feet or so. He suspected that was deliberate. Given almost everything that could see in the dark could only see that far, the fact they were being kept inside that range gave him the impression he was being herded, not chased.

  He stopped, and after a few more stumbling steps
, the zombie thralls stopped as well, confirming his suspicion.

  Turning, he took several steps toward one, but it didn't back up. He considered blasting the thing to see what would happen, but decided not to start something he wasn't sure he could finish.

  Well, Hantu? Abram thought. Any poignant observations?

  To his vague surprise, Hantu actually gave him something useful.

  'It's relevant to note that these are called Thralls because that is what they are called by whoever calls them anything at all.'

  Ah, yeah, so someone or something around here actually OWNS these things.

  'Reasonable conclusion. In other words, if you pick a fight with these, it's a very good bet that fight will escalate rapidly, and you are exposed on a rock shelf with no way to escape when the shit hits the fan.'

  Since the setting here practically SCREAMS 'boss fight,' yeah ... this situation just kind of slid right into the toilet, didn't it?

  'You aren't a chunk anymore, Abram. Try broadening your list of comparisons so that they don't ALL relate to bodily function and food.'

  Excuse me, YOU started it when you threw shit at my fan.

  'But did I really? Are you sure?'

  Asshole.

  'See? I knew you'd get it if you gave it some thought.'

  Abram blinked, then scowled as Hantu's text scrolled by one letter at a time and then blinked pointedly:

  'R, O, F, L.'

  Seriously though. We're in big trouble here, aren't we.

  The text window cleared before Hantu replied.

  'Yes, Abram. I'm afraid we are.'

  With no better ideas, Abram turned away from the thralls and walked on. He no longer had any real hope of getting away, but as he walked he brainstormed with Hantu about spells that might give him a chance of giving whatever was tailing him the slip.

  Unfortunately, there really weren't many options. Invisibility was unlikely to offer a positive result against anything that could make significant use of the water, which was all but inevitable given the setting. Likewise, a transformation into a creature that could swim would only put him more firmly in the power of whatever it was that was herding them along.

  What about something that can fly, or flight itself? Abram thought.

  'Raw magical flight wouldn't get you very far before you ran out of mana, and a transformation into something that can fly wouldn't also bequeath knowledge of how to fly.'

  What about phasing? Can I walk through the rock?

  'The chaos affinity makes that less prohibitive than usual, but without the earth and water affinities you would still very likely run out of mana before getting anywhere useful. Perhaps you might do that as an interesting way to suicide and so spite your pursuer, but let's save that for last, shall we?'

  As he continued to rack his brain, Abram noticed a change in the rock ahead of him. In a jagged line that extended out and into the water, the rocks for about ten feet were upright, as though something had smashed through the shelving and left the remnants poking up. Tilting his head, he noticed that the disturbance ran in a fairly uniform seam all the way up the wall and out of his sight range. Beyond the disturbed shelving the rock gave way to a beach of white sand that ran out a bit further into the water than the slabs of rock on which he currently stood.

  Now what do you make of this? he mentally asked.

  'Your guess would be better than mine. I'm not the one who grew up with wikipedia.'

  I really doubt my random wiki surfing would yield an answer for this, Abram thought sourly. Game developers are notorious for just dropping 'cool shit' in with no rhyme or reason.

  'That being the case, why would it even occur to you to worry about it this time?' Hantu asked, and the question gave Abram pause.

  He realized he'd been treating this place as though it were real. That was why he'd asked the question. A gamer wouldn't have given this change in scenery a second thought. Zones were often completely dissimilar with no logic to the changes.

  Point, set, match, Abram conceded as he began picking his way through the jagged stone. Maybe these Thralls will quit following me at least.

  'Or perhaps the ones that have been following along from the water will finally be able to advance,' Hantu countered.

  I doubt they had actual difficulty in the first place, Abram thought as he crouched and ran his fingers through the sand. He had no idea what color it actually was, but it was uniform and fine. He had never been to a beach, so he had no basis for comparison with one, but the sand felt warm and good under his toes, and it flowed easily through his fingers. If he weren't being tailed by a bunch of undead freaks, he'd be tempted to stop here a while.

