Hours after our monkey fighting, Requiem settled down for sleep and left me with an order to gather herbs. For two game hours, I gathered plants from all over the area. There were stacks of badly uprooted plants that were about to be used in another virtual murder attempt.
Now they were being returned, in mass, all at once and over his stupid snoring face. Hopefully, he would breathe them in and choke. I was constantly trying to figure out the fine line on what the system allowed and didn’t.
“Mmfgh!” Requiem sat up spitting out a ton of small leaves. While he sputtered I dropped two more armfuls on his face from above. “What the, what is this?!”
“Herb forpotion things!” I shouted happily. Slowly these skills would pay off. [Identification] let me find a few poisonous plants to insert with my presents. “I gatheredthem, just like youordered!”
He ignored my shouts which meant my latest attempt had failed. The only consolation was that Requiem’s sleep was ruined. He put all the items into player inventory then collapsed with exhaustion. I was unsure why he didn’t log out to sleep like a normal person.
Eight hours of rest in-game was only two hours in the real world. His brain must be half broken to keep up that schedule for long. When I came back with a second mass of plants and threw them at his face the results were predictable. He sputtered and brushed off dirt, leaves, and other goo. Moments later I was ordered to stand in one place all night and not move.
Requiem refused to let my summons release for whatever reason. Still, his actions did me no harm. I logged out and went to sleep. Sticking around only increased my synchronization bar. Three in-game days had ground my bar up to fifty percent. The reward was neat.
[Red Imp]s had proven amusing, except for the whole stumpy legs that were unable to dance. Humming still worked until Requiem ordered a cessation of the noise forever. The young Traveler seemed intent upon micromanaging me into oblivion.
On the plus side, three days of flying around in-game had improved my coordination with these wings. I was fairly confident in being able to avoid most tree trunks. Finer hairpin turns were beyond me, however.
[Blink] was even neater and insanely hard to use. It would teleport me a short distance according to the text. There was no solid trigger at the moment. It wasn’t like I could shout ‘Blink!’ and change locations. The game relied heavily on mental imagery similar to [Morrigu’s Gift]. My few private attempts had awkwardly missed the target.
I refused to practice [Blink] in front of Requiem Mass. That young man was driving me insane with his conniving attitude. The minute I showed any new skill he found a way to abuse it. [Fire Immunity] resulted in holding rotting monkeys with rectal problems while trying not to retch.
After a good rest, I loaded up my remote ARC display to see what was going on. Requiem was busy forcing my [Red Imp] avatar to lure in more undead monkeys. I found myself laughing around breakfast as the [Red Imp] stabbed monkeys out of decrepit trees right over Requiem’s head. One, two, and finally twelve rotting monsters were brought down. The autopilot went quickly and tried to aggro the entire region.
Requiem just took it. I snickered to myself, finished the remaining food, and logged into my ARC. Something had shown on the side of my Continue Online remote display that required a personal touch. Maybe attempt thirty-eight at digital elimination would be effective.
Once inside I paused and spun around. Getting my bearings always took a moment. There was a specific area that had caught my attention.
“Imp!” Requiem was shouting at me while monkeys gibbered.
The realism in this game had taken weeks to get over. Even now they kept throwing new gross objects at me. These simians’ mouths were falling apart. Some had broken jaws. Others had mold-ridden tails and most had no control over their sphincters.
“What?” I shouted. Requiem Mass was to the left. Monsters were all around us. That meant my target was forward and right.
“Fight these monsters!” Requiem yelled.
“Yes, Requisite Ass! Right away!” I shouted while flying at high speed. I had no clue what the Traveler had ordered me to do.
There, just past a motley series of trees was my goal. A monstrous rotten ape that was hidden away. My unique remote view of the [Red Imp] had happened upon the boss level creature. The autopilot would never have noticed it.
“No! Fight these ones over here!” Requiem ordered me. He was busy shouting over the crazy monkeys’ garbled chattering.
