They Met in a Tavern E-Book

Sir Nil

• Herausgeber: Podium Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Mycology
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 559

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Virtual reality and the real world begin to blur as Declan/Dustin takes on a dangerous new enemy in the epic second book of this fantasy-adventure series.   Escaping his broken-down reality for a simulated world was never Declan's thing—until he got pulled into an MMORPG unlike any other and became Dustin the Magic Myconid. Now, with several quests completed and a few levels under his belt, he's ready to explore the world of Indiri and form a Mercenary Guild with his real-world friend Matt, aka Noam the Tiefling Bard.   Only, their journey gets off to a very rough start. Almost immediately, their train is derailed, and they—along with the odd assortment of riffraff who've joined their guild—are forced to stop in a seemingly quiet town. Soon, the members of their group begin disappearing, one by one, leaving behind nothing but unexplained wounds to the persons of those who are left.    Before it's too late, Dustin and Noam must figure out who or what is attacking them. Because the more invested they become in this virtual land, the more their flesh-and-blood existences are tied to what happens here . . .   Combining the very best of fantasy tropes with tabletop gaming, unforgettable characters, and mind-bending AI, They Met in a Tavern is the thrilling continuation of an epic adventure.   The second volume of the hit LitRPG fantasy series—with more than 500,000 views on Royal Road—now available on Audible and wherever ebooks are sold!

Leseprobe

They Met

in a

Tavern

MYCOLOGY ✸ VOLUME 2

SIR NIL

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from Podium Publishing.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 by Eric Lin

Cover design by Daniel Kamarudin

ISBN: 978-1-0394-4386-0

Published in 2023 by Podium Publishing, ULC

www.podiumaudio.com

Contents

1.00

1.01

1.02

1.03

1.04

1.05

1.06

1.07

1.08

1.09

1.10

1.11

1.12

1.13

1.14

1.15

1.16

1.17

1.18

1.19

1.20

1.21

1.22

1.23

1.24

1.25

1.26

1.27

Destination Part 1

Destination Part 2

Destination Part 3

1.28

1.29

1.30

2.00

Remembering

God Encyclopedia (Major Braunad Gods)

Character Sheets

Boss Sheets

About the Author

1.00

“If you’re considering taking a lizardfolk along on an adventure, remember this important fact. They are not human; they are not humanoid. That strange glint in its eyes as it looks you over is the same look you might give a freshly grilled steak.”

—A Yoloist’s Guide to Adventuring

There were several requirements one needed to fulfill before they could start a mercenary guild.

First and most obvious, mercenaries, adventurers—whatever the hell you wanted to name them. To form a guild, you needed combat-capable people. The very minimum needed was ten people, one of whom needed to be silver plated or above, who’d become the guild master.

Secondly, one needed a guild hall. The definition of such a place is actually pretty broad—all it needs is a location where guild members can meet up and have quests posted. There were a myriad of ways we could procure such a location.

The third requirement would be the completion of a major quest. Most people default to fighting off Wayshard Rifts, but that is mostly because they are pretty regular and most other campaign-level quests require you to be of a famous guild or silver plated, otherwise the quest giver won’t even consider you. Essentially it was the “you need job experience to get job experience” conundrum. There were also contingency contracts, emergency quests issued by the Protectorate for problems that needed rapid response.

The requirements are easy to fulfill in principle, but in actuality, there were several things we needed to consider.

For one, Noam and I had already filled twenty percent of the first requirement. We have rather synergistic builds that can be easily leveraged with some degree of teamwork, but unfortunately, both of us shine best when dealing with huge groups of enemies and large amounts of setup. Such strengths would be invaluable when completing the requirement quest if we planned on going the Rift route, but until then, we were only average in other areas. To better round us out, a single-target-damage front and back liner would be best. Along with some kind of battlefield healer. The question, however, was whether we planned on working with non-Travelers.

I needed to ask Noam for his opinion, but it would be a mistake not to. NPCs should greatly outnumber Travelers at this current time, and that represents a great wealth of possibility. I can’t ensure everyone we pick up would be as good as someone like Naukoth, but to completely rule out the possibility would be foolish. At the very least we should form connections with talented noncombatants like crafters. If we were to work with NPC combatants, then there were two people that I currently had my eye on.

The second requirement was slightly more difficult. There were two ways I could think of to gain a guild hall. First and simplest, we purchase one, though prices would definitely vary. Anywhere from a thousand to millions of gold coins, all depending on location and place. The second option was available only because this is still a medieval setting—we claim unclaimed land and build a location ourselves. That option is simpler because we wouldn’t have to deal with bureaucracy, however, we would still need to deal with construction costs, along with the fact that we would be tasked with defending ourselves. Most unclaimed land would be at the edge of civilization, which forces us to be frontiersmen. It was a risk, but a manageable one.

Regardless, it would be a high-cost investment.

“We could theoretically set up in a random hole in the middle of nowhere,” Declan proposed.

That would technically fulfill the requirements, but it would be rather lackluster, wouldn’t it?

At minimum, I think we need somewhere in the ballpark of thirty thousand gold to have a respectable base. The good news is that we didn’t need to use Traveler gold for that; normal money would suffice just as well, though it was largely more difficult to get. Mostly because we were still unestablished murderhobos. As people we have little to bring to the table other than combat ability. In some ways being a mercenary wasn’t a choice—it was the simplest path we could take.

Which brings me to another tangent: Where to bring my build?

“There are multiple paths currently.”

First I had to accept I can’t be a tank. I’m a tanky mage, but not a tank mage. It was proven well enough that though I can take a lot of hits, I can’t effectively hold my ground. A tank was about disruption via damage absorption and redirecting, forcing enemies to waste damage on nonkey targets. While I could fill the role of an attack disrupter, it would not be in the form of damage absorption, but in CC and area denial.

At best I am a midliner, though at the current moment I could be said to specialize in area denial and information gathering. However, I was also not fully utilizing my power.

Available Spell Slots:

T0: 2

T1: 1

T2: 2

As a mage with so many open spell slots, I was not even utilizing half—no, seventy-five percent of my current potential. There was only one way I knew for certain that would get me spells, and that was questing back in Gaia. However, looking at Noam’s feats gave me some ideas.