  As it was, he kept moving, and was gratified to see that the thralls did stop at the line of jagged stone. He couldn't be sure if that was because there was some sort of trouble here he wasn't seeing, or if perhaps this was where they'd been herding him. He suspected the latter, because undead were not known for being strong on self-preservation. Yet as he got farther out onto the beach, the dots that represented the thralls fell away off his map as he got out of visual range, and he noted that those who'd been following along from the water were also gone.

  In a creepy, faux high-pitched voice, Abram muttered, "They're hEEere."

  As though in answer, his mini-map abruptly went completely white. Abram blinked, staring at the circle of uniform nothing that now sat in the upper right corner of his visual field, and mentally said, Please tell me that's a bug.

  Hantu didn't answer him. It wasn't necessary. The sands all around him were shifting, and Abram mentally selected the 'dot' that was his mini-map and cast.

  "Target!"

  Sube

  HP: ???/???

  SP: ???/???

  MP: ???/???

  So whatever this thing is, it's shielded from divination? Abram asked as he watched the sand all around him begin to swell into distinct shapes with him at their center.

  'No, Abram. It simply has stats so much higher than your own that attempting to calculate them using a comparable metric would be absurd.'

  So ... we're hoping it's friendly.

  'Abram, that is literally our only hope.'

  19

  Across a Ragged Tongue

  Abram turned slowly, watching as the forms in the sand continued to swell and gain definition. They were humanoid in shape, and as the seconds passed became more obviously feminine as well, though there were myriad differences. He recognized a naga, a minotaur, an orc, a goblin, a feminine thrall ... and what looked like an entirely human woman, albeit one done as a sand sculpture.

  Choosing to focus on the human facsimile, Abram said, "I hope you aren't just showing off before you eat me."

  "Eating you would hardly provide me with enough nutrition to be worth the effort."

  The voice was a whisper, though loud enough to easily overcome the sound of the lapping water. The words were airy and light, with no actual voice behind them. As far as he could tell, they came from the sand itself, rather than any particular sculpture. Each was by now fully formed, and they moved with a certain life-like quality, though their expressions remained wooden and flat.

  Abram guessed that the intelligence animating them was so alien that human expressions were beneath or beyond it, depending on one's point of view.

  "So why guide me here?" he asked. "Those thralls are yours."

  It was a guess, but proved a good one as the whisper answered him. "I hunger for your soul, template. Choose from among my forms, or specify one more to your liking. Make a willing offering, and I will grant a boon. Should you choose not to make an offering, you will make a sacrifice."

  Abram nodded, but his curiosity drove him to ask, "Is there a difference, qualitatively, to what you gain from me if it is an offering as opposed to a sacrifice?"

  "Yes."

  Abram nodded again, his mind whirling. That there was a difference was somewhat surprising, and if she hadn't offered him the choice he'd have never even su
spected it could exist. Still, he needed more information.

  "I'll make an offering, but do you mind if I also talk to you for a little?" he asked.

  "I do not mind. Time means nothing to me."

  "Please explain the difference between an offering of soul, and a sacrifice," he said.

  "Flavor," the whisper replied. "Offerings are soft and pleasant. Sacrifices taste of blood and screams. My current preference is for an offering, but it is not always so."

  'Not quite the sort of difference you were no doubt presuming,' Hantu Raya's text floated by, and Abram didn't bother with an answer in words.

  "Choose a form and make your offering, template," the whisper said, and though there was no urgency, nor even any force behind the words, Abram decided not to mess around. In a situation like this there was no telling when Sube's tastes might change.

  Abram's first impulse was to choose the human-looking form, but as he considered it, thought it would be a waste. He had an opportunity here for something a bit different, and as he thought a bit more, an idea for a bit of stress-relief hit him that made him smile.

  "How about a hobgoblin?" he asked.

  The figure he was looking at shifted as he watched. The ears lengthened and drooped, the face grew a bit more brutal. Tusks peeked out from the the lower lip, and the figure gained muscular definition.

  Abram nodded. He loosed his belt and dropped it aside. This was an opportunity to take some of his own back, even if only in his own mind. The hobgoblin facsimile in front of him didn't have the cruel expression he was so accustomed to, but the body was very close to the one he had so many awful memories of. This time, though, he wouldn't be on the bottom.

  He paused as he noticed that while the other female forms were melting back into the sand, the hobgoblin was becoming less granular. Her features were smoothing out, her 'flesh' gaining a pallor that showed up even to his dark sight.