Shivering, I conducted a quick survey around the empty ash-filled world to ensure my safety and then leaned against the wall to check the current status of my notifications and character sheet.
You have gained 1 level in the Assassin Role.
Choose one existing ability associated with the Assassin Role to upgrade!
You have gained 3 levels in the Barter skill.
You are now Trained in the Barter skill.
You are now inherently aware of an item’s regional worth.
Congratulations you are level 38.
Congratulations you are level 39.
You gain 540 hit points
Selecting the Assassin Role upgrade, a series of skill abilities were highlighted. Evade, Weaving, Backstab, Slice, Exclamation, and Guillotine Blade were my options. While the increased bonuses to each were tempting I got the sense that Slice was the backbone of my damage potential. Since it seemed like a super early ability I chose to upgrade it, receiving the following upgrade:
Upgrade: Cross Contamination. Activate Slice on a target. If you strike another target with Slice within ten seconds that target suffers a pain debuff that decreases their ability to strike and cause damage.
Locking in that upgrade I closed my menus with a casual wave of my hand. I glanced back out at the expanse of ash under the night sky and wondered what could have destroyed an entire world like this. Initially, I started down the stairs toward the looming portal but two steps down I paused and looked back at the destroyed world swirling with ash and muttered, “Developer wants you to right, go left first.”
Scaling the stairwell I paused to take in a corpse tangled amidst the ruined walls of the structure surrounding the stairs. The skeletal corpse must have been between ten to twelve meters tall. Massive corroded metal points extended from the hollows that were its eyes. From the description of my necklace, I assumed that this was a Priest of Pain.
Searching the body quickly, I noted no treasure to be found. The expanse of half ruined walls and towers beyond the entryway stretched out in every direction. Perhaps a kilometer away a much larger wall, mostly intact, seemed to surround the district I found myself in.
The structures were steeped in so much ash that I imagined a winter snowscape at night. That would have been almost believable if not for the oppressive heat. Tugging my blood cloak up around my face to keep the ash from my mouth and nose out of reflex I left the building behind and made my way into the ruins. Over the course of an hour it became clear that little to nothing had survived the disaster that struck this place.
There were creatures here but… they provided little clues about the nature of the apocalypse that consumed the city.
Ash Remnant Level 30
HP: 4210/4210
MP: Unknown
Weakness: Water
Resistance: Unknown
Regeneration: Ash Remnants regenerate and reform as long as they are in contact with a source of ash to rebuild themselves.
They seemed to be a kind of mindless undead. They were formed from the skeletons of humanoids but the bones were packed tight with ash that was struck through with veins of bright fiery light. Their eyes were pits of black coal and they constantly moaned. The sound harmonized with the constant howling ash-laden wind and the moans of the other shambling Ash Remnants.
Given their ability to regenerate I chose to use the monsters as a tutorial to get a feel for the combat system. I was loathe to admit it, given how the man annoyed me, but Speers and Catacomb had actually managed to create a second generation RIG compatibility software solution. As I bounded around a pack of moaning Ash Remnants tearing chunks out of their ashen bodies with my blades I could feel the heat radiating off of them. The intense smell of burned charcoal assaulted my sense of smell and when the monsters managed to strike me, I could feel the impact through my haptic pressure pads and my RIG married that pressure with an actual feeling of being struck… without the pain involved of course.
The game was a truly amazing example of VR technology.
Utilizing Slice, Surging Blood, Evade and Blood Mist to traverse the battlefield and whittle down the monsters I had soon struck the rust off my skills. The strange undead were more pitiable than dangerous. There was something forlorn about them. I felt a brief kinship for them. Once I had cut down the pack of near helpless monsters I decided that I would avoid future fights. There were no sources of Essence here and I would be running in fumes if I fought too many more packs of them.
Resolving to make a circuit of the ruins before returning to the portal in search of any clues of the fate of this city named Lothin I used my superior agility and stealth to avoid more roving packs of the monsters. I had nearly reached the strange portal when I caught sight of a flickering blue flame on the grounds of what appeared to have been a noble estate.
Giving the many Ash Remnants on the grounds a wide berth I made my way through the former gardens, now heaped with massive dunes of feathery ash, toward the partially collapsed palace. At the top of a set of stairs from the garden to the structure’s entrance I found a plinth with the legs of a statue, its upper body long gone. Beyond it there was a yawning archway in which the guttering blue flame pushed back the night outside.
A cold feminine voice echoed from the doorway, “Make the wrong move and I’ll put you down, Remnant.”
“Whoa there, I’m just a traveler looking for details about what happened to this place,” I said as I raised my hands.
My lips curled into a smile and slowly pushed back my hood with a single finger, “I don’t mean anyone any harm.”
A towering figure emerged from the doorway. She was easily two meters in height wearing ragged black hide clothing and had a slim build. The woman’s heavily lined dark plum colored skin and imperious expression gave her a mature look. A long thick black braid ran down her back, the end tucked into her belt. The woman’s rose colored eyes were cold and calculating. Like my avatar the woman had long sharp ears that had somehow been bound or clipped behind her head. She was holding a bow made of bone white wood and had a heavy arrow half drawn and raised in my direction.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Haithan Hermit Archer Level 40
HP: 5210/5210
MP: Unknown
Weakness: None
Resistance: Unknown
Pinning Shot: A Haithan Hermit Archer can loose an arrow that has a chance to pin you in place either making you an easier target for her allies or following arrows.
