The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes

Cael rose slowly to his feet on the grey stone pavement of Sanra, feeling slightly tired in the dark. He noticed the slightly sluggish, less immediate movement resulting from his low Agility, as opposed to the highly responsive Assassin character whose movement felt more natural. After taking a minute to adapt, he looked towards the Eastern entrance, where he saw a group of 35 players gathered on the path towards Kruxol. Walking up to them, he asked if they were the group scheduled to leave for Kruxol at 6am. A large Knight, clad in thick armour, nodded and said, "Our Guild, [The Fountain], have teamed up with a few other strong players, after communication from the game's developers. We are taking players over to Kruxol. Most people are sleeping, and tired after the bad news, so we have space."

Cael thanked him quietly, and stood among the gathering of players. Most of the players seemed to be half-asleep, and there wasn't much conversation, except for a few people worrying about how long they would be trapped in here. In a few minutes, the large gathering set off for Kruxol, walking down the path past the farms and towards Kruxol's Western entrance. Cael noticed a few fast, shadowy movements in the farm buildings, and guessed that there was a Guild of Assassins using the farm as a base. However, nobody seemed to attack this large train of players.

As Cael prepared to enter Kruxol, he noticed a couple of corpses lying beside the road just outside. He saw that a few strong players from the group had also stopped, and were staring at the corpses. Most of the group was still just walking, zombie-like, into the town and did not notice that anything was amiss.

Cael overheard a couple of players talking.

"Kate and Dillon were really powerful, how could some gankers kill both of them?" asked one player, who Cael could tell was a Mage.

The Knight who had welcomed Cael replied, "I don't know, man. They said they would wait for us, and clear out the place to make things safe. There were rumours going around that some Hashin or DeathGang gankers were hovering around near the town, around the shed with the undead dog. They preyed on some small players, who sounded the alarm. Kate and Dillon wanted to help clear them out, so that this entrance would be safe and we could comfortably escort players through here, but it looks like the gankers did turn up. It's weird, I looked around here earlier, and didn't find any sign of them -"

"They're tricky, aren't they? Anyway, we will have to ask Kate about what happened once she revives."

"Definitely. But I'm not sure that we should have let them risk snooping around here by themselves, especially when the players complaining were from an allied Guild rather than our own. Especially with the rumours about some people who die not reviving -"

"No, that's just rumours. The developers confirmed that it was just misinformation. They will be fine. Besides, the gankers did show up, so I guess that it wasn't a false alarm. We should go into the town now, the gankers might still be around here, watching us, and there's no telling what they might do."

"I'm just saying, a few people have reported falling out of touch with their loved ones. I doubt they'd just joke about that -"

"It'll be fine."

"Alright. Anyway, let's head into Kruxol."

Cael was slightly amused by the further damage his hijinks had caused. However, he kept a poker face and turned to walk towards the South-East outskirts of Kruxol.

Once he arrived there, he looked around for the 'Storage Containers for Sale' sign, and entered the building with the sign. He was handed a small, white envelope containing a key to container C5.

Walking up to the container, he opened it and saw the dejected warrior, named ykpaiha, lying still in ropes. The warrior seemed to have a few marks of strain from his attempts to writhe out of the ropes encircling him, but he had seemingly recovered HP through natural regeneration after Crucis had left. The warrior now had 57% HP, but seemed injured and incapable of shaking the ropes loose.

"Hello," said Cael, "you have some nice gear, did you spend a lot for it?"

The warrior tried to yell something in response, but his muzzle reduced it to a muffled groan. The warrior's throat seemed to still be injured, giving his voice a hoarse, pained quality and making it difficult for him to try and speak past the muzzle.

"By the way, have you heard rumours about players dying for real when they die here? It's not every player, but there do seem to be a few people whose loved ones haven't respawned. At least if you die forever, you will die dressed in some fancy bling," mused Cael. "So I think that should be enough to keep you happy."

Seeing that ykpaiha was trying to groan out another statement, Cael extended his hand and used [Spark]. It only removed 7% of ykpaiha's HP, since even now this early spell was becoming outmoded slightly in combat. However, due to the pain reduction being absent for this move, Cael saw ykpaiha's body suddenly writhing and flopping like a caught fish. In a couple of seconds, this flopping came to a halt as suddenly as it began, with the waves of mana overwhelming ykpaiha and pacifying him back into stillness. The warrior began to make a deep, guttural noise from the back of his throat, as if he was being choked. He lay motionless and drained, like his life-force had been turned off.

In this state, ykpaiha felt a pain like trying to move a broken leg. Cael could see that ykpaiha was still trying to scream, and had begun crying heavily. From Cael's observations, he could see that ykpaiha was feeling a throbbing, intense pain across the body, as if the warrior was trying to live in a body that no longer functioned or had life-force. Apart from the occasional twitch, ykpaiha was hardly moving.

Cael drew out a piece of paper to take some notes, recording the effect of [Spark] on this player. He knew that its effect on opponents was important now that pain reduction was broken, and so with this test subject he could figure out how to use it and his other skills more effectively in this climate.

