Chapter 4

Desolate; Resolute

Feeling his body floating in a rhythmic swaying motion, Jay awoke in darkness, only a flickering line of light actually telling him that he was awake. His mind felt dull and muddled.

WAKE UP!!! Claudine's voice rang out loud in his head, almost hurting in its intensity.

What? He asked, confused about Claudine's frantic shout. What's wrong?

Finally awake, I see. Took you long enough. I've shouted my metaphorical lungs out for more than an hour now, Claudine said, and added as if it was only an afterthought, you've been captured, paralyzed and sedated by... something... or someone. I can't tell, unless you let me use your eyes. So quickly get a grip of yourself and look around.

Instantly he became alert, spurring his mind on to try and figure out whatever was happening. He tried opening his eyes, only to not feel anything happening. His body felt like it was floating in a cloud of fluffiness, in utter weightlessness; it was numb, only ephemerally itching and tingling all over, completely feeling like his body wasn't part of him at all. Forcing himself, he wrenched his eyes open with some effort, finally seeing that what Claudine had told him should be true.

His vision floated back and forth without him moving his eyes or head. With his feet dragging on the ground, Jay was being carried by something, slung over a shoulder... if his field of view was any indication of his surroundings. Whatever was carrying him was clad in a completely covering robe made from what could only be described as tightly woven thin branches or tree roots, as if whoever had created the garment was using thin wooden strands instead of cotton or wool thread for the cloth. The thing carrying him was also short, at most its head came up to Jay's navel if they stood side by side, but the creature was also thick, its legs being at least three times as thick as Jay's own.

Besides that, all he could see was the brown gravelly ground swimming past him, every now and then a tuft or grass or larger rock interrupting the river of dirt. He tried lifting his head, failing entirely, and gave up after a few attempts of moving both hands, feet and head. He had lost complete control over his body. He knew he should feel fear or even dread from being so helpless, but all he could feel was a tired, listless feeling that was growing deeper and emptier with every second going by. He closed his eyes. The tiredness enveloping his mind completely; he just accepted the situation and floated along.

It seemed like every time something good happened—such as finally finding a place to rest, if you thought of the most recent windfall he had encountered—something bad would follow, and sometimes only bad things happened to him. For some reason, he was feeling like everything was out of his control. Was it his fate to always encounter bad things?

Fate? Claudine asked, a notable amount of scorn clearly evident in that one word. Fate doesn't exist, only cause and effect, action and reaction. Everything follows from what has happened into what is and will be. If you don't like how things are for you, change what you do and you will get different results; then you just have to find the actions that create the greatest benefit.

As if it could be that easy? Jay thought to himself, ignoring Claudine's advice; his sparse reservoir of optimism had finally gone dry. His fragmented memories only gave him knowledge of things from a life he couldn't remember living, and his new life inside this game was doing its best to make everything as difficult as it could possibly be; it had become too much. He had lost his already undefined reason to live. Something snapped in his mind. He stopped caring. It was time to just go with the flow and see what would happen in this situation. It was obvious that it was out of his control, so he didn't even feel there was any point in trying to find out what was happening to him. It was all too much.

Time went by, a minute, an hour, he didn't know how long he dangled limply from the shoulder of whatever creature was carrying him; he didn't care either. It was somewhat relaxing—giving up. The only thing he did was passively wait for whatever would happen to happen and there was a kind of serenity in that.

Before long, he felt a dull impact on his shoulder and back. Opening his eyes, he saw that he had been tossed to the ground. He lay in between two large crudely carved wooden statues with a form that could vaguely be called human, or at least some bipedal creature. Jay couldn't be sure what they were, but there were seven of these wooden man-sized statues now that he looked around.

His body was growing less numb, and he became more aware of his surroundings. He lay atop a plain stone dais almost in the middle of a large bowl-like canyon carved out from the surrounding mountain.

Looking up and around, he saw that most of the edges of the bowl-canyon was made into neat and orderly stone terraces with about a meter's height separating each terrace; each terrace floor held a multitude of incredibly vivid looking plants in their own stone containers. There were short blue-green shrubs with enormous red-dotted white flowers, thin reedy ridged pole-like yellow plants with an umbrella of thin purple leaves spreading out at their tops, completely round large orange and pink cacti with needles long enough to pierce through the chest of a normal man, and lots of other plants. All around the canyon, in the places he looked, he saw exotic and strange plants placed and spaced out in an orderly fashion to let every single one get their share of sunlight.

