Stage 4
Month 10
It took me a few more days to gather a hundred Crimson Spheres. The moment I did, the Keeper appeared to me again. “So, you’ve got enough Crimson Spheres. If you really do want to go on, offer them to the fountain in the center of town. That will transform the Gate of Rebirth to the Gate of Resolve. From there, you’ll either reach the top or die. You won’t be able to use the Gate of Rebirth until you get killed and have to start over. Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He vanished again, as unceremoniously as before. So that’s how it was, huh. Guess that explained why it was called the Gate of Resolve. Without any further ado, I went to the fountain. A voice spoke from within. “Do you reject Rebirth, and choose Resolve?”
Obvious prompt was obvious. “Yes,” I replied, and immediately a hundred Crimson Spheres dislodged themselves from my inventory, pouring into the fountain. As the last one disappeared beneath the water, the entire fountain flashed bright red, and when I could look again, it now appeared to flow with blood instead of water. The cherubic carvings in the center were now of vicious, devilish imps, and the inscription now read, “WOE TO YE WHO FALTERS IN THE QUEST FOR RETURN.”
It wasn’t actually necessary for me to hold my physical breath as I jumped in, but I did anyway. In seconds, my VR vision went black again, but this time no golden text appeared. I simply appeared in the next world, Area 2 of the Underworld. Specifically, I was in the middle of a barren, lifeless plain where nothing grew and I suspected nothing ever would. The sky above was a sinister red, and like in Respec Town, neither sun nor moon nor stars hung in the sky, though somehow it was still twilight. In the distance was a shining royal city, but the light with which it shone was far from welcoming.
The area before may have had a larger than usual town, but it was barely the size of a province. As I bought up the area map and zoomed out to world map, it seemed as though this place was more like the size of a kingdom. With nothing else for it, I started across the plain toward the city. I ran into a few monsters on the way, but I was able to mostly conserve my Power. It would have been better, I thought as the gates of the royal city came into view, if I had waited until after one final rest at Redemption to use the Gate of Resolve.
It seemed like there was something missing as I approached the entry. I had just gone inside when it hit me—no guards at the gate. No NPC peacekeeping soldiers inside, either. Sudden fear gripped me, and I quickly double checked my area map. No, the city wasn’t a PvP capable zone. But the apparent lawlessness of the place wasn’t a good sign. There were probably monsters roaming the streets. It might even be possible to be attacked by monsters while at rest—a guaranteed hopeless situation.
However, there were at least as many lodging houses in this city as the last. I managed to find one quickly without being attacked. This time I had to pay 5 Crimson Spheres for the room, which I had just enough of. Fortunately, to protect against the possibility of being attacked during rest, I had just enough Power left for a Haven spell. I’d finished this session much earlier than I usually logged off of Masters of the Multiverse. In fact, a full eight-hour rest would only last until Hour 23 tonight, so if I stayed up late I could possibly have a second session. But as I tried, it was quickly apparent that it wouldn’t be easy. I’d never let myself stay dead in the Game before, so it had never really hit me just how little there was to do outside it. Sure I always took breaks to eat, sleep, and exercise, and I’d spent lots of time outside the game in the Learning Center. Really I still went quite often even though it was no longer mandatory for me. But other than that, I practically lived in the Game. Sure, there were entertainments—movies and tv and suchlike, and my collection of non-VR video games, but none of that could compare to Masters of the Multiverse. Although, the collection held quite a few games that I’d never even played, and I didn’t need to be in the Game to practice my penmanship and calligraphy, even though I’d canceled my weekly lessons because I’d no longer be able to pay the Instructor, not having access to Veralix’s bank account. Things like ink, paper, and brushes and the like were simply provided to anyone who wanted them.
When the eight hours were up, I logged back in. At first, I only intended to explore the city, but long before I’d gone as far as the nearest gate, I was attacked, confirming that monster encounters were a thing here. The attacker was a small, devilish looking imp, slightly smaller than “small” sized player races, and a quick Scan spell confirmed it had 100% Infernal and 100% Fire Resonance. I didn’t bother conserving my Power to defeat it, figuring I’d make this session a short one. Two Crimson Spheres appeared after it was destroyed. I held out my palm toward them, and they sped to it and added to my balance as though magnetically attracted. I kept exploring the city in this fashion, fighting off occasional imps, at one point using a small chunk of my Power to overcome a group of three of them at once, gradually circumnavigating the city until I noticed that I wasn’t encountering hostile monsters anymore.