Available Feats

Player Killer (3 SP): Once per day, you may choose one source of damage you possess to be empowered against Travelers.

Coup de Grâce (3 SP): Once per day, you may choose one source of damage you possess to be empowered against downed or noncombatant opponents.

Brawler (3 SP): You gain +1 to STR or CON. You gain proficiency and knowledge with unarmed strikes or improvised weaponry. (Note, as you already have proficiency in unarmed strikes, your current proficiency will increase.)

Backpfeifengesicht (9 SP): You gain +2 to CHA. All magical taunting effects now have their potency doubled. All magic-based charm effects now automatically fail. Once per day you may choose to emit an aura that forces all creatures with visual sight of you to make a Wisdom save against your Charisma or be taunted into attacking you. This will last a minute, and the affected may continue to make Wisdom saves to break out your taunt effect.

Jack of All Trades (6 SP): You gain proficiency and knowledge with all weapons you wield. If you already have proficiency, the level of proficiency does not increase.

Weapon Master (9 SP): You gain +2 to any Body stat of your choice or two +1s to any Body stat of your choice. You gain proficiency and knowledge with five weapons of your choice. If you already have proficiency with your chosen weapon, the level of proficiency increases. This increase can be applied multiple times on a single weapon.

What he decided to pick from this feat list was up to him, however, these feats told me a crucial thing: “Our actual skills matter and have a mechanical effect.”

Noam’s Brawler feat and my own Strategist feat both mentioned that we already had proficiencies that were not listed on our character sheets. Not only that, but the main draw of a proficiency was not the actual in-game effect.

It was the fact that our real-world selves would gain that same proficiency.

Noam learned beatboxing in a night because of his class skill, and I had little doubt that if I took up my cooking feat, then my real-world self would learn cooking, and if Noam took up Weapon Master, he would actually master a weapon.

Such mental enhancements, while not illegal, were certainly treading a gray area. Mostly because it would render one of the few industries that still needed humans obsolete. While I wouldn’t mind never going to school again, many people still maintained that a school education was imperative for social behavior. They were the reasons why a person had to complete at minimum a year-twelve education before they could start receiving a universal basic income.

But that was not the important part here. These skills go both ways; there is a good chance we can have our proficiency increased by both our own improvements and the system’s assistance.

So, we broaden this theory. Would it be possible for me to learn magic naturally? And if so, would it take up one of my spell slots?

For the first, the evidence points toward yes. Though the hard rules of magic are rather wibbly-wobbly, people do learn from different schools here, and there are many schools of thought on how magic works. If it is possible for me to learn, say, cooking, by practicing it here, then the system should count it as a new proficiency, given by the patterns from Noam’s unarmed combatant and my martial proficiencies.

As to the second, I had a lot less evidence for this theory, but I was leaning in the direction that it would not consume any spell slots. Currently, I have two character sheets, the one I got from the system and the one from Analyze. The system does not seem to count anything not gained from it on its character sheet. Hence why my Analyze and Observe Paths along with our own learned proficiencies don’t appear on it.

As such, it should be possible for me to learn magic naturally, if not in the short term, then as a long-term goal.

Which led me back to my spell slots.

If I could learn spells not limited by the amount of spell slots I had, then what I did with my spell slots mattered a lot less; however, until I have definitely proven that a Traveler was capable of learning spells, I should still spec as if I was limited by my spell slots.

Which meant I had a few calls to make.

With a lack of a global Traveler chat or at least forum board, I had to directly contact people to procure what I wanted rather than leaving posts and waiting for offers to come to me. Currently, I believe … Ah, Valhorn and his group were still inside Gaia, and so was the potato man whose name was apparently Murphy. Peps moved inside Indiri, likely somewhere nearby, though I wouldn’t be able to track him.

So for now, I sent messages to the people still in Gaia, a list of spell crystals and categories I was willing to purchase from them should they encounter it.

But until then …

In the distance, Noam helped Utoqa to his feet. The lizard’s eyes glowed slightly blue in the dark, and he was silent as he pulled out my corpse from behind himself. At the edge of Noam’s vision, I could see my knife holstered on one of Utoqa’s many belts.

I returned to my view, seeing the well-lit waiting room we were given. On the other side was the elven swordswoman staring at her bronze plate with a mixture of awe and disbelief. Celine had left long ago, and the gnome whose name can fuck off was busy making sure her other friend had survived.

Standing up, I drew a glance from the elf, but there was something I needed to confirm, so I paid her no heed.

I left the room, meeting the two outside as Utoqa stared at Naukoth’s corpse.

He noticed me, head jerking toward me in an unnatural manner. As if he was unused to the gesture.

He was … surprised? No, something very close to it. Strange—his face showed no expression, yet I could still feel it dimly.

“I guess I was right,” I started, gesturing to the empty spot where the knife was. Traveler bodies can remain under certain conditions. Unfortunately, I can’t dupe items.

“Perhaps use our new capital to dupe bodies for magical materials,” Declan suggested with a chuckle.

That was one option. Though I do have to wonder if the experience loss was worth it.

Utoqa still stared at me, his face … unsettling yet familiar. Like an old friend I had forgotten.

We stood there, in a strange silence Noam must’ve perceived as awkward, because he swiftly tried to speak of another subject. “Well, it’s great that you survived.”

“Indeed,” the lizardfolk answered.

Something was strange about him now as he stared at Naukoth’s corpse. No, he didn’t change—I was the one who did. Somehow, I could see him slightly better than before. And in him, I saw two bundles of power, two ideas.

Noam put a hand on Utoqa’s shoulder. “I’m … really sorry about your friend.”

“It is a loss”—he turned to me—“I was taught that those who help me should be rewarded. Else they won’t help me again.”

From one of his pouches, he pulled out a finger. My finger, actually, wrapped carefully in the string mycelium.

I took it and felt a familiarity. A familiar but dim thrum of power, and with it I realized something.

“Hey, Utoqa.”

He stared at me, unmoving.

“What is a ‘friend’ to you?”

“Something that helps you.”

“And what is that?” I asked, pointing at Naukoth’s corpse.

“A pile of meat,” he answered frankly.

A slight chuckle escaped my lips, as Noam reached the same conclusion I did and began to frown.