But all these plants looked pale in comparison to the largest and most exquisite thing in this artificial garden. In the middle of the large bowl was a small completely spherical hill made from some black material that seemed to eat all light. From what Jay could see, the black material didn't give off any reflection and looked almost as if a an utterly black shadow was covering the hill. And in front of the hill stood two thin trees about two meter from each other. One tree had a black rough-barked trunk with small white dots; the other was its inverse, completely white with small black dots. Their trunks grew upwards in a spiraling pattern, a single trunk-thick gray-shading branch connecting the two trees to each other every twenty centimeter. These branches grew out from a bulging nodule on each trunk, making the trees form into a double helix pattern. At the trees' top were four large dark red drooping leaves, two spreading out at the top of each tree. If Jay didn't know better, because of its enormous size, he would have thought the trees were actually the first sprout from a newly rooted seed.

From every nodule bulging out on each trunk a massive amount of thin translucent thread-like branches also spread out in all directions, intertwining with each other and their surroundings almost like a spiderweb, but in all directions—a three-dimensional spiderweb. The spiderweb was trying to envelop the black spherical hill, but had only covered about a tenth of its surface closest to the tree. And in what could only be described as a random interval, a dot of light traveled through each of the thin translucent branches. It was as if the starry night sky had split into two and become a whole again within that tree. Jay couldn't help but marvel at its beauty, its uniqueness.

He lay on the ground for some time—for how long, he didn't know. He had difficult telling time, but his body was growing less numb at an increasing pace. He felt that soon he should be able to move his body again. Looking around, he tried to see if the creature that had brought him here was anywhere near. He couldn't see it, but as soon as he started looking around a loud boom sounded and the ground trembled slightly. Then the marching of feet could be heard.

A row of the short creatures came walking in a double-line toward the strange tree, lead by a single man, making up a procession of twenty one of the creatures. Observe, Jay thought, hoping for some information about what was going on.

???

Huh... as usual, he thought, not actually caring that he couldn't find out what the creatures were by using Observe on them. His newfound indifference didn't make him completely careless, but it did make him less reactive. And the indifference felt familiar, like some forgotten memory of home; it was strange. He didn't mind it at all, somehow knowing the indifference would make him less likely to be affected by whatever bad thing would happen next.

Jay closed his eyes, trying to look like he hadn't woken up yet, knowing it would be best to not rouse the creatures' interest without first having something like a plan on how to escape. He couldn't think of any though. He was lying in a place that was too obviously visible for anyone and anything that was within this large circular canyon.

A wooden staff poked Jay from his side, interrupting his musings. “Wake wake. Bad man. Go make fertilizer.”

“You want me to do what?” Jay asked before he could even consider not talking; the statement had been too strange. What was this creature talking about?

“Fertilizer,” the creature said.

Only now did Jay see that there were eight of the creatures standing before him, each of the seven others were hefting one of the wooden statues on its shoulder.

Jay could barely see inside the hood of the creature that had talked to him. It was not human, that was for sure. It wrinkly face looked a bit like some sort of rat human hybrid without any hair, except its whiskers were long and drooping down below its non-existent chin. Its long nose drooped too, almost covering the two broad teeth that was all Jay could see of its mouth. Its eyes were like small black pearls inside deeply hooded sockets. “Twitchy bad man. Go make fertilizer now,” the creature said again.

“Again... what?” Jay couldn't understand what the thing was talking about.

“Bad man. Fertilizer. No struggle,” the creature said again, now grabbing hold of Jay in its abnormally large hands.

That doesn't sound good, Jay thought, struggling to twist out of the grip of this strange creature. But it was no use, the creature held him without effort, and soon Jay stopped. Should he attack now? He didn't think he had any chance of actually battling his way away from this place, so he waited. He would strike when he wasn't held so tightly.

Jay was hefted up on the shoulder of the creature that had talked to him—Jay's legs and feet hanging down behind the creature—and the creatures lined up. Jay's carrier was second in line. Then they walked down the dais toward the black spherical hill.

As they approached the hill, 12 of the other creatures stood on either side of their path, each of them held a staff with some fluttering leafs at their tops. Every one of the twelve waved their staff over the heads of those that carried the wooden statues and Jay. They were chanting “Fertilizer. Fertilizer,” and sprinkled different colored powders on Jay and the statues as they passed by. Jay didn't know if the powders did anything, but couldn't feel any difference, so he stopped thinking about it.

When they arrived at the black hill, they lined up in a semicircle around the creature that had led the procession earlier. It stood there in a slightly different robe with green leaves interwoven into its fabric. The creature started speaking in an almost reverent voice. “Tribute ten. I go. Inform Creator. Good. Bad man. Good. Creator happy.”

