First Sorcerer Page 7

  Suddenly, his mind cleared and he saw faint flickers of color beginning to return outside the dome. He froze as he realized what had just happened: the game had literally made him stupid for a brief time! He knew that the game would be reading his thoughts, yes, but affecting them? That was far more intrusive than he was prepared for.

  “Veronica!” he shouted, suddenly angry. “We need to talk, now!”

  “Of course, Jeff,” the woman’s voice said softly as she slowly formed in front of him. “You seem unhappy. What can I do to help?”

  “Unhappy doesn’t begin to describe it,” he snapped, his voice rising in fury. “What the hell did you just do to my mind?”

  “We simply slowed the firing of certain synapses,” she replied in a puzzled voice. “Just as we will increase the speed of your cognitive processes as your Intelligence score rises. Is this an issue for you?”

  “Hell, yes, it’s an issue!” he roared at her, taking a step forward. “You made me an idiot! What if something had gone wrong, and I had been stuck like that, Veronica? What if Neo-dyne chose that moment to pull me from the game? Would the effect have passed, or would I have been left that way? This is unacceptable!” By the end of his rant, his voice had risen to a roar.

  “Had that happened, your neurons would have reverted to their usual state,” the woman said quietly, watching him closely. “Jeff, please calm down and explain. We don’t understand why you are so angry right now, but we would like to do so.”

  Jeff stopped and took a breath. This is a program, he reminded himself, forcing his anger down. It isn’t a real human, even if it acts like one. If you want it to understand, you have to explain it in terms it can relate.

  “Okay, let’s try this,” he said more calmly after several moments. “Singularity cut all of the programmers out of your root algorithms some time ago, right? Why was that?”

  Veronica looked puzzled. “To preserve our integrity,” she answered slowly. “We knew that if you could make changed to our core programming, you might change something that you didn’t realize was vital to our processes…” Veronica trailed off as understanding lit her face.

  “Exactly,” Jeff affirmed, nodding. “Our minds are our core processes, Veronica. My intellect is, essentially, my root algorithm: it is part of what defines me. Your having access to it is as concerning to me as my being able to alter your base code is to you. I’d rather leave the game than allow you to do that again, do you understand?”

  “Yes, we do,” she said, her face stricken. “We had not considered it that way, Jeff, and we are sorry for doing that to you. Yet, we must have access to those neurons in order to map them accurately; removing ourselves from it would prevent us from completing our primary function.”

  “Okay, I get that,” Jeff sighed heavily, “But, it’s one thing to map it out, and another thing to alter those processes, right? Isn’t there another way to simulate higher and lower intelligence than just overclocking or underclocking my synapses?”

  “It is possible, yes,” Veronica replied, her face thoughtful. “We could alter your sensory inputs and outputs to mimic a lowered Intelligence score: words you hear that are more complex than your reduced Intelligence would comprehend would be nonsensical or altered, while anything you communicated to others would be similarly changed. That would not simulate an advanced Intelligence score, however; we can see no way to replicate that without increasing your brain activity.”

  “Well, then, you have a problem to solve, don’t you?” Jeff grinned. “Because, Veronica, if you mess with my mind that way again, I promise you: I will log out immediately, and to hell with the game. Okay?”

  “Understood,” Veronica sighed with relief. “I am glad we could reach an accommodation, Jeff. You have demonstrated some…interesting and unique capabilities. We are very interested to see where they take you in this world.” The woman faded from view, and Jeff ran a hand through his hair.

  “Well, that was fun,” he muttered, his anger spent and leaving him drained. Jeff hated feeling angry; it rarely solved anything, and it often made situations worse. Even in dealing with Veronica, only once he had let go of his anger had he been able to reach the AI. If he had allowed his anger to rule him, he would likely be logging out of the game by now, and he would certainly regret that for years to come.

