Chapter 50. Clarity the Good Witch

  “Go, go!” I said.

  Janica charged through the group of children into the librarian, stunning him.

  I wanted to drop a couple Lightning Strikes on the group, but I restrained myself, giving Janica time to get aggro. I pulled out my drum and started pounding out the beat to “The Heat is On” by Glenn Frey, the theme song to Beverly Hills Cop. I needed some Eddie Murphy energy at this moment. The song demanded a saxophone, so I did my best impression with my voice. If Rowan was here, would she approve? Tempo activated, giving us a necessary haste buff.

  The children surrounded Janica and began swiping at her with little bony hands. They reached out to grab and hold her.

  Janica spun around with sword and shield, inflicting Bleed and Slow on all of the children. She tried to move away from them, but they held her. Her health started to drop.

  I casted Rejuvenate 2 on her, watching her health jump up to full.

  The stun wore off of the boss and he began singing a song.

  I recognized it, right off, as the sleep song. That was bad. If either of us dozed off, they could focus the other one down. I began to feel woozy. I started casting Lightning Strike, positioning it on the boss. I didn’t want to get his attention, but I didn’t have a choice. It took me longer than it should have, my concentration muddled by the thought of resting my eyes. Just for a moment. But electricity grew in me, energizing my brain. It released.

  Lightning fell from the sky, stunning the boss and doing twenty-six damage. His song ended abruptly, and my drowsiness dissipated.

  Two seconds later, my stun wore off. Bevan looked at me. He raised a bony finger. “You!” he growled.

  I had his attention now. I ran to the opposite side of the room as he chased after me.

  “Children, get him!” the librarian ordered.

  They turned in unison, their health bars 60% full. They released Janica and came after me.

  I began running away from them around the circle of the room.

  They followed me, closing in. But the movement reduction that Janica had applied to them gave me an advantage.

  Janica spun and spun, inflicting more bleed on the ghostly children.

  Their health dropped. 60%... 50%... 40%...

  I stopped and targeted a Lightning Strike to land just in front of me. It struck just as the children reached me, their black eyes hungry for blood. Lightning stunned the whole group and took them to 10%. I scampered away while they were stunned.

  The bleed ticked one more time and they all fell to the ground.

  The librarian yelled in a rage and I saw a new buff on his portrait.

  Enraged. Doing 80% more damage.

  Uh oh.

  Janica switched to her two-handed mace and uppercut the boss as he chased after me.

  His health dropped to 80%.

  She Uppercut him again, further reducing his armor.

  The boss turned to her. I was no longer the biggest threat. He swiped at her, taking off a massive chunk of health. She dropped from 80% to 52% in a single attack.

  “He’s enraged!” I yelled.

  Janica switched to sword and shield and flew upward into the vaulted ceiling to make space, her wings fluttering like a hummingbird.

  The boss crouched down and leapt into the air, chasing her. Large harpy wings flapped. Gusts of wind erupted from his wake.

  I casted Rejuvenate 2 on Janica. Her health rose to 70%. The healing over time effect doubled.

  The two flyers battled above me, dodging and swinging at each other in a furious and elegant fight.

  Janica was faster, her tiny wings allowing her to stack bleeds up on the boss while evading his attacks. When he connected, her health plummeted.

  I used the last of my mana to put a third stack of Rejuvenate on her. All I could do was wait for my mana to regenerate and keep Tempo active.

  The boss's health dipped steadily as Janica’s bleeds piled up. With her health still above 40%, she sliced the boss one last time, then flitted away and upward, kiting him.

  He approached her for one last desperate attack, but the bleed ticked, taking his health to zero. He fell from fifty feet up, a spinning mass of feathers and blood. He crashed down into the center of the room.

  Janica descended slowly, smiling at me. “Got him,” she said.

  Congratulations, you defeated Bevan the Librarian

  You gained 342 Experience Points.

  You earned 110 Job Points as a Restorative Mystic.

  You earned 432 Reputation with Edreru University.