As if the speech made some sense, the eight creatures answered in unison. “Become one again. Earth to earth. The honor of service.”

Then the creature with leaves in its clothes ran straight at the black hill, and just as Jay thought the creature would slam into the hill, it actually merged with it, disappearing without leaving a trace or ripple. It just disappeared as if the black surface of the hill wasn't even there. Jay almost couldn't believe what he had seen, it looked too bizarre.

Without Jay sensing them, the twelve other creatures had come behind the eight carrying statues. All was quiet, a few minutes passed by, and suddenly a loud thud sounded out behind Jay with a chorus of “Fertilizer. Fertilizer.” ringing out from the twelve creatures behind him. He couldn't figure out what this was all about, but he was still unable to do anything about whatever was going to happen, so he just looked around placidly. Then, something happened, something not unexpected. One of the creatures carrying a wooden statue went up to the borders of that black hill and tossed the wooden statue onto its surface, the statue merging into the hill as it flew through the air.

This time, only a few seconds went by before the loud thud of staves hitting the ground and the words “Fertilizer. Fertilizer.” rang out again. And then the creature carrying Jay moved up to the black hill. Jay was still held tightly. He couldn't get free, he couldn't flee, but for some strange reason he didn't feel any concern or fear, just a slight curiosity as to what was going to happen.

Flying through the air, Jay hit the black surface, and nothing happened. He hit the stony ground, landing awkwardly, his hands and knees hurting from the fall. All around him was a dome of the same light-eating black surface the hill outside had been made from. And Jay figured he was inside some sort of bubble made by the black stuff.

Inside the bubble the first thing Jay noticed was that the creature that had entered the bubble before Jay—and the wooden statue—had disappeared to somewhere. The second, and only other, noticeable thing inside the bubble was the statue of a bald old man in a dark gray robe sitting in a meditative posture, his hands loosely relaxing in his lap. The statue was the same color as the gray robe, but its exquisite details were astonishing. The wrinkles at the corner of the man's mouth and eyes and the life-like eyebrows were so astonishingly well carved that Jay thought it was only possible to see such a statue inside a game. It would be impossible to carve every single strand of hair of an eyebrow in the real world.

Walking up to the statue, Jay looked at it closer, not daring to touch it, lest something bad befall him again. But there didn't seem to be anything particular about the statue, so he quickly lost interest and walked in a circle around it, trying to find something to tell him where he was and why he was here. There didn't seem to be any danger, but neither was there anything interesting or worthwhile inside the black bubble. Jay got bored.

Sitting down, Jay got into his own meditative position in front of the statue. He had to take the time and think about how he would escape this place. The creatures hadn't followed him inside the bubble, so he figured he would be able to stay here for a while to think and prepare his escape. He felt rested now, and if this place was safe, he could finally go through his Stat Window and use his remaining Stat-points. He needed to think through his future development of his Stats, so as to not use the Stat-points frivolously, and how to use them for greatest efficiency.

Jay sat thinking and time went by. After about ten minutes he had come to the conclusion that he had to increase his Dexterity to run away, even though he didn't want to, he could only rely on quick feet to outrun those stubby-legged creatures. It was such a shame, he wanted to increase his Mana.

A light cough sounded out from somewhere. Jay looked up, but nothing stood out as different. But just as Jay was going to go back into his thinking trance, he saw the statue open its left eye. The eye was very strange and seemed to pull in Jay's attention; its iris was bisected by a line running vertically through the eye, the left side was a dark red color, the right side a dark green color. The eye looked at Jay, and it felt like he was loosing his sense of self, an incredibly confusion spread throughout Jay's mind. He just sat there, staring blankly at the statue.

“Finally,” a soothing whisper came from the statue's slightly open mouth. “Those blockheads finally sent a living being again. It's been years since the last one. I can never figure out how they are unable to differentiate between animals and plants. And I hate how they always say they can't take anyone but 'Bad man'. Well, no matter. You will have to do I guess.”

“What?” Jay asked, his confusion diminishing as he figured out the statue was actually a person, or at least a creature of some sort. “Who are you?” Vigilance flared up in Jay. The statue-man looked anything but ordinary in its extraordinary simplicity. For some reason it was giving Jay the creeps.

“You may call me Ancestor,” the man said, closing his eye again. “That Murderous Aura of yours is fairly impressive for your low Level.”

“Ancestor? Who are you? Are you man or beast? What do you want?” Jay needed to know what was happening.

“Man? No. Beast? Not really. I am a Creator of some renown. A Chosen of Mana. The 37th Sourceer,” Ancestor said. “And I want you to do some things for me.”

