There I go again. You can tell. The longer I live every moment in Dark World, the more all I can do is ramble on and on about details. There are so, so many details, and how can I possibly explain them all?
CHAPTER 14: BATTLE OF ONI
I need, as always, better gear, more stat increases, and some spending money for the battle with Oni. His site is marked on my map in White Elf Territory south of the Mantle of Bliss in a cave in the mountains, of course.
I head out to WET, never having treasure-hunted there, and summon Djinn where no players linger to bug me and my Mystic-ness.
I’m really not a snob about it. To be honest, I don’t know what to say, and that’s because I still feel like I’m reaching around in the pitch dark with the class. I don’t want questions. I have no answers. And I always wear hooded robes to cover my unique Mystic marking on my forehead, even if the stats aren’t as good as a regular robe and some sort of headgear.
Luckily, because I picked clothcraft as a craft, and mages can only wear cloth armor, I’ve been able to make many Mystic-specific pieces of gear from recipes I find, buy, or someone in the guild gives to me. That’s the loot I love. I’m 113.6 in my clothcraft stat now. Yeah, Peter would be so proud, and I can only imagine the conversations we’d have now that I’m into crafting. Hey, it’s fun. And hard. But more fun than hard. I’ve even achieved 52.1 in scroll-making, thanks to Master Gronai’s extra help.
We decided we’d go after Oni in a couple days just after nightfall. I have to powerhouse this preparation, and Djinn loves the challenge. He’s downright chipper, and I realize it’s possible that Djinn doesn’t like fighting too awfully much. He’s more of a talker. Maybe that’s why his moves, his Wishes, are so fun.
What is Djinn, anyway, I often wonder? He seems so real to me. Program? No, I’ve never had an NPC react to me in a way that hasn’t been mapped out by a programmer for a multitude of communications and actions. It’s like Djinn thinks for himself. Ridiculous, I know.
“Djinn,” I say while we’re out where I first defeated Seeker in Elora. In Dark World, this part by the open sea doesn’t have trees yet like in Elora. Just some willows and beautifully flowering brush. “I have a question. I’ve been meaning to ask you, but…”
“But what? And what have you found there in that bush’s roots? And if you’ve been pondering, why haven’t you simply asked yet?” He blinks his suddenly insanely long, dark green eyelashes that disappear after a few flutters. Green sparkles float around his head after.
“Oh,” I say, pulling out a sack from the dirt, found with Djinn’s treasure-seeking help. I open it. “It’s a low-stat knuckle ring for a Maniac.”
“Somebody will buy it, I’m certain. You have to undersell it on the auction house. I know these things. Oh, yes.” He peeks in the dirty sack. “Well, maybe not that pair.”
“I know, right?” I’m nervous about the questions I have for him about Ananta. I have a sense I shouldn’t show eagerness about the great Ananta summon from Elora Online’s opening cutscene, which I have memorized still even though I have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve seen it. Months? Years? No clue. Days blend. Nights merge. Sleep is scattered.
I put the knuckles in one of my bags anyway, just in case I can get them enchanted by Simple and sell them, split the profits with her. She might have spare mats.
How do I bring this up to Djinn? Just say it?
“Why, oh young Master Mystic Sid, do you look so pensive? You usually look perfectly blank.” He leans in close to my face.
“Thanks. You look like a gluttonous king most of the time.”
He smiles proudly. “How do you know I’m not?”
I grin. “I don’t. But if I had a guess…”
“There’s a light in those eyes! But not back to blank face. What is it? You seem to want to ask me something.”
I look way up at him as he fills the air above my head and plays with his green smoke trail with his fat, bejeweled fingers.
“Okay,” I say, and take a deep breath. “It’s about something you said, but I don’t know. I’m hesitant to ask.”
“Why, oh Master?” He pushes bushy eyebrows together.
“It’s when we fought Xiuhcoatl. Before I used the Moldavite Ring and then gave you a 50% stat boost on top of it, and then Mantra.”
He lowers himself to my eye level, bulky, muscular green body flattening out in the air behind him. “Oh. I bet it’s my Ananta comment?”