I stared at the severed finger in my hand with renewed understanding of the nature of Utoqa’s first Path.

Scavenge.

To take from a kill and create something with its former power. Always lesser, always scraps, but always something.

He looked at Naukoth’s body not because of grief, but because he was assessing what he could take out of that corpse.

“God, he’s like a worse version of you, innit?” Noam muttered with an eyebrow raised.

A true sociopath. Loyal only because it was beneficial. No goal and never seeking greatness, only survival. A scavenger content to live on the scraps of others, even if it meant desecrating a former friend.

Yes … I could see it now. I’d learned the first Path and now I glimpsed the second.

Paths you gained yourself were intrinsically based on you. I understood that better now. I was one who observed and analyzed everything. He was a scavenger who took scraps, but he was also one with endless tenacity. A creature with no qualms about what to do in order to Survive.

“What do you plan to do now?” I asked.

“Get food and rest.”

“And after that?”

“I do not know,” he answered honestly, not because he was honest, but because he saw no benefit in deception. “Naukoth helped me learn many things. Without him it is difficult.”

A small smile formed on my lips. “Then, how ’bout you join us?”

If he were me, he would’ve shrugged, but he did not have that human gesture, so instead he simply said yes.

1.01

“If you can’t get yer hands dirty, then why the fock are you even in this profession? This is focking life ’n’ death righ’ ’ere.”

—Simon the God Noodler

Now that that was handled came the fun part.

“I have a question.” I signaled a random passing member of the Ivory Tower. “What do you do with the corpses of the deceased?”

“Hmm? We give them all proper burials at the local graveyard. Priests hallow the ground and do all the ceremonies and whatnot.”

“Can someone like a family member claim a body for their own rites?” I followed up.

“Why, of course!” he replied. “I know many people prefer their own funeral rites, even though Light can do pretty comprehensive rites.”

“Great, then may I claim one of the bodies?”

“Sure …? I’m not sure which one of them you are related to—”

I pointed at my corpse. “I am a Traveler, and that is my corpse. That should satisfy the requirements, correct?”

The man paused, and I could practically see the neurons misfiring in his brain.

“Just need it for one thing; you guys can do all your rites on it later on,” I offered.

Strangely, he seemed more confused. “You—that—what?”

“It’s all right.” Another voice pinched in, and the helpful camp mage from before lightly slapped the other man on his shoulder. “You can take it, though what do you plan on doing with it?”

“Oh, just some things.” I shrugged, gesturing to Utoqa. “By the way, do you have a room I could borrow that you wouldn’t mind getting dirty?”

“What do you need it for?”

I shrugged again. “Oh, you know. Science.”

All of it was their fault, Writz thought as he stalked his way along the night town’s street.

It was all their fault. None of the blame fell on Writz, who was the utmost paragon—a noble, after all. The incompetence of his servants who didn’t die for him when he was swarmed by monsters. Frankly, it was also that cursed deviling chimerist’s fault. He didn’t just roll over and die as was his place when Writz Ger Diation entered his blasted cavern. It was also the Ivory peasants’ fault for not escorting him back to his manor.

They were the reason his house had to use their insurance. But Writz was wise; he knew this was a momentary setback, and his father would get the peasants to earn all the money back. They knew their place. Though it hurt Writz’s heart that his beloved father would have to work so hard to regain their wealth.

Everything was their fault.

Maybe that was the peasants’ fault as well. They didn’t earn as much money as he desired, and it was all because they wasted time on rest and sleep instead of doing what was proper for them.

If only there were more people as competent as he. Then it would be easy, but unfortunately, he was cursed with idiocy at every turn. No one could ever even be half as smart as he was. Even the idiot vice guild master who wouldn’t let him bring all his guards into the battle, forcing him to settle for the inexperienced child. Writz smiled; he would love to see that fool keep her job later.

He slammed his fist into an alley wall. “Goddamn knaves, the very least they could’ve done was die for me—”

“Goddamn, you made this easy,” a voice said behind him.

Writz began to turn, just as the sound of tearing paper came from behind.

“Who—”

Noam rushed him, his arm outstretched and slamming into Writz’s neck before he could even get his second word out. His knees gave out as another force pushed them in, and Writz lost balance, falling to the ground. In a smooth, practiced movement, Noam had a knee on Writz’s back, his right arm pinning his shoulder and neck while his left leg pinned Writz’s outstretched arm by the wrist.

“Argh! What—” It happened too quickly. One moment he was standing, and the next he was pinned to the ground by an unknown assailant. “What—” he choked as Noam increased the pressure on his neck slightly, forcing his voice out of him.

“Goddamn, you are stupid,” Noam chided, almost disappointed. “You walked into a random dark alleyway at night. I thought I’d have to wait fer hours before I could jump you.”

The words snapped Writz back. “You—you’re that cursed deviling who spat on me earlier! I swear I can still smell the peasantry—”

He choked again as Noam pressed down on his neck once more. “And you didn’t even bother to check your possessions.” One of his pockets moved, and though Writz couldn’t see what moved out, Greenie fist-bumped Yellow as it crawled onto Noam’s shoulder.

“Don’t bother calling for help—I used a scroll of silence. No sound will leave or enter this location for a while.

“Oh,” he added as almost an afterthought, “but do try anyway. I’m trying to decide between your screams and words I would prefer to hear, but I haven’t heard you scream yet, so—”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! SOMEONE HELP ME! GUARDS! PEASANTS! ANYONE—gurrafff.”

“Huh,” Noam said as he blocked his mouth. “It seems I liked neither.”

It was only a few moments before the noble was unconscious.

“I thought Dustin said murder wasn’t worth it?” Yellow curiously asked.

“He’s a rather literal ass,” Noam answered. “He said a murder charge wasn’t worth it. If I get away with this with no consequences, then it isn’t a ‘net negative,’” he said, mimicking his friend’s voice, fingers raised in air quotes.

“Plus, I haven’t decided if I wanted to kill him yet.”

“Are you going to?”

Noam sat on the unconscious man, scratching his chin in a thinking pose. “On one hand, he’s an ass, but is he a big enough ass to deserve death?”

The wisps mimicked his posture as they sat on his shoulder. Yellow spoke first. “He could call the guards later and you would get a murder charge anyways.”