“When?” I shouted back with my high pitched imp body. It bought a few more seconds for this reckless idea. The boss giant ape thing was just through the wall of withered bushes. I lined up my pitchfork weapon.
“What is wrong with you?!” Requiem demanded. The answer was clear, a lot of things were wrong with me. “Now, of course! Now!”
I braced myself against the impending damage for insubordination. Now was far too absolute a word. The [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] elongated quickly and jabbed towards its target.
Pain tore at my neck. The monster I had poked also let loose its gurgled roar. A [Dazed] message appeared complete with an associated symbol. Next to that was a countdown. My tiny [Red Imp] mouth spewed forth a long line of words that had to be curses in demonic. I tried to flutter the tiny wings on my back and return to Requiem Mass.
The monster burst through the bushes behind me as I regained enough control to lift off. A small box appeared telling me exactly what I had stabbed.
“Ifound one!” I shouted while fluttering madly.
“No, you worthless idiot!” Requiem was waving his hands and a message popped up on my screen. I had managed to right my flying enough to speed at the Traveler. Behind me, branches cracked under the pressure of a thundering beast.
What was he doing? Things were going to be neat in just a moment! The Biggest Butthole was like two rotting [Snowmen] shoved together. Even I could handle that. Give or take whatever super powers a unique creature had.
“Nowait, thisone needs stabbings!” That wasn’t what I wanted at all! He was too far away. “Allthe stabbings!” The Biggest Butthole versus Requisite Ass would be a glorious fight to instigate. Who would win? Would Requiem be chewed up and spit out? These questions demanded answers.
“Nooo!” The scene in front of me swirled away in a wash of colors. Fine. I couldn’t win them all.
When everything synced up with the Hermes character I was in a town. I grumbled for a good ten minutes before sighing and letting the disappointment fade away. Now was the time to be positive. That latest attempt had been a good one. Plus the autopilot for Hermes had finally made it to a decently sized town!
This place was nothing like [Haven Valley]. My starter town from the Age of Carver had been scenic and peaceful. Here the buildings were far more militaristic in design. [Haven Valley] had small guard posts. This place had huge walls separating portions of the city. People in armor patrolled the tops of walls and were clearly equipped with swords and horns.
Shazam passed a hand in front of my face. I turned to look at her. Her arms waved around and she pointed to a few of the buildings nearby. I followed her gaze to a series of shops. Oh. She must be asking if I wanted to get anything.
“I need to visit a Porter!” I shouted. Working with Requiem had warped my speech habits a little. Passersby looked at me oddly. Shazam nodded and our two [Caliburrr]s changed direction.
There were a lot of Travelers like myself running around. They all wore different items and pieces of equipment. There were a few that clearly followed warrior paths. I could make out some in decorative clothing that likely had no combat value. One lady was escorting a giant creature that looked like a wingless dragon. Its eyes had no focus.
I took it all in happily. Being in a city was so much better than the dead scenery of Requiem’s location. Everything there was either rotting or decrepit. His mind had to be warped to stand being there for months in-game.
Oh! There was one issue far more important to me than Requiem’s silly probl
ems. By now I should have a response from Xin. Hopefully. I scrambled to find the messenger’s tube. My channel to the Voices above was inside my leather chest piece. As I twisted off the top and peeked inside a system message popped into view.
“Seriously? I hate you so much!” I shook my free fist at the system box. It did no good. “I don’t want to!”
People looked at me weird. I looked at my pop-up messages with confusion. The [Caliburr]s were probably winking at each other. Shazam didn’t bat an eyelash. Then pain rippled through me.
“What the?” My neck burned. I was in the Hermes character and pain was trying to send me to the ground. This character was not the [Red Imp]! The bar for my health dropped ten percent.
Shazam raised an eyebrow and pointed. I groaned as another wave of agony passed along with a summons resisted message. My fingers tried to pull out the parchment barely visible inside the messenger’s tube. Another bout of agony nearly knocked me out of the straps holding me on the [Caliburr]. Each wave was doing more damage. I shook and ground my teeth together while trying to read a few lines.