After half a minute, ykpaiha managed to lift his arm slightly, but then lost control of his body again and couldn't use the arm to support himself. His body keeled over and fell heavily backwards into the right corner of the storage container. Cael waited for the warrior to start sitting up again as ykpaiha slowly tried to recover from the Spark's pacifying effect. As the warrior cautiously raised himself out of the corner with his arms and shoulders, Cael used [Mana Push] to lightly shove the warrior back into the corner. There was a soft thud as the warrior hit the corner, but he was still trying to resist.

Cael used [Spark] again, and this time the warrior slid down into the corner, and seemed to give up on responding. As ykpaiha's body fell, still but convulsed in a pain that soaked his entire body, Cael attacked with a [Mana Beam] that struck the warrior's chest as ykpaiha tried to heave out a scream. This reduced the warrior to 9% HP from 30%. Cael saw that the warrior had barely noticed the attack, seemingly overwhelmed by the previous Spark, and sighed quietly to himself. He tried to think of a way to get the suffering warrior's attention.

"Well, в страдания [v strradan(y)eeya], yet you will заткнуться [zatknoot(y)sya)? Очень смелый, йклаиха, [ochen(ye) smell-yy, ykpaiha], yet in these trying times even the brave must fall like leaves in осень [ossen(ye)], an ocean of autumn leaves," said Cael, using a Russian language that he was familiar with due to his Eastern European origins.

Cael noticed ykpaiha suddenly flinch as a box appeared in front of the warrior and displayed translations of the terms in English. Cael knew that the game's translation feature gave players a box translating sentences into their favoured language, and this would appear right in front of ykpaiha. The warrior was suddenly in agony, since his attention had been snapped away from pain and this meant that he felt its omnipresent sensation pulling his attention forcefully back to it. Cael could tell that the warrior didn't understand what he had said.

Using [Spark] again, Cael watched curiously to see what would happen to the warrior. He saw that ykpaiha's bones started to contort into a shape that no longer matched his skin, and seemed to jut out at odd angles. He was, as the saying goes, crawling in his skin. Cael noticed a loud gurgling sound, and swiftly drew the muzzle down, letting ykpaiha eject a stream of blood from his mouth. The warrior then tried to speak, but only vomited more blood. The pain had gradually overcome his body completely.

Using [Minor Illusion], Cael summoned a coin in ykpaiha's palm.

"Suppose that you were a game. Someone tied you up, then tortured and broke you until you collapsed. You tried to obstruct him, but this obstacle was bypassed as if it wasn't there. You were helpless and bleeding, and he kept abusing you further. But if he just gave you a coin, all of that is fine, wouldn't you say?" asked Cael.

He then aimed a [Mana Beam] carefully at ykpaiha's throat from close range, causing the warrior to die and sending a fountain of blood streaming out of the corpse's mouth. The warrior's throat was mangled by the pressure.

Cael checked on the items that he had looted, expecting some powerful items based on the dead casher's big spending. Although there weren't that many looted items, implying that the dead warrior had been using Storage to protect much of his inventory, Cael was not left disappointed.

He received a pair of [Elite Enchanted Gloves] - soft, lightly-glowing black gloves that grant +300 INT and +10% spell damage - and wore these immediately. He also wore his new, dark red [Shadow Tendril Boots] which increased INT by 10% in combat and movement speed by 10% outside of combat. Checking through the rest of his loot, he found some less useful STR-boosting items and equipment, but also 100,000 gold and a few rare gems that could be used in his staff. He also noticed an item named the [Hierophant Card], with a slightly vague description:

[Converts STR-based physical movements into spells based on INT when activated, or converts 50% INT to STR when reversed and then activated.

Congratulations, ykpaiha! You were in the top 100 of our $4,000 lottery, and this is your prize. If you ever lose it or gift it, you may summon it at the nearest 'VIP Assisstant' by giving your name, and it will be returned to you.]

This was unfortunate, since it meant that ykpaiha would probably summon this item back if he revived. Cael decided that he should test the item out, but wasn't sure yet if he would get to keep it. If ykpaiha died, which Cael had instinctively guessed would happen, then Cael would get to keep it. Still, he didn't like the idea of not getting to keep a valuable item, so he decided to ignore the card for now.

As he returned towards the centre of Kruxol, Cael realised that these storage containers provided a convenient way to transfer some items between his alt and himself. If Crucis had items that would be more suitable for Cael, then he could not transfer them directly, since a player is not permitted to do this with his alt. However, if a weaker player was given the items, and then Crucis tied up that player, this means that Cael could easily kill the player and receive some of the items. Valuable items freshly acquired from a shop or another player were more likely to drop on death, for up to an hour after their acquirement, as they were still not classified as being 'bound' to a player. This would be a better way to dispose of Crucis' unnecessary INT gear and gems, rather than just selling it off.

However, it wasn't a priority for the moment, since Cael had just acquired some good gems through his latest kill.

The Reaper's scythe harvests the dead. Kill the beached whale. Kill the man already in his tomb.