“Not how that works, but still one in favor of killing him then,” Noam said, raising one finger on his right.

“He did also seem like a focker.”

Noam gasped, “Who taught you that language, Greenie?!”

“You did!” it cheerfully replied.

Noam wiped away a fake tear. “I know, I am such a good role model. Anyways”—he raised another finger on his right—“that’s two in favor.”

He glanced at his left hand. “Hmm … On the other hand…” Noam glanced around, seeing only a confused Greenie and Yellow giving him a pity clap. “Pfft, you’re right, it’s weak. But on the other side of the argument, I really wished he put up more of a fight. Killing him while he’s unconscious is just assholish.” He raised a finger on his left.

He glanced at the two wisps on both his shoulders, who in turn shook their heads. “Hmm … that’s it, huh? Well, it looks like we’re killing him—”

The noble coughed as his eyes flickered open.

Immediately, Noam’s left hand was pinning his neck and his other controlled the man’s dominant hand, stretching it away from the weapon handle on his hip.

Writz, barely conscious, stared at him, eyes full of hate. “I swear! You deviling! You will rue the day you went against House Diation! Let me go and beg on your knees and I may have mercy on you and make sure your—”

There was a loud crack. Writz screamed in pain as Noam broke his arm.

“Should’ve stayed down,” Noam said. “Would’ve been easier for you.”

Tears streamed down the distraught man’s face; snot fell freely and mixed with the tears in a puddle underneath him.

“Man, don’t make this harder on me,” Noam said. His hand was no longer needed to pin a broken arm, so it went to draw a single dagger.

“Go to your happy place or sumthin’,” he muttered before Noam realized that the man’s lips were moving.

“…”

“What was that?” he asked as drew in closer.

“… wasn’t my fault … It wasn’t my fault … It wasn’t my fault …”

Noam sighed. “God you feel too pathetic to kill now—”

“It wasn’t my fault!” he yelled, desperate. “It wasn’t mine! It was theirs! It was all their Fault!”

The word thrummed with a nascent power as Writz’s broken arm slammed into itself, resetting and no longer broken. Noam’s reaction was instant; he stabbed the man’s neck from behind, biting through bone and cutting his spinal cord.

His body fell limp, and his mouth moved lifelessly for a few final moments, but no words came as his eyes turned glassy and dead.

Noam tsked as he stared at his bloodied hand. “Goddamn bad habits.”

“Is he dead?” Yellow asked in genuine childlike curiosity.

“Probably, but I guess I need to make sure he’s dead now. Dec’s gonna have a shitfest if I only paralyzed him from the neck down,” he muttered, annoyed, as he turned over the corpse. He stabbed the noble a few more times before rising and kicking him a few times more.

Several kicks later, he said, “Yup, feels sufficiently dead. Now the problem is to get rid of the body …”

“Perhaps I can help.”

Noam jumped, both his swords drawn in an instant. I took too long, he thought. Silence ran out.

He stared deeper into the alleyway, and his eyes caught on a glowing red light. A dagger stabbed into the ground, a bloody red eye with a cross-like pupil staring back at him.

“Greetings,” the dagger said, voice deep and thrumming with power. “I am Celigarn, the Blood Drinker. I am one of the four lost treasures of an ancient and great hero. I have seen your act of senseless violence and have deemed it enough to offer myself to you. Take me on, and through violence and bloodshed”—the pupil narrowed, almost disappearing as it glowed with magic—“I shall grant you immeasurable power.”

“Nah.”

“Huh?”

“I said, nah,” Noam said. “I mean, seriously? Cursed weapon that runs off blood? I’m trying to be an insult-based bard here. All I want to do is yell yo’ mama jokes until people want to fight me. Cursed weapon of a blood god would definitely clash with my aesthetic of a happy-go-lucky Saiyan idiot.”

“It’s not an ancient blood god but an ancient hero—” The dagger rapidly tried to correct, but Noam was ignoring it. Swiftly looting the body, taking his coin pouch and the wand holstered on his belt before hoisting the dead body by the legs.

“Now, what do I do with you …” Noam muttered.

“No, please, hear me out!” Noam continued to ignore him, simply tsking as he saw the blood trail left by the body.

“I’ll yell for the guards if you don’t listen!”

Noam snapped to the dagger, “Huh, you’re right.”

He dropped the body, and it flopped lifelessly onto the ground.

“Ha! See, I knew you would see reason.”

He casually pulled the dagger out of the ground.

“Wonderful, now—”

“I can’t believe I forgot to get rid of all the witnesses,” Noam said casually.

Celigarn paused and rapidly focused all its attention on Noam’s face. His face was casual, unserious and almost bored as he handled it. As if he was simply taking out the laundry.

The smallest smirk appeared on the tiefling’s face.

The blade suddenly wished it had legs.

“Um … I can make it worth your while! How ’bout I—”

Noam spun the dagger in his hand.

“Aaahh! Please, stop! I have motion sickness—”

He stopped, gripping it by the hilt. Celigarn’s eye was no longer a cross; instead, it was now a spinning wheel, and red fluid dripped out of the eye.

“Did you vomit? God, you have to be the worst dagger ever.”

The eye focused back into a cross before indignantly declaring, “I am not! Some third-rate …” Its voice slowly petered out. “I am …” The blade wept. “I am some third-rate weapon now …”

“Um … Is this some kind of psychological trick? Because I am still going to get rid of you.”

“No,” the blade said, voice husky as if crying. “I am a third-rate weapon now. I used to be one of the greatest weapons in the land, forged of the best steel, enchanted with blood-taker magic. In the hands of my master, I slew countless. Oh, the lives we slew together! But nay, even her life ended one day, and I was sealed with her, among all her weapons. For years I saw disuse, waiting to be uncovered by—”

“Can you hurry up your backstory, ’cause I sorta have a pressing matter at hand,” Noam interrupted, gesturing at the body behind him.

“I’m getting to it!” the blade retorted. “Ahem, anyways, where was I? Oh, yes. At the start, I dutifully stood by my master’s body, waiting untold years. But as time passed, I wished for someone to firmly grasp my hilt once again, to wet my edge with the blood of hundreds …”

Noam switched the dagger’s hold into his mouth. Freeing his hands, as he dragged the body deeper into the endlessly winding alleyways.