Checking my map, I saw that I was in the due south section of the circular city. Checking my surroundings, I saw that instead of the ubiquitous seedy inns and taverns intermixed with generic buildings, there were shops of all the usual descriptions and several of the unusual ones, like class change, race change, and skill point redistribution shops, that had been present in Respec Town. Market district then, but was that really the only reason the enemy encounters had stopped?
As I kept wandering around the shops, I noticed something curious. Throughout my experience in the Underworld so far, I’d run into plenty of other players. Mostly in Respec Town and now in this city, which apparently was called Perdition City. But in Respec, everyone was too focused on their own grinds to so much as return a greeting from me, and Perdition had been no different. But by about the half-dozenth time I had passed a player that seemed to be just standing there instead of on their way to some shop, lodging, or exit of the city, I finally managed to register it as odd. I decided to try to talk to this latest one, a panther Beastkin Templar Knight. Taking a closer look, he almost looked as though he was standing guard. “Hi! Um, what are you doing?”
“Spawn camping. Can’t have monsters in the market. We’ve claimed the south sector of the city as a safe zone.”
“We? Who’s we?”
“Oh, sorry, I should have realized this is your first time in the Underworld. It’s a pretty unwelcoming place, huh?”
“You could say that,” I said, moving more to the side of the street, “very little about the Underworld has been explained to me beyond the very basics.”
“Then you want—hold on a second.” Directly in the Templar’s line of sight, another one of the imp monsters appeared. He stretched out his off-hand, and a ray of light issued from it, severely damaging the imp. He shot another ray, and it was destroyed. “You want Barkin,” he went on, now turning directly to me, “he’s the Fallen Helper on duty right now. That’s who ‘we’ is—the Fallen, those of us among the folks who don’t just create a new character or go back to Level 1, who swear to oppose the Demons. Helper is another role in the organization, like Camper.”
“Actually, I’m getting on with things all right anyway. To be honest I get the feeling that it was sort of the original intent of this place for things to be that way—players flailing around in the dark, rising above the hellish conditions to reach the top of the Underworld Tower.”
That got me a stern look from the Templar. “Maybe, but the original intent hardly matters at this point.”
“Even so, I’d still like to see how far I can get on my own. I never could stand the thought of throwing in with a Clan in the main game, and I’m not going to start now unless I don’t see a way forward without a group’s support.”
The Templar’s hand went to his weapon, and his panther face formed a snarl. Completely empty as a threat, since PvP was disabled here, but as a body language gesture the message was clear. If I wasn’t with these Fallen, I was against them—or perhaps he thought I would resort to joining the Demons. “I see. Perhaps you’d better move along.”
So, clearly I wasn’t going to have any good conversation here either. Oh well.
I kept exploring the city, but other than the shops in the south section, it was basically a labyrinth of seedy inns, generic empty run-down buildings, and the occasional thoroughfare with one or two shops on corners, their only notable feature being inflated prices compared to the south section. That is, until I tried to reach the center of the city. A gigantic fence, a hundred feet high and glowing with hellfire, separated an imposing castle from the rest of the city. The only access was a gate on the fence’s due north point, marked in the center with a large circular emblem with the number 500 glowing even more brightly on it.
So, clearly the Gate of Diligence was in that castle. This was going to be a problem. The grind was going way too slowly. But the overall area was big enough to have more towns and maybe even a dungeon or two, not counting the castle. Tomorrow, I’d start searching for ways to earn Crimson Spheres more quickly. Even once I got them though, not only was the castle probably a dungeon, it was marked as the only PvP zone in Underworld Area 2. From what I’d learned before, it wasn’t likely I’d run into any Demon players before the challenge at the Gate of Victory, but I’d need to avoid getting on anyone else’s bad side, and of course, refrain from attacking anyone once I was ready without provocation.
Month 11
It quickly became apparent that there were many better grinding spots than the city that held the dungeon containing the Gate of Diligence. In particular, there was one area with strong undead enemies that dropped 5 Crimson Spheres on killing them instead of 2 or 3. I fell into a routine—going after weaker foes and trawling towns for information from the Fallen in the morning—who were much more amenable as long as I made like I was at least thinking about joining them. It wasn’t even a lie, exactly. I figured most likely there would come a point where I’d need a group’s help to reach the top, and there was no way I’d ever join the Demons.
