45 – Special quest line

Julian read through the message from the system and sighed, exhaling until his body was like a deflated balloon. “What now…” he mumbled, “dammit, I hate this.”

The status window was different than a usual system window, different both from his System and of Cal’s System, when he got to see it. It was much more similar to something he would design, making him think about the code from his AI that he found inside the System. A suspicion appeared in his mind at that moment: maybe this is my AI, now that I’ve activated it. It’s trying to give me power by giving me quests like what the System would do, to trick it.

“Say, Cal, don’t you think--” then he instinctively looked to his left and where he expected to see Cal, he saw nobody. A series of flashes, memories, passed through his mind before he could turn his attention away from them.

“Fuck!” he yelled, grasping his temples, then he snapped. “Yes, do it, what the fuck.”

>>Atmos Arcadia Tower Complex – FLOOR 4 – Warring Kingdoms (F+)<<

After he pressed yes, he was instantly thrown out of the Oasis and exposed to the frigid winds of the fourth floor, close to the marshes where he had been rescued by Methias on his first run of the level. He took in the sights for a moment, trying to orient himself, until the chill bite of the wind began to make itself known. Julian was pretty much the same level he was the last time he was here, if he remembered correctly, although he couldn’t quite recall if he had stopped to level up in the crystal caves of floor five or not.

This meant that he was no more equipped to resist the cold than he was the last time, and indeed a Frostbite meter had appeared in his status and was slowly filling up, all the while his Stamina and Health were being sapped at a slow but steady pace by the incessant wind. This time, however, there was no rush to his actions. All he needed to do was get away from the wind, everything else was not on a timer. Acting rashly had backfired on him one too many times, and Julian was sick of all his plans going up in smoke because of reckless behavior or because he was in a hurry and couldn’t afford to do stuff at his own pace. In a way, now that Cal was gone, he felt freer to do things his own way, without the need to explain his actions or unforeseen dangers threatening something he loved. He was alone and in charge of himself, and even if he died, the worst thing that could happen was that he would waste some time and maybe lose some of his equipment. Nothing to sweat over for.

I’m basically back to just a simple System adventure. Like good ol’ times.

He immediately regretted thinking that. He felt guilty, so guilty for reducing the memory of Cal to just an annoyance, an added weight. It wasn’t true, he knew, and he had no idea why he was even thinking such things. Did it make him feel better?

Deciding not to dwell on it for fear of breaking down in an uncontrolled sob, like it had happened too many times already last year, Julian gulped down on two potions and opened the portal to the Oasis again, seeking refuge from the cold inside the warm space of the Oasis. As soon as he was through, feeling the comfortable desert air, he allowed his tense muscles to relax and enjoyed the tingling sensation of heat. He didn’t immediately begin doing stuff, instead he waited a moment, feeling something build up inside him that he didn’t know if it was a panic attack or a nervous breakdown, and let the moment pass. Mostly it was because he knew very well what he was going to find downstairs. And he didn’t want to deal with it.

It’s alright, Julian. It’s all… right. You gotta do the bad stuff so that you can enjoy the good stuff.

The moment passed, and what was left was a sensation of emptiness and anger. He didn’t know who he was angry at, perhaps himself, for not grieving his friend, for not thinking about him, for not giving him the time he deserved… maybe. There was a grave, beneath the great tree where Julian and Cal always loved to sleep together. This was where Julian had buried him, and beside the upturned earth was the staff Cal used, and a box with his clothes and robe in it. Julian took a long look at the grave, feeling a single tear roll down his cheek, but he couldn’t bring himself to stay any longer. On one hand he felt that he was filling the void he felt in his soul with pain, and grief and anger, but he knew these weren’t healthy ways to cope. He had grieved enough, and even though it was not going to be easy, he needed to move on. It was going to be a long road, he felt. Cal was the first person he truly cared about that he had seen die after his parents had died long decades ago.

And all the pain and trauma seemed to resurface unabated.

With slow, steady steps, Julian arrived at the shore of the lake.

We have a quest to complete. come on.

He searched for the button he hid beneath the rock to call the elevator and pressed it. He waited, but nothing happened. Then it occurred to him in what state he had left the lab below, and he slapped his face. Focus, damn you! You know you have no energy either. Time to take the stairs.

The lab was a mess. Everything was broken, going from severely damaged to completely destroyed in the aftermath of Julian’s rage. This had been his first way of coping with Cal’s death, and it had been good for him, avoiding more drastic actions. He didn’t regret doing it, but it meant that now he had to work hard to repair all the damage he caused.

First order of business: the reactor.

The reactor was mostly intact. The two chromatic metal rods suspended from the ceiling were misaligned, but they were not damaged, and the containment glass was cracked but it was going to be easy to repair. What was missing were the Crystal Cores, that when inserted in-between the two rods generated power for the whole lab to function. On the side of the reactor the main power line was cut, and three thick lines of wire meshed with the telltale deep blue of ground up and repurposed former magical cores could be seen snaking inside the insulation layer.