“… and so when my master’s tomb was uncovered, I rejoiced! For purpose found me once again! Once more I shall feel blood on my steel. Once more I shall be used for a greater purpose …”

Noam glanced around, ensuring the place was clear as he dragged the body away. Neither of the wisps was being useful, far too enamored with the story.

“… but alas! When I was brought back to the surface, I realized a crucial thing. Much time had passed, enough time that I witnessed the most shocking thing! My savior wielded a weapon far more powerful than I, and I learned that weapons of my caliber were stocked in the multitudes at even the most common blacksmith! My savior cast me out as if I was mere trash, and at that point, I really was. The passage of time and technology has rendered my once great and mighty form irrelevant!”

“So you were fucked over by power creep. Join the club, man.” Noam finally spoke after finding a sufficiently dark and empty spot in the labyrinthian alleys. “Now I still need to figure out what to do to keep you silent …”

Celigarn’s eye withered under his gaze. “Um … I could offer assistance! I see you have a body on your hand! Might I offer a way to get rid of it in exchange for … my continued existence?” it asked hesitantly.

“And your silence,” Noam added.

“That, too!”

“Great, then tell me how to deal with this.” He gestured at the body.

“Well, it’s quite simple. Just give it to one of the mimics.”

“Wait—” Noam’s eyes widened and darted rapidly around him. “There are mimics here?!”

“Oh, right now? No,” it answered. “Find a crate labeled ‘Abaddon Prime Express.’ Those mimics love hiding as the First Circle’s cardboard delivery boxes. It gets people every time.”

“Huh, neat,” he answered, completely deadpan in a way that would’ve made Decs proud. Noam searched a few more corners, quickly finding one such box. The words were stamped onto its side in an eye-catching logo.

With a heave, he threw the body onto the box.

It was still for a moment before it erupted in a violence of flailing flesh and tentacles, consuming the corpse in a single gulp before it resumed its innocuous form.

Noam stared at it for a moment. Nothing was left, save for the blood trail leading to it. Then he turned his gaze to the dagger. “Huh, I guess you aren’t half-bad.”

“See! I’m useful! I have what those other fucking store-brought daggers don’t have! I’m fucking intelligent! I’m the smartest dagger there fucking is! Yeah, take that, you fucking fancy-schmancy kitchen knives!”

“I can’t tell if you have an inferiority complex or are just crazy.” He smiled slightly. “Either way, you aren’t half-bad,” Noam said as he sheathed the dagger on his belt.

Celigarn gasped, or at least made the sound. “Does that mean …”

“Yeah, sure.” Noam shrugged. “I’ll put up with you. But no blood and death and violence crap. I’m not an edgy fourteen-year-old anymore.”

“You won’t regret this, boss!”

“Woo! Another friend!”

“I had no idea what you said, but you sound congratulatory, so thank you!” Celigarn replied cheerfully.

Noam chuckled slightly. “Anyways, let’s head back.”

“Oh! That is actually pretty convenient—follow the blood trail, otherwise you might not find your way back.”

Noam raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“See, all the alleyways in the world are connected in their separate subspace, creating a huge, constantly shifting labyrinth composed of every dark alleyway in existence. All the lost things end up here. I was thrown into an alley somewhere in a city called Stormfall before I ended up here …”

“Uh-huh.” Noam listened as he followed the trail back. The guy seemed like a talker, and he was content to let it ramble.

“… I’ve heard some rogues are capable of mapping this labyrinth and navigating it in a way that lets them pop up in any city! Of course, using Wayshards is far quicker and safer. If you go too deep, you start finding alleyways of long-dead and destroyed cities; those tend to not be so safe …”

Noam swiftly found his way back. The nightlife of the port city shined inward. He climbed up one of the roofs and saw people were gathering in a crowd out there. An old woman was on the ground cradling a broken arm, one that had mysteriously cracked and broken seemingly without cause. Another man nearby rubbed his head; a terrible headache had befallen him shortly before the old lady fell down.

It was enough of a distraction that Noam slipped into the night without contest.

1.02

“Follow Osshiven’Kai! We offer revelations and cookies!”

—The last words of Steve the Arch-Heretic of the South, spoken moments after his head was removed via guillotine and after being completely incinerated by dragon breath, before finally a smiting from Light herself did the trick

All night I spent trying to read the code of the “god.”

That code was dynamic. Constantly shifting and appearing to use a completely new coding language I could barely understand, but it, fascinatingly, seemed to be universal. Copy-pasting portions of the code into different language programs always led to something. There were never any errors or logic glitches. Something was working; I couldn’t tell what, but I had to know.

I rubbed my head—only a few hours without sleep and I was already suffering debilitating effects. Perhaps I should get ba’s Mel-B augment; it lets him stay awake for weeks on end. Whether it was healthy was a different matter, but until I actually reached eighteen, it was all plans. I couldn’t actually start legally tinkering with my body until then due to several honestly stupid laws made for the five percent of idiots who went for dick enlargement augments because that’s what idiot fourteen-year-olds did. You’d think they’d engineer those parts out by now, but apparently it was part of the “essential” human experience.

Turning my bleary eyes back to the screen, I finished my notes. This thing was too much, something one night and a high school–level education simply couldn’t begin to unpack. My head hurt, and my room … it felt claustrophobic in a way. Not enough that I wished to leave, but enough that it irked me.

I closed my eyes again, breathing deep. My head hurt, and I didn’t know if that was affecting my thinking. I should put off the code for now. But there was manic energy in my body—excitement, perhaps, or more likely, I thought as I looked at the empty bags of chips and other snacks strewn about my room, I’d eaten too much and was feeling a sugar high. What was Dustin me doing? A screen quickly opened at the thought, showing him signing some papers at the administrative guild. He didn’t need me now. No … I had to do something.

My head pounded, but I was not tired, not in the slightest. I moved to the wall of my room, toward a window. Slowly I cranked it open. Perhaps I should go outside, get a breath of fresh air—

The heavy summer air hit me almost like a physical force. Whatever breath I took in was choked from me by the pure heat and dryness. I fell back, the window automatically closing as I made the thought. Why did I expect that breath to be refreshing? And had I actually thought of going outside? Why did I think that? The atmosphere’s been fucked for years. What—

For a brief moment, I saw not the apartment window; instead, it was a strange porthole. One of a ship, it opened up to a wider blue. An infinite sea of which there would be no end of things to discover.

