VOLUME 1
- CHAPTER 3 -
STONE CORRIDORS
Taking his eyes off the screen, he unclips the drawn map from his desk and flips it to its blank side.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “Let’s see…”
The adventurer keeps walking, and after a few meters, the stone brick corridor turns to the left. As he goes, his pen slides on the paper with his right hand, controlling his character only by the keyboard with his other hand, turning his camera with the “Q” and “E” buttons after changing to a custom set of key inputs.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - Turn right, now left, and right again.
He stops at a breaking point with two paths to follow. One to turn right, the other to keep going forward.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “This isn’t a labyrinth, is it?” – he says tiredly.
His character continues running, taking the straight path.
The more he walked, the more breaking points appeared with more options to follow, but he decided that his priority was to advance upward on his drawn map, so he tried. Some paths lead to dead ends though, so he marked a small X with a red pen on his map and goes back to try another path.
That continued for a few minutes… the only thing he saw was this oversized white corridor and the yellowish light coming from the baseboards. Until something strange happened.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “Wait, this isn’t right.”
Looking at his map, the tip of his pen had just crossed over a straight line he made previously. But he looks at the screen again, and there is only a long straight corridor, with no intersections.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“Are my proportions wrong?”
He takes a closer look at his piece of paper with a frown.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “Huh…”
He straightens his posture and continues to walk with his character, marking his path with the pen and continuing from the crossing point. The path keeps going to the right until a breaking point forces him to change courses, but he tries to keep his direction towards the right side either way.
The pen goes up, and then right, up, right, down, and right again, always in ninety-degree turns. Until it goes out of the paper.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“This definitively isn’t right, is the labyrinth moving?”
His frown transforms from worried to angry, he turns his character the opposite way and starts backtracking, his pen hovering above the line on the map. For about a minute, he follows its paths exactly as he had marked, but the pen stops middle-way through a straight line, while on the screen there’s a wall.
His eyes double-check the screen and then the map. And so, he leans his back on the chair with a deep sigh.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“I should keep going straight here, FUCK! It’s a random labyrinth.”
The pen falls over the paper.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“How funny, devs, everyone likes moving labyrinths, especially the ones you find nothing while walking for ten whole minutes.”
He closes his eyes, controlling his breathing to calm down.
…
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“So, this is basically you telling me to not have scouts on this mission, huh? It just makes my work harder. But for what reason, though? There wasn’t a single monster until now, or a different room, or any of those annoying puzzles. Is this just some walking simulator trash? Is it still under development? It doesn’t make any sense…”
He opens his eyes with tiredness, glaring at the white wall above his monitor for a few seconds before descending back to the screen.
“Unknown 1:- - - Did you find anything?” “I’m going out to eat soon”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“Proximity chat? Shit.”
His hands quickly grab the mouse.
“Unknown 2:- - - no dude” “this dg sucks ass”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“So that’s why I didn’t find any players at the cave, they were all trapped in this shit hole already.”
He walks silently with his character, peeking at the corners to see if anyone was there, but the corridors are all empty.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “The last thing I need is to lose my scout to some random dumbasses.”
“Unknown 1:- - - I’m going 2 leave bro” “I think it bugged or something”
“Unknown 2:- - - Me too” “******* trash”
For a few seconds, he stayed still ready to launch an entire combo at the first one to appear, but besides the chat messages fading out over the long time, nothing else happened.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “Shit. That scared the fuck out of me.”
With a click of a button, his character leaves the sneaky mode, showing its relief by cleaning the dust off his shoulder in a calming animation.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “Great, so it’s not a single-player dungeon…”Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!
He starts walking again, but he halts in his third step when another message pops up with a purple name.
“Sigivald:- - - Hello traveler!”
He turns the camera to the left, at an entrance to a big room that wasn’t there a step before, an empty rectangular place with the same patterns as the corridor, where a man stands still wearing a blue coat, a blue top hat, and dark pants. Looking like some cheap circus entertainer.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“What the fuck.”
“Sigivald:- - - You seem lost, I can give you the answers you seek.” – He keeps smiling like a salesman, staring from afar.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“That’s an NPC?”
He looks at the purple name in chat, proving that it wasn’t a player speaking. With a click, his character’s eyes turn golden, and the name above that man shows after a quick flicker.
[Baldo Sigivald, Master of Lornvale (Level 90)]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “It looks like an NPC, but…”
With a click, he opens his inventory and equips a secondary weapon called: [Throwing magic-steel knives].
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -Only one way to find out for sure, if he’s not, I need to be ready to get the fuck out.
He slowly moves his thumb to V, the key to activate the ability of his speed-burst boots. And with caution he presses and holds the left mouse button, the character lifts the knives over his head and an aiming sight appears in the middle of the screen. By moving the mouse, the sight goes down and stops right in the middle of the smiling man’s chest.