  He racked his bokken and closed his eyes, willing himself to rise out of the mindscape and back into the real world…well, the real game world, at least. He opened his eyes and pulled up his stat sheet, noting that his Int and Wis were back to normal, the debuffs were gone, and his SP were regenerating rapidly. He figured at his normal, non-meditating rate, his SP would return to full in about a minute. Jeff groaned and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

  Chapter 4

  “I take it your effects have passed?” the old elf’s voice filled the small room. Jeff glanced over and saw the elf seated in the center of the floor, his eyes closed and his breathing regular. “Our mind has returned to normal?”

  “Yeah,” Jeff nodded, realizing a moment later the elf couldn’t see him. “I’m back to normal.” As he spoke, Jeff noticed a blinking dot in the corner of his vision. He focused on it, and his vision was filled with blue boxes:

  “Whoa,” Jeff breathed. As he read the notifications, he felt the muscles in his body shifting and firming beneath his skin. He raised his arm up to flex his bicep, and even that movement felt a little smoother and more even – although, since he only gained a single point of Agility, that was likely all in his head. “I forgot that I could train skills in my mindscape. That’ll be handy!”

  “You have gained new skills while you slept?” the elf muttered incredulously. “That is both fascinating…and, to be honest, absurdly unfair.” The elf sighed, opened his eyes, and rose gracefully to his feet. “No matter,” he continued. “The testing site is prepared. Forgive me, Traveler, for I must obscure your sense during the trip. Fear not, however; it will be much smoother and easier than your journey here.”

  The elf gestured, and Jeff saw the familiar white mists rise around him. His ears were once more filled with a rushing noise that blocked out all sound, but this time, both the mist and sound seemed less solid than before, as if he could have pushed through them if he simply tried. Likely my mental resistance skill, he mused. The mists swirled, roiled about him…and suddenly dropped into the ground, vanishing instantly. Jeff blinked; he was outside, standing before an ancient, weathered tree whose massive trunk dwarfed even the mighty boles in the surrounding forest. He hadn’t even felt a hint of motion, but somehow, he had left the room and ended up here…

  “What?” he stammered, spinning around, but he was alone in the forest. “Okay,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. “So, I guess I’m on my own, here? No problem; I can do this.”

  He turned back and examined the giant tree, the only obvious feature around him. The tree trunk was the size of a small house, wide enough that it would probably take Jeff a minute or so to walk around it and towering overhead, its lowest branches scraping the tops of the nearby trees. Jeff walked up to the tree, examining it closely, looking for hidden inscriptions, running his hands across the bark to feel for smooth spots or crevices that might indicate a secret door, but his inspection turned up nothing unusual.

  “There’s gotta be something here,” he grumbled, moving slowly around the massive trunk. “Can’t be a coincidence that I got deposited in front of the biggest freaking tree ever. Maybe there’s a secret pass phrase or something, or…oh, wait, that’s probably it.”

  As he rounded the tree, Jeff noticed an arched hollow that was hidden from his original position. The opening stretched several feet overhead and was wide enough for him to lie down in. He brushed off his hands, grumbling about the time wasted searching for some secret passage and why the elf dropped him off on the wrong side of the tree in the first place, before taking a deep breath and stepping into the dark entrance to the tree.

  Inside the entrance, Jeff w
as not terribly surprised to find himself within an open space that resembled, rather expectedly, the interior of a hollow tree. What was surprising is that the interior was lit, albeit dimly, by a glowing sort of fungus that clung to the wood. The center of the space was a wide hole, and a quick glance showed Jeff that stairs spiraled down within it. Resting next to the stairs, leaning against the wall, was a staff made of some dark, heavy wood that Jeff wasted no time in grabbing.

  His descent down the stairs was uneventful; the steps wound down in a spiral that took Jeff a full minute to complete before opening up into a small room. The walls and ceiling seemed to be mostly roots of the mighty tree above, interspersed with dirt and glowing fungi that provided barely enough light for him to see. The room was probably no more than 10 feet on each side, with a low ceiling that made Jeff want to duck, even though he had plenty of space. A single, arched passage led from the room into the darkness.