Alright, let’s get to it. Julian thought and left the lab. Some of the stairs on the way out had accumulated a thin layer of desert sand on them during the time the hatch was open, and he made a mental note to brush it away. Outside, he made a small fire and gathered some sand, and set to work. His two levels in Precision Morphing allowed him to work with two base materials at the same time, which meant that he no longer had to separate the elements to work on them, and that he could also make more complex stuff with it. While the fire cooked the sand, he went to one corner of the Oasis, where a tarp was strung between two palm trees.

This was the Uncanny Observant corner. He had not let anyone, not him nor Cal, peer behind the tarp to see what was there. Not even as he strung it up had he looked behind it, putting the fabric on the trees while looking away from it so that the small space that it covered would always remain unobserved. This was all so that his skill, Uncanny Observant, could be used to its fullest. You see, in his many experiments during the vast amount of time he had spent building the underground complex with Cal – at the time they were clearing the tedious floodgates quest on floor three – Julian had discovered that if he used the skill on a space nobody had ever set their eyes on, he could do strange things to it. For once, he could use the skill as many times as he wanted, compared to only one time per detail – and the detail had the requirement that it needed to be something that only he had noticed about a certain place. This was because, behind the tarp, even after he used the skill, he still didn’t know the small details of the hidden place, which meant that at the next skill activations, it was as if he was discovering the place for the first time all over again. Secondly, he could make all sorts of stuff appear that would never fit in the small places of the real world where his skill normally worked.

Besides, it was overall much more convenient. Outside he was in the middle of a grassy hill swept by the wind, and there were not many places where he could make stuff appear that were handy enough. Nor were there many unobserved things he could change. A thing needed to be unknow to him and anyone around him up until the time he activated the skill, and most he could do in the plains were small rocks and blades of grass. And he would have to open the portal to go outside in the cold to do it.

He kneeled, reaching with a hand under the tarp and pulling out a small white mass. This was the additive he needed to complete the containment glass, turning the sand into proper amorphous material that could keep the harmful magical radiation inside. It would be so cool if I could use the skill to make Crystal Cores appear. He thought idly but so far, he never succeeded in doing so. Maybe one day, with a high enough level in the skill, but he didn’t know for sure. At the current level of just one, only small, simple items could be made with it, and he mostly used it to stockpile on exotic materials to use to make his tech.

Fixing the energy conduit took less than half an hour, mostly spent salvaging whatever he could from the other broken sections of the lab. While he was at it, he decided to delay his crystal hunting and tidy the place up. It was cathartic, to finally clean up the mess, although Julian was a deeply saddened that he had to cut off and seal many sections of his lab due to the extensive damage they sustained. In more than a few places, rogue magic missiles and magical bullets had severed the power lines, and Julian had to isolate those sections and cut them off from the main line before he could turn on the power, to avoid the risk of a fire. Fire, in an enclosed space underground? No thank you. Which reminds me, I need to set up a proper ventilation system.

Julian whistled. “Would you look at that?”

He tried to forward the quest to Cal, but there was nobody to forward it to.

***

After spending many hours tidying up the lab, sealing sections to be repaired at a later date, and sorting through the debris of the many machines that had been broken to see which ones could be saved and which ones had to be recycled as scrap metal, he finally went back towards the service stairs that led to the surface. Downstairs, next to the loot room at the end of one of the farthest reaches of the lab, another room had been made where all the scrap metal was now stored. The room lacked proper walls and a floor but it would do for now. Opposite that room was another room: this one was much tidier, and it even had electric lights, even though they did not work. In this much larger room where all the machines that probably still worked but needed to be tested, stored neatly to be tested at a later date.

The only room that Julian did not have the courage to work on was the main room. This was the room with the hulking machine that he had built to try and save Cal. Beside it, extending all the way towards the far wall, smashed consoles and primitive computers made from a strange blend of vacuum valves and magic crystals, lay useless and broken. This room was going to take the longest to fix, and it was also going to take a toll on Julian’s mind that he was not yet ready to bear. Brushing away the few grains of sand that remained on the last few steps of the metal staircase, Julian finally emerged back into the Oasis to look at the sun.

He squinted, making his eyes adjust to the sudden bright light, and blinked away the tears. He could have changed the time of this place to nighttime, but he didn’t.

***

When the Oasis portal finally opened to the freezing outside, Julian was no more prepared for the cold than he was when he entered the oasis. At least, not technologically, which was the way he had hoped to go. However just before leaving the lab determined to weather the cold, an idea came to his mind, and he had rushed back inside and to the loot room.

Staring at the cold nothing, the horizon hidden by the hail and the haze, Julian drank the liquid inside the ornate bottle he took from the loot room. It warmed him up from the inside, and the Frostbite bar froze, no longer ticking up, and all sensations of pain and discomfort due to the cold disappeared. Finally, he was ready to hunt for some crystals, and restore his lab to operational. The quest that asked him to go to the White City was going to wait until after that, until after he had a good stockpile of fundamentals.

From now on, I’ll do things my way. At my pace. Fuck everything and everyone else.