My eyes clenched tightly and I tried not to lose it. Gee. That was her name for me. It was Xin, it had to be her somehow. There was an insane wall of text to go through, but I held off on reading it as emotions racked through me.
I didn’t feel actual pain anymore. It was like those few lines had washed all the worry away and left behind euphoria. My eyes opened to read the remaining text. Only now there was no parchment, no messenger’s tube, no [Caliburr].
Chubby reddened hands held a tight grip upon the blackened pitchfork. Requiem was snarling nearby. I started shaking and huffing. Never had I been more upset at another human being. There was so much more in that letter and it wasn’t in my chubby little hands!
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Requiem said. There were deader monkeys all around him. He was busy picking through bodies and tearing off pieces.
“Whatswrong with me? Me!” I broke and tried to stab him repeatedly with the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift]. “I’ll kill you! I’ll killyou, youstupid self-centered little brat!”
“Little? That rich, coming from an imp.” He shook his head and stood there. “You can’t hurt me.” Each attempt at stabbings failed. My health kept falling. The pain was nothing against my sheer anger. “Stop that,” Requiem ordered.
I paused briefly to obey then drove the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] at his face. It fell short by almost half a foot, but Requiem still flinched.
“How are you doing that?” He managed to regain control of his broken voice.
“Ido exactly asyou ordered.” Shouting it out loud sent a moment of clarity through me. I was only playing around with words and not truly using them to their fullest effect.
“For like, two seconds.” He stooped back down to work on gathering more loot items. I jammed the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] at one of the deceased monkeys and tried my darnedest to ruin the items.
“Stop attacking and go stand over there until I tell you to stop,” Requiem said while pointing a finger off to one side.
“It’s notmyfault you’re stupid,” I said. Jabbing him was clearly impossible. There was something to his question, though. Timeout was a good place to think. My mind ran through the rules again.
Rule one. I must do exactly as Requiem ordered. This one I had spent the better part of two real days playing around with. It was easy enough to bend this portion all up one side and down the other. If he didn’t add a duration to his order I could obey it for seconds or forever.
Rule two, I couldn’t lie to him. Most of the methods around this had involved clever wordplay with my answers. It was very hard to actually lie because Continue Online was making my [Red Imp] body say things too quickly.
Rule three was the problem. My issue was that I had been looking at it all wrong. His order had been to not directly harm him or conspire. I logged out of Continue briefly and left the [Red Imp]’s autopilot running. In my Atrium, I shouted a command line.
“ARC, define conspire,” I told the machine.
“Conspire, make secret plans jointly to commit an unlawful or harmful act.” The machine answered.
I smiled. That was the answer. Requiem had prevented doing things in secret and directly harming him. If I worked with monster NPCs then that was conspiring. If I openly arranged accidents then it wasn’t a conspiracy. That’s why throwing a pile of leaves in his mouth worked but luring mobs to him caused pain.
Once back into Continue Online, I turned around and stared at Requiem. He was trying to loot another monster. I whipped out the [Echo of Morrigu’s Gift] at the bodies he was trying to skin. My suddenly extended pitchfork skewed one of the creature’s eyes.
“Why do you insist on bending the rules? Do I not feed you enough cupcakes or something?” Requiem rolled his eyes at my latest attempt to interfere.
“It’s notmyfault you’re stupid,” I said to him again. “Toostupid. I’m going, to get you, killed.”
That made Requiem stare at me. My wide grin all full of teeth must have disturbed him. He actually blanched. A moment later and the expression was gone as the Traveler studied me.
“How? You were ordered not to harm me.” Requiem sounded exactly like a spoiled teenage brat melting down.
“Hah!” I outright laughed and tried to give it my best imp tone. “Slow dumbbrain.” The synchronization bar constantly flipped up and down depending on how fast or slow I talked.
“I order you to tell me exactly how you plan to get me killed.” Requiem’s hand sat on one of his two swords. His other arm was inside a pocket grabbing at something.