Then in the evening, I’d head to the place with powerful undead—a large area with a graveyard motif that the Fallen called the Graveyard Zone, with an ominous crypt placed roughly in the center. I was curious as to the purpose of a dungeon in this place, but I hadn’t managed to reach the entrance so far. This was mostly because I always stayed near the fringe and blasted away the undead until my Power got dangerously low, usually taking out enough to earn between 30 and 40 Crimson Spheres. This kept my rate at over 50 a day on average, but there were expenses too—5 Spheres per rest for starters, and I was also gradually building up equipment beyond my Cloak and Staff of the Condemned, including an accessory I found available in a well hidden shop in a town near the Dead Zone: A Ring of Power Amplification, which boosted my maximum Power Points by 15%. It cost more than half of what it took to open the way to the Gate of Diligence dungeon. In the main game, something like it would cost an incredible amount of Crystals, and that’s if you found someone willing to sell it.
So, it was several weeks after I’d arrived that I finally stood before the flaming gate with 500 Crimson Spheres in hand. It seemed that missing the Assessment at the start of next year was a given now. On the bright side, my equipment slots were now vastly improved from how bare they were at the start, and I’d had an easier time killing the rest of what I needed to get this far.
This time, when I approached the gate of the castle, I wasn’t even prompted. The 500 Crimson Spheres simply materialized rapidly, one by one deducting from my balance and impacting the emblem in the center of the gate as though I was shooting it with a machine gun. The number on the gate decreased with each impact, until in about twenty seconds, it became 0.
At that moment, the hellfire glow faded, not just from the gate, but from the entire fence as far as I could see. The fence still stood, but the gate, instead of opening, crumbled in seconds as though magically rusting to pieces.
I crossed the threshold, getting a proper look at the castle for the first time. Its exterior was clearly designed for maximum intimidation. At least a dozen towers and turrets, spikes jutting out in many places visible even from this distance, so that the upper half of the castle resembled a gargantuan porcupine. Practicality certainly wasn’t a concern, but then it didn’t need to be. This being a virtual space, it was common and even expected that all but the most basic buildings were different on the inside than the out, and in most cases larger. Even NPCs, who treated the Game as though it was a physical universe and had no idea of the true nature of the human players didn’t see this as unusual, so of course I didn’t either. So elaborate exteriors were hardly uncommon, especially for castles and especially especially for aboveground dungeons like this one.
But it was quickly apparent that in this case, the dungeon didn’t start with the interior. I had barely gone in a few steps before a trio of skeletons rose from the ground, wearing metal chestplates and pauldrons and brandishing short swords, poised to attack. Almost automatically I cast the Entwine spell (a mere 1st Circle spell, only 5 Power) on the one on the left, its unprotected legs jerking uselessly in less than a second. I maneuvered that direction, taking care to stay out of range of the immobilized skeleton, until I’d worked my way around the formation and had room to back off from them. So finally, I spared half a second to take stock of the situation. The enemies’ health meters and levels were visible to me just above their heads. Oddly, these were only Level 45, when every other enemy I’d faced in the Underworld so far was Level 50. It only took two cantrips before each one crumbled in a useless pile of bones.
When I turned back to the castle though, there were now a lot more of them between me and it. Some of them were still rising from the ground. Individually, they couldn’t damage me much, even though I was a pure caster class and therefore had weaker defenses than most. This was nothing but a ploy to get me to wear myself out and use up as much Power as they could make me. Well, I’d give them a little.
I backed off a little, enough so that I’d have time to think of something else if they charged, but they seemed more interested in blocking the way forward than attacking. Then, I raised the Rod of the Condemned in my right hand, beginning to channel power—and Power—into it. Then with my left hand, I quickly made the correct hand gestures to ready an Arcane spell of the Fourth Circle. As I did so, a magic circle appeared around me.
It glowed with arcane power, its inner circumference at a point that, if I wasn’t far too busy with other things, I could barely reach it straight ahead with my fingertips. Inside, there were four instances of the magic rune denoting Arcane magic, positioned at magnetic north, south, east and west. A moment later, another circle added itself to the outside of the first one. There were considerably more runes in this one, and translated from the Arcane dialect of Runic Script, they read “Mystic power: unleash”.