Her eyes roamed over me and then the surrounding ash heaps for signs of ambush. Finally, she released the tension on her bow and lowered it, keeping the arrow ready as she nodded her head back into the campsite behind her.
Following her, I stopped in the arch to survey her campsite. There were a number of crates surrounding a fire with a hearty azure flame. A cracked and ancient stew pot hung over it guttering with some unknown brew. On either side of the small camp stairs rose upward toward what must have been the mansion’s second floor. They now only extended to the remains of the upper story, its remains providing the camp a small amount of cover.
The woman kept her eyes locked on me as she moved to take a position at the far side of the fire. Long tense moments passed as we stared at each other intently. Finally, I sighed and gestured to the world of ash behind me, “Any background for this mess?”
With a husky scoff she shook her head, “L’Chasse started to die when the last of its people fled through the portal. You a fresh Remnant? Is that all starting up again?”
Considering the question, I said, “I suppose so. As far as I know I’m the only one.” It was true as far as I knew. This was a single player game so chances of more ‘Remnants’ appearing was low, unless Catacomb included NPC members of my faction to the story.
“If all the other people left, why are you still here?”
She rolled her shoulders and reclined against a column studying me with that cold pink stare, “I’m looking for someone.”
“Who?”
Smirking, she shook her head and her shoulders slumped, “The Hero of L’Chasse.”
Nodding I offered her a smirk and said, “This place doesn’t look like it had a hero.”
Her answer was short and delivered with a look that suggested what she thought of my deduction skills, “There’s a reason that the people of this city and this world managed to escape when they did.”
“Fair,” I strode around her camp, keeping to the edge of the light and continued, “How did this world burn?”
“The last Lady, Lafontaine, led the Haithan people and the remnants who remained through the portal rather than fight an entire army of branded mutants created by the Immolated Order. The mutant army flew into a rage, killed their cultist masters and spent four years killing or burning every sliver of life that remained here. When they had nothing left to burn they burned themselves. Those are the monsters you have seen on the streets.”
Nodding along I looked askance at the strange woman. She seemed to have relaxed and was looking into the pot at the center of her camp with a lip curled in disgust before snapping her eyes back to me.
“All good to know I suppose,” I thought as I took up another position against the wall. There seemed to be little of merit left in this world. The Immolated Order seemed to be our overarching bad guys. This ‘Hero of L’Chasse’ had gotten the locals out of hot water but they still had to cut and run down the Spiral. Simple, I might even run into them somewhere down the line.
Wait a second.
Opening up my menus with a glance I opened my Completed Quests tab and sighed as I read the last entry.
Quest Completed
The Resistance: Enemy of my Enemy
XP Gained: 1000
Reward: Item Spike
You did it. You crazy bastard, you did it.
Bonus 300 XP: Rescue Valerie de Lafontaine
Bonus 300 XP: Rescue Theodora von Achen
Bonus 300 XP: Kill Alphonse Cardienne
Scanning the previous entries I chuckled, drawing an angry glare from the woman. There it was as plain as day. The entire quest chain seemed to be focused around this noble woman named Valerie de Lafontaine and building a resistance against the Immolated Order. It read like a TLDR of exactly what this woman was talking about. There were a couple of options here:
Lie to this woman and go on my way OR…
Who was I kidding? I was in a slump right now. There were plenty of reasons for me to be upset or retreat from the world, but no excuse to step away from a clear challenge or manipulate this NPC for my own ends.
She growled, “What?”
“Why do you want to find this Hero?”
Her eyes narrowed as her grip tightened on the bow in her hand, “We need to have words about a friend of mine he killed.”
Rolling my shoulders, I summoned my daggers into my hands and nodded, “It would appear that the last person to inhabit this body was your hero. So, I guess we have problems?”
The woman’s grip slackened and she sighed as she shook her head, “Damned fool boy, I know how Remnants function… about your Elseworlds and how your spirits flit from corpse to corpse. If you aren’t the soul who killed Elysi then you are not the one I seek.”
My shoulders slumped and the daggers in my hands vanished, “Well, I suppose that is,” I paused as I considered the situation and sighed as I said, “it’s good.”
Heaving a sigh of frustration the woman stood and stared through the archway and into the endless ash filled night, “I suppose it truly is time to depart for the Spiral. The Hero vanished here but there is no saying that his Masters won’t find a way to spirit him further away from this place.”
“Are you going to kill him when you find him?”
She considered the question for a long moment and chuckled, “I’m not sure. On one hand Elysi had suffered for a generation in a pit of death, putting down Remnants for the crime of loving me a bit too passionately. She deserved rest and if I had known she had risen from the grave, I would have put her down myself.”
Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath she spoke softly, “On the other,” she dragged something on a chain from beneath her tattered shirt and I saw an old bone colored cameo there of a woman, “the casual disregard they had when they returned this to me… angers me.”
The woman grew silent and I considered her predicament. The rage that suffused my life these days was hard to manage. Anger blossomed in the strangest unrelated moments. One would assume that the seed of my anger was Cameron Lake or even Sydney…
Thinking of her staggered my thoughts…
The truth was that I was furious with myself. It was hard to admit. The very thought sparked rage in me. It seemed like she and I might have a bit in common.
Spreading my hands, “Well, turns out I need to go there too.”
There was an unspoken offer there and her answer surprised me.
She gave me a wary look and then a nod before starting to gather her things. She muttered a final phrase as she did so, “I’m Magda.”
With a nod I smiled and chose to use my real name, “I’m Malcolm.”