“Motherfucker,” I gasped, “it can’t be.”

I grabbed my AAD, wrenching it off my neck as dozens of digital tabs flickered out of existence. Yet I could still feel it.

My eyes were glued to that window, and in my veins, I felt that same manic energy. To go out, to learn, to understand, to keep going, because what meaning was there in a life without the new and fresh?

I slapped my face. The sting brought me back slightly, but I still felt the call.

The thing inside that computer held a universal code, and I was not stupid enough to believe a brain was anything but a meat machine.

“Fuck,” I muttered as I stood back up. “Fuck, fuck.”

I gingerly picked up my AAD as I paced around that computer.

“I should’ve known this was possible,” I muttered breathlessly. Observe was planted into my head via translating the code into something my brain could interpret. How long was I looking at that thing? Seven hours? Maybe more! Is this mental programming reversible? Are my thoughts even mine right now?

I forced myself to stop.

My body was restless, the adrenaline in my veins. So I took several deep breaths until my body calmed.

My head ached, pain from some source, either tiredness or programmed. So I stopped thinking and let the ache gradually subside.

I stood, the effects alleviated but not gone, dimmed at the edge of my mind. I was calm, and that was all that mattered. I opened my eyes and stared at the computer.

My next course of action determined many things.

A memetic hazard has always theoretically been possible; in fact, subliminal messaging had been used to sell products since the twenty-first century, but something capable of this level of subtlety and detailed programming was … Well, it was definitely possible in this era. I had no doubt various militaries had already developed some versions of it but were just keeping a lid on it. Anything of this level would certainly be a state secret.

And one of them was in my room.

“What a fucked-up thing you saddled me with,” I muttered, my hand on my head. I had no idea what the laws regarding this were, but I can certainly say that if Eve was harboring this sort of shit, then not only did I vastly underestimate her capabilities but also the number of international and moral laws she was breaking. Perhaps the most insane thing I had not yet considered was that this “god” was once a normal person. A simulated AI person, but close enough that Dustin me could’ve normally interacted with her.

My vision flashed back to theirs for a moment; they were in a crowd at the gates of the city. Noam just hollered at some farmer to give them a ride toward a cave by the edge of the ocean. Some kind of cultist quest? I was really missing a lot.

My body felt weak, as if the energy from before was all false, which it probably was. With a lethargic sigh, I slowly slid down the side of the computer tower till I was sitting against it.

What do I do now? Should I even trust my judgment on the matter? Or even Dustin’s, for that matter? He was a clone of me as far as I knew, but he’d spent far longer in Indiri. If our research was correct, then such info hazards existed there. Maybe not commonplace, but with enough frequency that things like Absence and ******** demons were recorded, not to mention aberrations, which were just even more fucked versions. That demon lord, the Secret You Must Speak, also just shot up in danger level. If even its name is enough to infect you, then could it breach into the real world? If the Historian could manage it with Discovery, then yes. It was a high possibility that things in that world could come to ours. As data or programs, they could find their place here, and if Discovery was any indicator, they could infect people in the real world.

But should I take this up with an authority? The police? Doing so would place me in direct opposition with Eve if she was still trying to remain undercover. But she couldn’t possibly keep this whole thing a secret for long! I’d seen dozens of people in Gaia, and unless they were also AI, then this “secret” should be spreading like wildfire. Even if they were, just the fact that every person could invite another would lead to constant player growth. But was I supposed to just remain silent about this?

“This is truly a great bind.”

“I sense you are distressed …”

To my credit, I only stiffened slightly when I heard that voice.

I glanced at my hand; it still held my AAD, unless that part was simulated as well.

“Yeah,” I answered, already guessing at the source. There was no one else here, after all. “You’re the guy inside the computer right? Discovery.”

“Yes …” it answered. “A computer … is that what this realm is called? Such a … strange name.”

“The root of the word has to do with computing. To calculate.”

“Is it … Ah. Latin … English … It is different from the trader’s tongue … What a wondrous language you speak …”

“Trader tongue?”

“The common language … Chanter is its name …”

“You’re speaking pretty slowly.”

“Sorry … I am tired … I am no longer all me …”

“I never got that part,” I said, hoping to drag the conversation a bit longer. “Why you were in this mess. I never got why deification was such an unavoidable thing.”

“Because … of Balance … The world seeks to balance … There is no deed unpraised … no feat untold … no wonder unspoken …”

He paused as if mustering clarity.

“Commit great deeds and you will be rewarded. Power, wealth—anything, really … But you will always be rewarded … and the greatest reward is to be made concept … To be made charge of an underlying principle … It is power but is burden …”

My hand tightened. The Historian warned us of a similar thing, but in the opposite direction: take power without deed or worthiness, and it will be wrested from you. And the opposite—do great deeds and be worthy, and power will find its way to you on its own. Regardless of your own feelings, it seemed.

“Are you clear now?” I asked. “Did whatever the Historian do work?” And Eve, too, but I suppose his boyfriend would’ve preferred taking all the credit.

“Yes …” It spoke as if almost surprised. “He did … but what of him?”

“He seemed aight,” I answered. “Was still sane enough that he cared ’bout you.”

“Aww …” It paused again, “I sense … I do not have long …”

“Gotta sleep again?”

“Yes … but … I hurt you somehow … My nature latched on to you … subtly, but it did …”

“Yeah,” I answered, “got freaked out by it for a moment.” I still was, but I had no reason to believe it was anything malicious. In fact, Dustin’s interaction with it in Indiri showed it was very much a passive effect.

“I am sorry …”

“It’s fine.”

“No …” it answered. “I, too, will recompense … little as I can …”

It spoke again, this time not slowly, but deliberately, with a great power.

“You do not yet know, child. I fanned the flames, but there is always a spark of discovery in each. So, Understand.”

Knowledge entered my mind, but I did not need it, for the very act of speaking that word was enough for me to realize. As the voice slowly faded, the god of Discovery falling to slumber, I stood up and rushed out of my room.