These were the Third and Fourth Circles of magic in Masters of the Multiverse. Total time for me to ready them in almost any circumstance: 3.5 Standard Seconds with a margin of two hundredths of a second. Child’s play, though that was still way too long in any solo Arena in the Society. With the exception of spells with the Quick Cast property, only spells of the First and Second Circles could be cast instantaneously. For anything stronger, you had to call each Circle one by one, and the difficulty of calling them increased for every two circles, much like scribing scrolls. The best pure casters in the Society could cast a Circle Eight spell in just under 28 seconds. It took me more like 35, but I’d learned how to cast Arcane, Holy, and Cosmic spells at that level, while it was rare for anyone to achieve a sub 30 second casting time at Circle 8 to do so with even two types.*
It was time for the final step of the casting. “Gatling!” I called. Gatling is an Arcane buff spell with the very important effect of reducing the 3 second cooldown of a caster class’ Cantrip attack to nothing. It could also be customized from the Rest Menu; you could make it last longer at the cost of requiring more Power to cast, but for the most part the default value of 30 seconds was enough. In just ten of those seconds, dozens of blazing white miniature stars shot from my Rod of the Condemned and obliterated a huge number of the skeletons. For large mobs of weaker enemies, Gatling was the spell for the job. At least I thought so.
The rest scattered and I dashed forward. In another ten seconds, the castle drawbridge was in sight, and in front of it was another group of skeletons. Counting the ranks, there were exactly 100, in a platoon 10 wide and 10 deep. The front ranks held tower shields, and were Level 48 where the rest were still 45. It was pretty similar to a standard NPC troop formation in Territory battles. And if that was any indication, the rear two ranks would almost certainly be archers.
But the real problem was the skeleton standing several meters behind the platoon. He was clad in shining golden armor, and held a curved sabre in his right hand that glowed with Infernal magic energy. The high-tier equipment was bad enough, but just before I started blasting, trying to obliterate all of the shield carriers before Gatling expired, I caught a glimpse of his health meter.
He was marked as a Level 50 Elite. Now I had a fight on my hands.
Elite NPC combatants were dangerous foes to face. Unlike normal NPCs, and much unlike savage monsters, they interacted with the combat system the same way that players did—they became Zeroed Out just like we were and could use a wider range of Equip slots than normal NPCs—and they were programmed with sophisticated combat skills, so that facing them was comparable to Wild PvP. But they still had their drawbacks. For example, Elite NPCs in dungeons, like this one, were unable to egress beyond the areas they were designated to defend. If that was combined with the Boss attribute, which it only rarely was, you got an AI that could readily destroy an entire standard dungeon raid party. But even those weren’t as nasty as Master class NPCs, who could usually traverse their world of origin freely, rather than being restricted to an area or single territory. Those were only found in particularly deadly Tier restricted worlds, and the list of players who had successfully defeated one was not long.
The key to defeating an Elite NPC, in my book, was to find some way to make it an unfair fight. And right now, with an army platoon on their side, it was unfair in the Elite’s favor. Time to change that equation.
I had already taken care of all but two of the front-rank shieldbearers. Others had advanced and locked shields at the front of the formation, but theirs were smaller. A full frontal assault would be a significant undertaking against that many even with the level difference.
Good thing I wasn’t a fan of full frontal assaults.
I started readying another Fourth Circle spell, this time a Cosmic spell. At this first move, the Elite leader immediately responded. “Charge!” Almost immediately after, I called “Stardust!” I aimed the spell around the front middle of the formation, so by the time the bursts of light that began cascading down on them impacted, they mainly struck the rear ranks. It worked better than I’d intended, not only taking out at least 8 in the rear ranks, but about another dozen of the other troops.
“Advance!” called the Elite, “Surround him!”
“Not on your un-life, buddy. Fleetfoot!” Fleetfoot was a basic Circle 2 spell that increased my movement speed for two minutes for the bargain price of a mere 12 Power. It didn’t increase it by much, but skeletons, like most undead, were not speedy combatants, so it was enough. From there, it took a while to wear down the army with more cantrips, but in my third period of Fleetfoot, during which I had led the few dozen or so left on such a merry chase that I had actually gotten between them and where the Elite waited, they called “Enough!”
The remaining skeletal soldiers stood down, and the Elite turned to me. This was bad. If he was joining the fight now, the troops that remained would still be a major distraction. Suddenly though, they vanished, and etherial flame flowed from where they had been to him. Of course, I thought, that’s why they were under Level 50. It was Rule #1 of summoning allies that you couldn’t summon anything that was a higher level than yourself, and to summon something of an equal level took a ton of Power. What I’d been facing so far was summoned undead troops.
“You are a powerful intruder.” The light of undeath flashed in the Elite’s eyes as they spoke. “I am Captain Bonemaster, First and Least of the Thirteen Devils of the Underworld, and Captain of the Guard of Inferno Castle. The only key to the castle’s front gate is in my possession. So defeat me, if you can!”
* Sakiyo4444, my District Chairman, was one of them. Not that it did her any good in the match against P.P.’s team.