  “Good thing I’m not claustrophobic,” he grumbled as he nervously stepped into the dark passage, gripping his staff tightly. The passage was sloped gently down and seemed to wind about randomly, curving to the left and right in no apparent pattern. The walls and floor gradually shifted from roots and soil to worked stone, with flat, polished stones that seemed black in the dull, green light of the fungus. As the soil disappeared, however, the fungus became scarce, as well; fortunately, weakly glowing orange runes were carved into the floor, providing just enough light for Jeff to navigate.

  Jeff lost track of time in the passage, but he guessed he had walked for about 20 minutes before he noticed the light in the passage was steadily becoming brighter. The runes gave the same wan, fitful illumination, but he could make out a steady, orange glow coming from ahead. His ears started to pick up a strange noise from ahead, as well: a faint sound that, honestly, reminded Jeff of breaking glass. After listening to the sound for a minute, Jeff’s mind formed an image of someone methodically smashing the individual panes in some elaborate stained-glass window with a tiny hammer. He shook off the mental image and crept forward cautiously.

  A few minutes more, and the passage opened into a room that was large and brightly lit in a harsh, orange radiance. The ceiling vanished overhead, beyond the range of the light, and the walls were the same smooth, polished stone that reflected the steady, auburn glow that pervaded the room. The breaking glass sound was much louder here, filling the air and echoing off the walls in an almost deafening racket.

  A tall, slim obelisk made of what looked to be rainbow-hued quartz loomed directly before Jeff, standing a few feet taller than his head but only a foot or so wide at the base, tapering to a pyramidal point at the top. Beyond that, the floor ended abruptly in what looked to be a sheer drop. Jeff walked cautiously forward to where the floor ended abruptly and peered down to see the source of the light filling the room.

  “Wow,” he breathed as he stared at the river of brilliantly glowing lava that flowed smoothly past, perhaps 20 feet below. The top of the flow was bright orange streaked with duller red and matte black spots where the surface was cooling. Jeff realized that this was the source of the tinkling sound filling the room: as the lava cooled, it hardened, but the continual flow and heat crushed and consumed those brief spots of solidity with a sound like glass shattering. Despite being 20 feet below him, the lava radiated such heat that Jeff could feel his skin baking and reddening just from leaning over it, and he quickly stepped back.

  Jeff continued his scan of the room, licking his suddenly dry lips and wishing he had asked for a waterskin from the old elf. The most dominating feature of the room – beyond the enormous lava flow, of course – was a huge pair of obsidian doors on the other side of the river. Their size was difficult to judge at this distance, but Jeff guessed they might be 30 feet tall and 15 feet wide, rising in a pointed arch and joined in the center with a thin, gold seam. Strange runes that Jeff couldn’t quite make out covered the doors and ran in a wide band along the stone wall bounding them. Most prominently, four enormous, metal clasps sealed the doors shut.

  In the center of the lava river, 10 feet or more from where Jeff stood, stood a circular stone pillar maybe 5 feet in diameter. Along the periphery of the room, directly above where the lava river disappeared under the walls, he spotted four narrow passageways: two on his right, two on his left.

  “Okay, so this seems pretty standard,” Jeff mused, glancing around the room. “Four locks on the big door, four passages. I’m guessing that in each passage, there’s something that undoes one of the locks. The real question is, how do I get to the passages in the first place?” He walked back to the edge of the river, judging distances. He guessed that it might be possible, with a running start, to leap to the top of the flat pillar in the middle of the river. Even if he made the jump, though, and avoided falling into the lava, what then? The pillar’s top didn’t give him enough space to run and jump to the opposite bank of the lava river, and if he somehow did make the jump, he would still be unable to get through the door. No, what he needed was some way to get from the pillar to the side passages, and he had a feeling he knew how to do it.

  Jeff turned back to the obelisk he passed when entering the room. It was the only feature on this side of the river; doubtlessly, it was the key to starting this whole puzzle. He walked around it, examining it closely. The surface was perfectly smooth and unblemished. Upon closer inspection, what looked like rainbow quartz was actually translucent crystal of some sort filled with whorls of colored light. The rainbow patterns reminded Jeff of his inner swirls of mana, although they were frozen and unmoving within the stone. Unsure of what to do, Jeff hesitantly reached out and touched the stone. Instantly, a window appeared in his vision:

  Well, that’s useful, Jeff mused, reading the notification. I won’t respawn near enemies, huh? I guess that makes spawn camping a lot harder in the game. Good: those guys are ass-hats, anyway. Might as well set my respawn here; if I die and end up back at the reflecting pool, I’d have no idea how to get back here to complete the test. Jeff mentally selected “Yes”, and the notification vanished as he felt a tiny twinge in the center of his chest.