“Say the rules forme, onemore time.” I chattered happily. Requiem went through the first two. My grin was even wider than normal when mocking the other Traveler. I took delight in seeing Requiem’s eyes widen as we both recited the last rule.
“You cannot harm me directly or conspire to harm me,” He said.
“Dingding ding!” I spun the pitchfork and planted it into the ground triumphantly. “Conspire is defined as secret plans jointly. Not asecret anymore! I want youtodie!”
“What?” He asked.
“I, want, you, to, die.” I could understand why [Red Imp]s disliked slow people. Just this conversation was irritating me.
“You still can’t harm me directly.” Requiem curled his lips and lost color. I started laughing. This was a clear way to get to Requiem. “Why must you continue to argue with me, why can’t you do what I want?”
“There’s more tolife than the self-centered demands ofaboy such as yourself.” I bit each word out. This whole situation had pissed me off.
“You know nothing of what I’ve been through.” He said.
“You giveme no timetomy self.” I looked at him. Maybe Requiem would get so pissed that my summons would be released and this game would return to the Hermes program. Reading the remaining letter was important. Seeing a [Porter] would help me get a glitch reward and contact Beth in-game.
Requiem nodded slowly as his lips curled downward. The nodding quickly accelerated and he looked off to where The Biggest Butthole had been. “Fine. Let’s try something different.”
Both eyes rolled so hard I almost passed out. The ground around me was completely gross and my legs were half sunk into it. This was the type of disgusting environment that Requiem had stuck me with for days.
“Stand here. Don’t move. At all. Do that and I’ll let you have a day off afterward. You spend it in the hell hole you came from.” Requiem tilted his head and stared at me. “Deal?”
I smiled. This was a win-win for me. “Whynot? Sure.”
Requiem turned away. He clearly intended to put my [Red Imp] self in its place. I watched his actions happily. Whatever he planned would probably be neat. It would also show me how far he could go.
Where was he walking? That direction is where the unique mob The Biggest Butthole was. Did he intend to fight the creature? Oh neat, Requiem totally did.
He pull
ed one of his seemingly endless supply of throwing knives and tossed it straight into the dead bushes towards The Biggest Butthole. Air vibrated as the creature let out a roar. I was far enough away that no daze notification popped up. Requiem didn’t seem to be affected as he pulled back a bit.
Then things got really crazy. Normally only the blades in his hands had any sort of special effects. Requiem often used fire and the trail of ash that followed his right blade while fighting. Now there was a new effect, Requiem’s skin started to glow with a deep blue light.
The ability making him light up also increased Requiem’s speed. He lifted the blade and parried one of The Biggest Butthole’s giant rotten fists. Small bits of skin flaked off into the mire around us. That wasn’t enough to stop the unique boss monster, though. Another series of attacks were exchanged. With each swing of the giant creature’s fists, Requiem would back up and parry away the blow.
It was working. I could see the health bar of the large creature dropping steadily. It was at ninety percent now and Requiem hadn’t even busted out any of his combat spells. The young man may be an abusive ass with the relationship skills of a bratty five-year-old, but he was damned good at the game.
I took notes and wondered if there was something to this two weapon fighting style. The Biggest Butthole lifted a fist and pounded down on the ground. Requiem leapt into the air as landscape rippled. He had an absurd four seconds of hang time which he spent charging up a chantless wave of flame.
His spells seemed to be less effective than TinkerHell’s frost abilities. Maybe Requiem had a lower caster Rank or less skill. He was also generating the spells without using a circle or etched out [Lithium] runes. One day I would figure out this game’s magic system.
Requiem had ordered me to stay in place. There were at least three chances to place objects for maximum slippage or accidental impalings. Not that any of my prior attempts had been successful.
The Biggest Butthole shouted and his arm bulged. It grossly bulked to at least fifty percent larger than normal. His fist swung quickly and caught Requiem Mass in his midsection and carried him around. They spun in a circle and I cackled happily seeing Requiem’s face turn green.
Continue Online (Part 2, Made) Page 28