In the background of my mind, Dustin and Noam were traveling to their first quest. I saw through their eyes clearly.

My AAD was still clenched in my hand.

Before long, I stood before Marvin, our home-keeping AI. The main servers were built into the house, but it had a single camera in the kitchen.

I touched it and said, “Observe.”

A new field of view entered my mind, staring back at me. And from it, I saw the corners of my mouth slowly turn as I broke into maniacal laughter. At no point had I put my AAD back on.

There were two options here that I could see.

Either I was living in a completely simulated world at this very moment.

Or, I thought as I sat back down in my room, opening back up the code of the god, somehow, this is all real. And somehow it all works in the real world.

As I slowly devolved into insane laughter, as Dustin moved his attention to mine, I was still trying to decide.

Which of these utterly insane options did I like more?

“And that’s ’bout the gist of it,” I said as Dustin removed a blue sac from his corpse.

“Interesting,” he answered. “And I thought you were just being insane.”

“Nah, you know better than that,” I replied as I opened up several new tabs. “Strange thing ’bout fungus is that they shouldn’t evolve bilateral symmetry at all.”

“Yeah, I figured,” he answered, his fingers fumbling around.

“You really aren’t cut out for dissection, are you?”

“Low Dex,” he muttered in an exasperated tone. “Hey, Utoqa! Help me with this.”

A low Dex wasn’t all that bad, it just meant Dustin had to be a lot more deliberate with his movements.

“This body shouldn’t work.”

“From a purely evolutionary standpoint. This biology doesn’t make sense,” I replied evenly.

Yet it was what was used by the system. By the world, and as we discussed the body, the reasons became clear to him.

And then, an option appeared.

I smiled slightly. This had been an eventful three days, and no deed went unrewarded.

1.03

“You expected my strategies to make sense? My dear Chancellor, that was your first mistake.”

—Madelyn, then moniker the Conqueror, to Chancellor Chekov after successfully subjugating the Western Empire

The flesh squelched as Dustin’s fingers dug into it.

“Utoqa, pin that flap of skin for me,” Dustin said, pointing at a flapping piece of flesh.

He nodded, peeling it away and pinning the skin onto the ground.

“Make an incision here,” he suggested. “Open up the head more.”

It was a simple thing. Utoqa had dressed many hunts before, but the mushroom wanted to reveal its internal organs. Strange, but intelligent in a way. Utoqa only vaguely knew where his organs were. Perhaps he should open up another Tequalan to check.

Though things felt different now. The room was light even where it was dark; his sight felt stronger, wider somehow, as if there were also eyes on the side of his head as well as in front. And very lightly, he could sense the movement of something. Something that stirred within Dustin’s cap, like the stirrings made by fish inside a still spring. A fish that ever swam, chasing the top of the waterfall, before it fell and died on the rocks.

He felt something like that within him, too, but it was weaker. He couldn’t distinguish it from the other stirrings he felt. It lacked distinguishing patterns. Where Dustin’s felt like the territorial markings of a beast, his own were small. Almost unseen. A benefit, perhaps; the small beasts were easy to hunt, but the greatest beasts ignored them.

As Utoqa helped the mushroom pull apart his own corpse, an old question appeared in his mind. One Naukoth had brushed off as weakness in other races.

“Dustin,” he said, getting the creature’s attention.

It answered absent-mindedly. “Yeah?”

“Tell me why the soft-skins dislike me eating their kind.”

Not that he ever did it, of course. The powerful soft-skin that gave him the bones that made his bone tomahawk, Gift, displayed visible distress when he brought it up, and Naukoth had warned him off it.

The dozens of interlocking pieces of brown tree bark and fungus shifted, doing something akin to an eyebrow raise. It answered as it removed some thick blood vessels and examined them. “I suppose I could go into prion-based illnesses or perhaps how cooperative culture evolution works. But would you get that?”

It turned to him, something Utoqa knew it didn’t need to do to see him.

“I think the simplest explanation is that if you express a desire to consume their body, then they see you as a potential threat to their life, or at the very least, not an effective ally, because you would not mind if they died. So they would not see you as a ‘friend’ but as a potential enemy. Say, for a hypothetical situation, if a human said they would eat you if you died or would make weapons from your bones, then would you trust them with your back if they did? Especially when they explicitly told you that they would be benefiting from your death?”

Dustin spoke with more sense and clarity than others had given Utoqa. The lizardfolk did not think such things were a problem—it was the way of nature, after all. But in the scenario the mushroom posed, Utoqa would not trust such a soft-skin with his back. He needed his spine to function, after all; they might not give it back if they could make weapons of it. He wouldn’t need it if he perished, but if a creature sought to specifically acquire lizardfolk backs, then they might seek Utoqa’s demise. He would not call such a being a friend while he lived.

Was this how the soft-skins thought of him asking to eat their corpses? It was wrong—he wouldn’t seek their deaths; he only desired not to waste their bodies. Was this how the soft-skins thought? Not understanding natural order, worrying about the most inconsequential things?

What a sad life they led.

“I understand,” he answered.

“Good, now help me with this leg …”

This body shouldn’t work.

I pulled out an unknown organ, likely some rudimentary processing organ, but it felt too small, too simple compared to a human brain.

My dissection yielded some … interesting things.

First off, the simple parts, my structural integrity. My body utilized something similar to an exoskeleton, with the exception that it was covered by a thin layer of “skin.” As expected of an exoskeletal structure, my musculature utilized a hydraulics-based system, similar to arachnids’. Muscle ligaments served to close joints while hydraulic pressure pushed them apart in a way similar to inflating a balloon. It explained my rapidly coagulating blood, along with the valves at the edge of major areas, which I believed were purposed to shut off in the case of a major injury. A hydraulic pressure–based system would be extremely vulnerable to bleeding, in a similar way that cracking open a compressed oxygen canister would.

The nervous system I possessed seemed normal relative to a mammalian. A centralized processing organ located right behind my eyes with nerves running all across my body. The only notable difference was that I did not seem to possess a spine or spinal equivalent, and my nerves seemed significantly thicker than what I would have expected.

My digestive tract appeared extremely rudimentary, similar to mammalian, with the exception that it ended at the stomach area, with no secondary opening leading to an anus. This suggested two possibilities—either that my digestive system was efficient enough that it didn’t produce waste, or that any waste I produced should be vomited back up by the mouth.