I try to hide my internal sigh of relief. “Yeah, that.”
“I said I would be almost as powerful as Ananta. Yes, I did, didn’t I?” He stares into my eyes, pupils dilating.
Mine probably are, too. “Yeah, that,” I repeat.
“Well, what do you want to ask, then?” He genuinely looks confused, even scratching his head with a pointer finger.
“Ananta. Do you know anything about him?”
“Oh, I see. You want to replace me with the most destructive power this world knows. That’s fine. I get it. It’s okay.” He turns his back on me and floats up with his arms folded.
“No, no. Not that. I… just… I…”
He spins around and laughs. “Just messing with you, young Master Sid. What Mystic wouldn’t want to claim Ananta?”
I actually blush, not having had a clue he was fucking with me a moment ago.
“Aw, Master, none of that. Seriously.” His voice drops low. “What do you want to know about Ananta?”
“Well, I have Oni next, no clue if there are more… like Keres, for example. I have this feeling, though, that after Oni… I’ll have none left but Ananta. Is there anything you can tell me? About Ananta? About other summons I might have missed? About, well, anything Mystic that I don’t know or haven’t figured out?”
His green smoke swirls into a basket and he sits in it. He pats White Elf Territory’s lush and magical grass. “Sit with me.”
I do.
He puts a hand on my shoulder, looking down deeply into my eyes. I’ve never seen Djinn seem so serious. “I have no idea what you don’t know or haven’t figured out.”
I grin. “Okay, assume the truth. I don’t know a damn thing, and I’m lost in Mystic all the time. My friends are getting seriously hurt more and more each fight. Keres ate Days alive. He… felt that. You know? I’m asking, will Ananta hurt? If so, I don’t want any of them to fight him, just me. Because I’ve seen Ananta in Elora Online’s cutscene every day of my life for seven years, except since I’ve been here. He looks painfully destructive, even by Dark World’s standards.”
Djinn cups his hands in front of him and a glowing purple orb forms in his hands. I peer into it as he speaks quietly. “Ananta used to be a prisoner of the men of the sea. They used him to search for the elixir of life, long life being highly desired. But they mistreated Ananta, and over hundreds of thousands of years of this treatment, Ananta, in a rage, devastated this world as we know it and went rogue.” In the purple orb, I see all this played out, the ships, all different races in Dark World, and some I haven’t seen, beating his blue, nine-headed serpent self, keeping him in enormous chains. He is submissive… but the orb throbs with violent violet hues as Ananta finally takes control of his captors as Djinn tells the story, and the purple orb suddenly burns bright, hot white, red, green, blue, yellow. I can feel the heat brush my cheeks and lips.
“Thus began this age. Mystic Sid, no Mystic has ever been able to find Ananta, much less claim him as a summon.” He frowns.
“What?”
His expression evens out. “I do believe you have a shot, though.”
“Really? Why?”
He tilts his head to the side, fiddling with the green smoke basket he rests in. Stares off to the right in thought, and then says, “Just a feeling.”
I realize something. “You’ve met him.”
Djinn gives me a half-smile, as though he were thinking an ironic thought. “Yes, just after this age began. He came to me, but I wasn’t in the cave you found me in the
n. I was a wanderer, and there were no Mystics. Not anyone, except the small groups who survived underground. He revealed his human face to me, coming straight out of his serpent belly, and he talked. He said he was still hunted, and he couldn’t be imprisoned ever again by his creations. He’d fight it with the last ounce of magic he had.”
“What did you say?” I ask, anticipation making me sweat in the breezy air. His creations?
He shrugs, glances at his hands, then over to my eyes again. “I told him what I’ve told you, that time is all the same to me. He can access that kind of thinking. I told him no matter what he did, he would succumb to imprisonment. I see him there all the time, even before he destroyed the old age. I see him there now; I see him there eternally. At the same time, I see what you call the cutscene of your Elora Online. As does Ananta. However, I cannot see beyond that.”
“Is that normal?”