If the man wanted Jay to do something, then there was a way to survive this. “What do you want me to do?” Jay asked, hoping the situation that looked really bad could turn into something fortuitous.

“As you might have guessed, this place is a barrier,” Ancestor raised his hand, gesturing at the black dome. “It has sealed me in here for some time now. And I need your help to gather what I need to break the seal. Could you do that?”

Jay hadn't thought anything of the kind, but was grateful to the old man for telling him this; it gave him leverage. “What do I get out of it?”

“Your life,” Ancestor said. “If you won't serve me, I'll just kill you and feed you to my Life Tree. It might take a few hundred years before it grows strong enough to break the barrier from the outside, but I've got time to spare. Do as I ask and you will leave here alive. That's fair, right?”

For some reason, the threat to his life didn't motivate Jay at all. It was something he had gotten from his plunge into despair, a mentality he had gotten from hitting the bottom of his endurance, patience, and hope. “Not good enough. As I see it, you are stuck in here, and you need my help more than I care about living. This is my power. And from what you said, you can't get out of here, nor do you have any short-term plans on how to free yourself. So, I can't accept only getting my life out of helping you, since I figure it isn't an easy task to help you get free from here.”

The man laughed hollowly, opening his left eye again, looking at Jay with an intensity Jay could feel pressing down on him. “If you weren't a Kinestetic I would kill you for your insolence. Lucky for you, I have a soft spot in my heart for Kinestetics. So, what do you want in exchange?”

Kinestetic? What was that? “I want good equipment, gold, Spells, and anything that can increase my power. What can you give me? And what's a Kinestetic?”

Seemingly ignoring Jay's question, Ancestor said, “I have nothing of value to offer. Before I was put in here, all my things were taken from me. The few things I've accumulated from my minions outside since then has all been used as soon as I got it. There isn't much to do inside this place.”

“How about that robe?” Jay asked. “That has to be some good equipment. I can practically feel how dangerously strong you are just from you looking at me. So what you are wearing must be something great.”

Ancestor laughed again, this time with more mirth. “This robe? Sure, you can have it. Its only use is decently covering my body. Use some observational Skill and have a look for yourself if you don't believe me.”

Jay did just that and thought Observe.

Gray Robe (Full-body armor) (360g) Defense: 0 Durability: 1 / 1 A Gray Robe made from ???

“I don't want that,” Jay said. “What else can you offer?”

Ignoring Jay's question again, Ancestor rambled on. “Don't think that thing in your head will save you from dying. This barrier is a closed space, and your Medi-port will not teleport your brain from your dying body into a new one if you die in here. Isn't the offer of you keeping your life enough as payment?”

“Nah,” Jay said, flippantly. “You don't seem to understand. I recently killed a lot of people by accident, and everyone everywhere is hunting me for my bounty. I'm not certain I will survive even if you let me leave here, so I can't really care enough to be motivated by another threat to my already endangered life. And you still haven't told me why you called me a Kinestetic.”

“Fine,” Ancestor sighed, it seemed like he didn't like not being able to use threats as a motivator. “A Kinestetic is someone that has an affinity to using Force Mana. You know, moving things by pushing on them with your Mana?”

“Okay,” Jay said. This sounded like it might be important information. “You mean to say that because I can use my Mana Manipulation to move things I'm a Kinestetic and use a specific sort of Mana called Force Mana? I've never heard of there being different kinds of Mana. Are there other kinds of Mana, and if so, what are those?”

“So many questions... I won't teach you about the deeper Magics for free,” Ancestor said, a slight tugging at the corner of his lips showing Jay that Ancestor was amused. “How about this... I'll give you my most precious thing.” Ancestor started unbuttoning his robe from his neck down.

Jay felt weird because Ancestor was taking off his clothes. He blurted out, “Who'd want an old man like you?” realizing that his statement was ridiculous as he said it.

“What are you talking about?” Ancestor asked, stopping his unbuttoning, pulling on the left flap of fabric, opening up his robe to show his chest over his heart. On his withered pale gray chest, above where Ancestor's heart was, there was a black tattoo of an octagon with a circle around it and inside it. The inside of the middle of the inner circle was bisected, a black and white spiral swirling in to a point. Ancestor pushed his finger in the middle of the spiral, and a slight trickle of dark red, almost black, liquid poured out, running down Ancestor's chest. Swiping up some of the blood, Ancestor smeared it liberally in his palm, stretching it out toward Jay's head. “Here, I'll give you the most precious gift you'll ever receive. I'll make you my disciple.”