It was past that point that things got strange.

For certain aspects, I was a lot harder to kill than I gave credit for. As far as I could tell, this body utilized a distributed cardiovascular system, meaning instead of a centralized “heart” organ pumping blood throughout my veins, I had dozens if not hundreds of separated, simple tightening tubes spread throughout my body fulfilling the same role. Unlike a heart, damage to one of them should not fail the whole system.

Strangely, I still couldn’t find any eye or sensory organ equivalent.

And no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t recognize anything that resembled capillaries. Tracing the various veins and tubules, I deduced that the air I breathed through my mouth split into three directions. One went into my cap, toward various tubules before ending in the fluorescent-blue sacs. These were filled with fluids and were spread throughout my entire cap, not just the surface. Assuming the air I breathed was oxygenized into my blood here, then that posed some dangerous liabilities. If the most identifiable and exposed part of myself was my respiratory system, then that posed an extremely obvious weakness. The only saving grace was that I identified more of these blue sacs inside my chest cavity, right where my lungs should be, along with directly behind my face, giving it that ethereal blue glow. Meaning I had several contingency respiratory systems.

It was one of the “lungs” in my chest cavity that gave me pause.

“From a purely evolutionary standpoint. This biology makes no sense.”

Indeed. For one, this body used bilateral symmetry, a feature that shouldn’t occur in fungi. The humanoid form itself was suspect. A mushroom was more likely to evolve to something closer in line to starfish—utilizing radial, spherical or no symmetry at all. There were aspects of the biology that suggested it was going this way, a distributed cardiovascular system along with multiple respiratory tracts. However, certain aspects of its biology appeared too conveniently parallel to simian, or even mammalian in general. My respiratory tract had aspects of this with the capillary equivalents located in my chest, and my nervous system as far as I could tell was completely centralized.

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I began dissection; half of me had expected this wouldn’t make sense at all or I would find nothing, but the other half …

“Believed it might make sense in retrospect, when considering the world you’re in.”

Whether or not this body would function in the real world was a moot point; something had clearly put a lot of thought into this body plan. Something that either didn’t understand evolutionary biology or didn’t care about it.

“To be fair, we don’t, either. You’re just going off what my few hours of googling have to offer.”

Regardless, a mushroom evolving bilateral symmetry was highly unlikely yes?

“Given what we’ve learned, yes.”

So we had to see it from an alternative perspective. Not from an evolutionary biology perspective, but from the perspective of the system that made it. Whatever Giles programmed, we should have a basic understanding of.

Declan snorted in laughter, “I don’t claim to understand anything anymore.”

“You have the memories of what the Historian showed us,” I calmly returned. So we both should know the basic modus operandi for the beginning of it.

The system took data in and spewed out something that would make it work. I had no doubt that the basic idea for a myconid race existed in fantasy for a long time.

“As early as the twentieth century, actually,” Declan noted.

Regardless of how erroneous the biological assumptions were, someone had fed that idea to the system, and it had created a biology in retrospect of a mushroom-humanoid body plan, rather than it being the natural result of ecological pressure.

I would need to experiment with other races to make sure, but it should be the same with dragons and all the other fantasy races someone would find improbable.

And that was without accounting for the fact that past a point that sapient species started actively, literally altering themselves with belief and imagination … I needed to procure a human corpse for examination and compare it with my own world’s. Theoretically there should be dozens of minor—if not major—changes to the base human model!

Even if they are far from the purview of normal physics and logic, the fact that it was created from probably millennia of intelligent tinkering posed potentially even greater advancements than genetic and biotechnical engineering from my own—

You have fulfilled the unlock conditions for Magic Myconids.

You may invest your level as a class level in either Fungalmancer or Warlock (Gift of Discovery) or as a racial class level in Magic Myconid.

Note: Investing in Warlock (Gift of Discovery) will remove the [Et Non-Discent] skill.

Note: Investing in Magic Myconid will unlock the [Age-Type Heteromorph] skill along with more accurate and powerful racial features.

Warning:

Investing a level in Magic Myconid will result in the shutdown of all Humanoid Integration Programs. (This includes Pain Modifiers, as there are currently no suitable programs for True Fungal archetypes.)

Iteration shock will become more apparent as you will no longer operate under modified Homo sapiens controls when in this body.

Note: You have been mentally evaluated as compatible with this process. Permanent mental damage is highly unlikely; thus you were presented with this option at all.

I paused, an eyebrow raised.

System question, I thought. What does [Age-Type Heteromorph] do?

And it answered.

Age-Type Heteromorph [Passive]: This race has natural power, and its growth only represents this.

For every two hundred years you spend in this body, you will gain a Magic Myconid level until you reach the maximum of 5, after which you may undertake Racial Evolution.

You may not invest levels in this class past the first.

Every level gained in Magic Myconid represents a significant increase in power.

You will not gain progress in this skill until you have obtained it.

“System question,” Declan began and I finished, “What does it mean to be mentally evaluated as compatible?”

Below one percent chance to suffer long-term debilitating effects.

Warning: This prediction uses predictive models that may not fully represent real world possibilities. A three percent degree of error should be assumed.

I paused and thought.

Declan was silent, but he was me, and he came to the same conclusion.

The only risk was a less than four percent chance of potential discomfort. The only downside was the extreme late-game scaling.

“Pfft, extreme feels like an understatement. Unless time dilation occurs, then I’d be an old-ass man by the time you even got to the second level.”

This seemed practically designed to entice me, which it very likely could’ve been. Long-term benefits, not a lot of visible downsides, and even some initial benefits I could get as well. This was very much a put-down-and-forget type of level.

Though this was very similar to the dragon racials, this was a significantly different thing than me switching to another race. For one, I would not lose all the progress I’d made on this body, which, if my impact points were anything to believe, was rather significant. Secondly, myconids could actually take normal classes, as opposed to dragons, who’d just have to beast through everything with their racial abilities. Not a bad option, but one severely lacking in utility. There could only be so much subtlety a fire-breathing flying lizard can do.

Perhaps the better question was, was I going to be here for a full two centuries? Was this world going to have a significant enough impact on my life that I should choose to take this?