The mouse button is released and, in a quick throw, the knife tears the air and pierces the man in blue, the noise of its metallic blade dings on the wall behind him, and falls flat on the ground.
“Sigivald:- - - You don’t need to be afraid, I’m here to help you.”
The man stays statically smiling.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “Right, it’s just an NPC.”
He relaxes his hand over the keyboard and walks to it.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “Fucking creeper, who designed this guy?”
Going closer, a message appears: [F to Talk to Baldo Sigivald].
With a click, a big window opens at the bottom of the screen, the name [Baldo Sigivald] fading in at the top-right while text appears word by word on the empty box below.
The man is shown in more detail in a drawing above the dialogue panel on the left, having a dramatic pose of him statically about to take out his top hat, while his blue coat flies open showing his inner white shirt and two black pants suspenders. His white smile is even more contrasted by the multiple dark shades in his figure.
[Sigivald: Oh, Hero! So you found me! I’m Baldo Sigivald of Lornvale, a small village at the North-East border of Gonkdim. My village was the first to be attacked when the war began, but not to worry, we were ready for such a battle. After all, we are warriors trained-]
*Click
[Sigivald: I myself am a mage of the-]
*Click- - - - “Skip.”
[Sigivald: Lucky one indeed, but-]
*Click- - - - “Skip.”
[Sigivald: Here, be careful-]
*Click- - - - “Skip.”
A popup window appears.
[Yes]- - - - [No]
*Click
The window closes together with the dialogue box and the drawing of the smiling man.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“Oh, shit, I should have read that.”
[+1 Orb of Samsara]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“Well, if it is a lame mission I can always just ignore it, it’s not like my Alt needs a clean reputation.”
*Click
The Quests tab appears.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“So, where is it?”
He scrolls down the dozens of active missions.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“It’s not here…”
*Click *Click
The inventory tab opens up.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -“What item was that again? Ball of Sahara?”
He scrolls at the mission items tab but finds nothing. He changes to consumables, then equipments, and then accessories, and there it was, marked with the tag of “New”.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “Orb of Samsara… rarity-”
His eyes widen.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “UNIQUE?!”
He opens a long smile and laughs exhilarated, sliding his mouse out of the way.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “What the hell? I’m fucking rich, baby!” – he screams to his ceiling, hands raised.
His eyes get closer to the screen.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “That’s right! This icon was on the update’s site! I can’t believe it, I got one right on the first day! What does it do?”
Like a little kid, he hovers the mouse over the item once more and starts reading its attributes attentively.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - “A Passive item… works just by being carried in the inventory. More 150 health, 150 energy, and 6 intelligence. Ability: [Mind Transferring], allows the player to enter a character for an unlimited amount of time… huh?... What the hell, that’s O.P.!”
He scrolls down, passing through its lore, going to what appears to be a list.
[- - - - - - - - - - - Rules:
NOTE: Rules may change in future updates
<ol style="text-align: justify">
<li>This item’s effects do not stack.</li>
<li>Can only be activated by a player character with an adventure rank of Legendary or higher.</li>
<li>Any menus besides Inventory or Character are going to be disabled to access.</li>
<li>The owner will only be able to hear up to the proximity chat range.</li>
<li>The character will be temporarily disconnected from any guilds or groups, including friend lists (will be shown as Offline).</li>
<li>Quick Travels cannot be used.</li>
<li>This skill will only activate once the player is alone.</li>
<li>The character’s combat tag will be changed to “always-on”, independently of the region’s difficulty.</li>
<li>If such controlled character dies, it will be permanently dead.</li>
<li>[…] ]</li>
</ol>
- - - - - - - - - - - - “Wow, hohohou! This is actually good! It means that someone can enter another player’s character, kill it, and that guy will lose all his progress, isn’t it? All the random rules aside, this is actually too OP.”
His grin slowly closes to a serious face.
- - - - - - - - - - - - “I just didn’t understand that last rule.”
[10. The player can’t leave such character until this ability is used again.]
- - - - - - - - - - - - “Can’t leave?”
The screen image becomes slightly blurry.
- - - - - - - - - - - - “So, I can’t access any of my other characters? I guess it makes sense, or I would steal it instead…”
His tired eyes start closing on their own, needing a constant fight to keep them open.
- - - - - - - - - - - - “But, how do I activate it? I can’t put a shortcut key.”
His head tilts and spins like a heavy bowling ball.
- - - - - - - - - - - - “Shit, I’m tired…”
The image of the Orb focuses again for a moment, then the rules go down line by line, and the next thing is his table coming.
- - -Then… everything goes dark.
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