He shakes his head. “I have never not known all of time and her events. I simply can’t say when things will happen, are happening, or have happened. But you, Mystic Sid, make it easier for me. You talk to me, and I develop time-sense going in a forward motion, you might say, because I have to answer in time’s mysterious flow for us to communicate.”
“You lost me.” I grin.
“You’re always lost.” He pats my shoulder.
I pluck some blades of grass, thinking. “Djinn,” I ask, lowering my voice to match his melancholy tone. “Why did he come to you?”
“We ancient beings of magic are quite familiar with one another. So much time. He came to me because of the way I see no time and only no time. He wanted to know what I saw for him, if he’d ever be free. He is analytical about the realities of many timelines and changing timelines.”
“What did you tell him?”
He sighs and looks up at the sky at the few fluffy, white clouds drifting overhead. “I told him I saw him as a summon, and what a summon would be. I told him I am to be one, too. I told him in different words. I said, ‘We are summons, bound to serve one master, that is what is happening.’ He understood. The time thing must confuse you, and I apologize. It makes perfect sense to me, but I have no other way to explain it that you might understand. I told him we are claimed. We are released.” He stops and looks down at me again. His eyes look lighter green, and curious about me, as though meeting me for the first time.
“Did you… do you see me? As releasing you… you both?”
“I have never, ever seen you until you entered my cave to claim me. I was more than intrigued. I felt time moving in our duel. It is a thing that has never happened, happens, or will happen that I am aware of. Out of sorts for me, as I am all-knowing.” He lets out a soft chuckle.
“Djinn, can you give me any hint as to how to find and confront Ananta without my friends? I can’t let them go through anything like what I’ve seen in the opening cutscene, the burning, the end of the world. What do I do?” I plead with him with my big Nuudle eyes. I know that works on most. When a little Nuudle widens his round, huge eyes, it seems to melt those who like kittens and baby bunnies. Djinn’s the type who likes both. I’ve been practicing in Inn bathroom mirrors, and I’m getting pretty good.
“Aw, now, don’t do that.”
“Djinn…”
“Those eyes! You’ve gotten better. You’re mean.” He sticks his tongue out at me and turns his head away.
“Alright, I’ll stop with the eyes. Worth a shot. But seriously, any information you can give me helps.”
“I don’t know where Ananta is. He’s not here and now, in Dark World, I don’t think, or I would sense him. I do feel he’s with the Nuudles somehow, but not sure. Just from what I see of his surroundings. I cannot tell you if this is a thing that has already happened, or will happen, or is happening. But I do know only a good creation would enchant Ananta to possibly be used as a summon by a Mystic.”
What is a good creation? “How do you know?”
He rolls his eyes. “Rune magic. It’s what you’ve been studying for five hundred years.”
“Five hund—?” I’m lost.
He chuckles. “Remember, I have no sense of time. It all just grooves together. Think about it, young Mystic. Think about those scrolls you labor over understanding and creating. Think about the one that filled Keres’ desire to feed, if only for a moment.”
I do think about that, and how every time I’ve fought mobs since I claimed her, and I’m not even using her, she appears in a shadowy, ghostly black form and devours the bodies of my dead enemies before the animated and gored corpses disappear. It’s creepy, and I haven’t summoned her at all when this happens. It’s like she’s half-in, half-out. I don’t tell my guildies, but sometimes… it’s silly. Sometimes, I just know to feed her, so I’ll kill a few fleshy creatures in fields, forests, deserts, when nobody is around, and watch her shadow figure appear and eat their corpses until they fade, and then she does too. I can tell she’s satisfied. That makes me feel like I’m doing right by her, even if she did eat Days. Days might whack me on the head if he knew I did this out a feeling of obligation to supply battles for her to feed off. But that’s what she asked for.
And I can feel her satisfaction, somehow, in my heart.
“The Nuudle runes are the first form of written communication on the eastern continent. Maybe all of this world. They were designed for the purpose of singing a spell off a scroll to use magic. Words are powerful, especially ancient ones.”
“Why? What does that have to do with… creations?”
He puckers his lips. “They just are, I suppose. Makes sense, right? Otherwise, you and I could not speak to each other. Simple, really.”
I laugh. “Sure. Sure.”