What disciple? This was not playing out as Jay had supposed. “What do I get from being you disciple?” Should he really accept this? If the old man said it was a precious gift, it should be worthwhile to become his apprentice. Maybe he could even learn some things that normal players wouldn't know. This encounter had to be special, but Jay was reluctant to accept before knowing more.

“You should be happy enough to become my disciple,” Ancestor said, slight anger tinging his voice as he continued. “Haven't you heard of the Sourceer Society? We are the greatest in all the lands, the strongest individuals in the world, rivaling even the rulers of the Underworld. How can you even think about refusing my offer?”

“Sourceer Society?” Jay asked. “I haven't heard anything about such a place, people, or whatever it is.”

“How can that be?” Ancestor asked, puzzlement clearly evident in his tone. “We are the greatest Magicians in the world; the Chosen of Mana. If we're not famous for our great deeds, our infamy should be known to all. Has the world truly changed so much in the last three centuries since I was imprisoned here? How can you not know of the Sourceers. Elder Brother Trollroll's escapades during the Maraknan uprising, him flippantly cursing all that fought in the last battle to be unable to use any Mana during the entire battle. The legendary Overseer, the 2nd Ancestor, the absolute ruler of the Monolith, cannot be ignored either. His Monolith is the world's largest, grandest and strongest city. How can you not know of these things?”

“Three centuries?” Blurting that with incredulity, Jay scratched his chin, thinking of how to answer Ancestor's question. It seemed their sense of time was very different from each other. “I don't know anything about anything you just said. Just tell me what benefits there are to becoming your disciple. And then let me decide if it's appropriate payment.” Jay was secretly growing excited. Was this some sort of hidden or unique Profession? The ruler of the greatest city in the game was a Sourceer? What kind of people, or creatures were these Sourceers? And if he could become one too, what would that mean?

“Not three whole centuries,” Ancestor said. “I've only been here for 279 years, four months and two tendays.”

“Yeah, that doesn't matter much right now,” Jay said impatiently. “Tell me what the benefits of becoming a Sourceer are. What Skills and Spells would I get from becoming one? And what kind of Profession is it?”

“Profession?” Ancestor asked. “Being a Sourceer is becoming a completely unique creature in all the lands. It is beyond a mere Profession. We are the world's greatest users of Mana. And Skills or Spells? You'll only get one Skill. All Sourceers are given this single Skill during the initiation rites, and it is the only thing a Novice Sourceer get when becoming a Sourceer.”

“Just one Skill?” Jay asked, feeling very disgruntled about the poor benefits from being a Sourceer. “That doesn't sound very good at all. From what I've gathered, all Professions give at least a few different Profession-specific Spells and Skills. Why do you only give one Skill?”

“How would you know anything about anything, youngling,” Ancestor said. “You haven't even reached Level 512 and you're complaining when you should be in awe. The 'Eye of the Magi' is among the top eight Skills ever created. And it's the only Support Skill among those, making the Skill even greater. For a Support Skill to compete against the most powerful of Attack and Defense Skills, can you even comprehend how great it is?”

A Support Skill? Jay thought to himself. Sure, it had to be great if it was as the old man said, and the Skill was among the greatest in the world, but still... a Support Skill? Jay wasn't very enthusiastic. “What does this Support Skill do?”

“I won't say,” Ancestor said. “Only by becoming a Sourceer will you know that secret. Accept the deal, or become fertilizer for my Life Tree. I spent fifteen years creating its seed, and it has been growing for close to two hundred years, but only through refining the Mana from things and creating a specialized nutrient will it actually grow with any significant speed. So, even though you're weak, you still have a few thousand Mana stored inside your body, and I can use it to bolster the growth of my Life Tree. I'm growing tired of arguing with a being that is no different from an ant to me. I'll just say this, none has ever regretted becoming part of our Sourceer Society. We are few in number, but our power is feared and revered across the world.”

This Ancestor guy really liked to boast about his affiliation. Jay had not come to a conclusion, but it seemed like he had little to no choice. “What will you teach me if I become your disciple then? Or what will you do for me?”

“Enough,” Ancestor said. “Choose, become my disciple, or become fertilizer. Your choice. I'll answer whatever questions you have if you choose the former, but if you choose the latter, my answering your questions is completely meaningless. Now choose.”

“Fine,” Jay said. “I'll become your disciple.” He didn't really have a choice. But for some reason Jay felt better from knowing that even as he had fallen to the depths of numb despair, he still found something beneficial. With a resolute heart, he accepted whatever this world had brought him this time, and he was going to use the situation for all it was worth. “But you'll have to answer all my questions then.”