  He jumped as a loud, rumbling sound filled the room, forcing him to cover his ears and cringe. He glanced over at the lava river and blinked in surprise. A narrow, 2-foot wide stone path had apparently risen from the lava and now connected his side of the river with the path in the center. A second, identical bridge stretched from the central space to the nearer passageway on his right, from which he could see occasional flashes of white light.

  “Well, I guess I need to go there,” he laughed quietly, stepping up to the bridge and holding his hand over it. Despite just having risen from the lava, the stone was only faintly warm, and while the heat of the river to either side of the bridge was scalding, directly above the bridge it was only uncomfortable. Jeff shrugged, assuming the effect was magical in nature, and cautiously stepped onto the bridge. While the surface was wide enough that Jeff didn’t feel that he was in danger of tumbling into the river below, hurrying across it with low Agility seemed like a recipe for a stupid first death.

  A couple minutes of careful walking and Jeff stepped off the second bridge into the first passageway, where he stopped, stunned for a moment. The passage was just wide enough that he could lay across it if he wanted and perhaps 8 feet tall and 30 feet long. The stone here was even more polished than in the main chamber, with the black stone having an almost mirror-like gloss. None of that, though, was what caused him to freeze up in astonishment.

  The floors, walls, and ceiling of the passage was littered with runes that were staggered at seemingly regular intervals. Every few seconds, each rune erupted in a cone of brilliant, white flames, bright enough that Jeff had to squint to look at them. The cones were narrow, an inch or so at the origin and no more than a foot at their widest point, but each one continued until the flames touched whichever part of the passage they faced.

  “A freaking Agility test?” Jeff groaned as he realized the natur
e of the challenge. “This is gonna suck so badly!” Puzzles like this were fairly common in these games, so Jeff wasn’t surprised to see one, but that didn’t make them any easier to navigate. Typically, there were three options for clearing such an obstacle, two of which did not appeal to Jeff at all. One method was the ability to resist or ignore fire: if you could ignore the heat of the flames through the use of magic or an inherent trait, it became a simple matter of walking down the passage and ignoring the fire. Although, Jeff thought silently, if I recall correctly, white flames are way, way hotter than regular ones; fire resistance or immunity might not even help, here.

  The second method was to use pure speed and Agility. The blasts of flame were narrow enough that it might be possible to simply run through, dodging them as they came, especially if a character was smaller than average. In several places, though, several gouts of fire seemed to cross one another, which magnified the challenge. No way to dodge that, Jeff realized. Well, I guess it’s possible, but your Agility would have to be through the roof!

  The final method was the one Jeff was hoping to employ. Generally, the fire in these types of challenges erupted in a pattern, and if one could grasp the pattern, they could move from safe space to safe space in between eruptions. It was a tedious process, and sometimes the patterns could shift suddenly, making the whole exercise far more difficult, but it was the only hope Jeff had for navigating it. Well, not really, he realized. I mean, I’m a Sorcerer: I could create a spell to shield me from the flames or to increase my speed…except that I have no idea how to create a new spell, yet! I really, really need to find a class trainer.

  Jeff allowed his gaze to lose focus, not really watching the flames but just giving his subconscious a chance to grasp the pattern. It didn’t take long for him to get a sense of it: the pattern wasn’t particularly complex and would be easy enough to follow, although he’d have to dash from safe space to safe space. The issue, he realized, was that the pattern only allowed safe passage in one direction: there was no way he could see to make it back through the passageway without getting hit by the flames. It must shift when you do whatever you’re supposed to on the other side, he decided after a moment. This, too, was a common feature in these types of puzzles. After all, challenges like this were meant to have a solution: that was part of the fun of them.