“So, although I’ve demonstrated I’m not as all-knowing as I let you believe, I’m good at figuring. After thousands of years in that cave waiting for Mystics to try to claim me, I did a lot of figuring. I like to think I’m an expert at figuring.”
“What do you figure about Ananta and the runes? Scrolls? What do you mean by creations?”
He leans over his basket and whispers, “I’d guess Ananta is with the Nuudles, and rune magic makes him safe. Ananta knows no language now used, just knows hatred and destruction from his life of captivity, remembering that one period of time he was free. He would turn to the logical and magical communicators, the Nuudles and their runes for protection and peace. Only they have the kind of knowledge and consistency in their personas to satisfy Ananta that he is safe and can do his thing from the sidelines.”
“What things does he do? It sounds more like another prison to me.”
Djinn leans back in the smoke basket. “You have a lot of empathy for your NPC summons, Mystic Sid.”
I look down with a smile. I guess I do. “Thanks. I’ll do some figuring about your figuring, maybe talk to Master Gronai about it. He sometimes knows fine details and sometimes seems a little senile. I’ll catch him on a good day.”
“Wise.”
“Your idea.”
“Not the Master Gronai part.”
“Well, teamwork.”
“Teamwork? I like working in a team. Much better than commands, much better than—” He stops, zooms up into the air above me, smoke basket disintegrating.
“What?” I ask, looking around, then back up at Djinn. He’s gazing east to the glade there, and I stand quickly, turning to face the same direction.
Between two willows with fine pink blossoms stands a breathtakingly beautiful Siren. She has blood-red hair, pale blue skin and bright green eyes. She wears mage gear I haven’t seen, and her black satin cloak is hooded, like my crimson one. Her HP bar is stacked. Man, she’s got stats through the roof.
“Hello?” I say to her. I can’t make out the expression on her face. It’s like there’s nothing there. I get spooked.
“There you are,” says a familiar voice in a sing-song tone. Raspy, thick.
It’s Shell. I’ve never seen her, but I’d know that voice anytime, anywhere.
“Shell?” I say. “Where have you been? Everyone in the guild has been looking for you.”
She takes a couple steps toward us. “I found new friends. Well, one in particular.” She walks even closer, and I see a gleam of the Mystic marking on her forehead. It’s black. I thought only Nuudles got forehead markings, but I guess Mystics of any race do. Her face is firm, eyes steady, and I feel hate oozing from them as she glares at Djinn.
Djinn holds his hands up, palms facing behind him. “Oh, Mystic Shell, don’t take it to heart. I didn’t like that Psychic. I told you he manipulated you. You ignored me.”
“Psychic?” I say, head swinging from Djinn to Shell, and back. “What are you talking about?”
Shell’s eyes finally meet mine. Knives aim at me out of those green depths. “Seeker gave me what the guild gave you. They didn’t do anything for me like they do all the time for you. Fighting those battles.”
“You had no battles to fight,” I say. “And what is this between you and Djinn?”
“Djinn,” she hisses, “left me when I used his Seizure move on an enemy. He never came back, and you claimed him. For some reason, he didn’t stay loyal to me, his master before you, and has picked you.”
Djinn sticks his hands out at her. “That Psychic is the wrong sort, Shell, and I tried to tell you.”
“You, Djinn, have no place telling me anything. You were supposed to be at my command. I trusted you to obey, to be on my side.”
“Psychic?” I butt in again. “Seeker, is that the Psychic you’re talking about? Djinn, is it Seeker? What am I missing?”
Shell walks up to me so fast I have no time to even take a step back. She points a pale blue, webbed finger in my face. “Seeker gave me what Faithgamblers didn’t. He helped me get a new summon. He helped me boost my stats. And you have him all wrong, Sid. He’s an amazing and powerful man. There’s something very special between us, and I have you to thank for pleasing him with a Sunlight Daisy from the Mantra flower shop, although I didn’t get Mantra. I’d already met with Seeker, and I was biased by your false stories of him. But, I came around, and you should, too, if you know what’s good for you.”
Total Immersion: Dark World: A LitRPG Adventure Page 17