  I had enough JP to purchase Rejuvenate 2, so I did so. I looted the boss.

  You received 150 silver.

  You received 1 Shard of Edreru.

  You received 8 pieces of Ghost Cloth.

  You received Letter Opener.

  You received The Tale of Clarity and the Candy Thief.

  You received Mana Potion.

  Letter Opener

  Item Class: Dagger

  Item Quality: Rare

  Damage 52-58

  +10 Perception

  +10 Dexterity

  Requirements: 50 Dexterity or Perception

  The Tale of Clarity and the Candy Thief

  An Edreru Histories Original

  Mana Potion

  Item Class: Consumable

  Restores 35 mana instantly

  “Boo!” I said. “Just a dagger and that obnoxious book he was reading the kids.”

  “Hmm,” Janica said. “I kinda wanted to know how it would turn out.”

  “Oh I can tell you that,” I said. “The all-knowing, all-wise Clarity tricks Warren and makes him look like a fool.”

  “So just like in real life then?” she said, not really a question.

  A door had opened up on the opposite end of the room, leading down to the safe level. But I needed to search for hidden things. I walked the perimeter of the room, running my fingers along the books. Nothing. I stepped onto the rolling ladder and looked up. I sighed, and began climbing.

  “Hold on,” Janica said. “I’ll push you. So we can check all around the room as we go.”

  As I climbed, Janica pushed me around the circle. I rose in a spiral around the room. Up and up and up. I tried not to look down. My passive triggered at the top of the room, six levels above the ground.

  Your Perceptive attribute triggered.

  A thin little book sparkled in the middle of a shelf. I reached over and grabbed it. Tunnels in the Tower. I wanted to heroically slide down the ladder, but the thought of falling to my death stopped me. I climbed down, one step at a time.

  “Janica, check this out.” I sat down in Bevan’s chair and opened the book. “I think it’s a list of shortcuts in the dungeon. There’s a portal that takes you from level two to level six. There’s another one that takes you from level twenty-six to level twenty-eight. Holy hell there are more than twenty-eight levels to this place?” I looked up at her. “We have a long way to go.”

  “What’s the catch?” she asked. “There’s always a catch.”

  I shrugged. “Why didn’t my passive trigger on level two? We could have skipped all the way to six.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “We probably would have been ported into the middle of two groups of Mad Scientists and died,” she said.

  I flipped back to the first page. “There’s an incantation,” I said.

  “A witch’s ritual,” Janica said. “Look. See the picture. You have to draw that. And look at the cost.”

  “Oh dang,” I said. “One Shard of Edreru per ritual.” Our plan had been to use the shards to craft a legendary weapon with the quest item I had in my inventory. That was the smart play. Grow powerful. Take our time. Conquer every level.

  “And?” she pressed. “Read the rest.”

  “And you have to draw the pattern in blood,” I said, shivering.

  “I don’t like it,” Janica said.

  I flipped through the pages and stopped. “Janica, look at this,” I said. “There’s a portal that takes two shards. It goes from floor nine to floor twenty-nine. We’re on floor nine.”

  “Warren, that could very well be the final floor,” Janica said. “We’d be walking into something we’re not ready for. You don’t even have the Elementalist Job or a full set of gear. And we’re gaining levels so fast.”

  “We have thirty hours left,” I said. “This might be the only way to get there in time. Twenty floors is a lot to get through in thirty hours. And we’re going to need to rest.”

  “I don’t like it,” she said.

  “These floors are getting more and more dangerous,” I said. “There could be traps. We could get stuck. We could die.”

  “I see your point, but why not level up for a while, then come back and take the portal? Then we could gather Rowan and Cassandra and maybe a fifth party member and bring them with us through the portal.”

  Her plan was sound. And much safer. But for every level I got, the mobs would gain a level as well. So wasn’t getting more powerful just a wash? More importantly, how was I supposed to trust anyone with this information? Rowan and Cassandra had Shards of Edreru of their own. They could take the information to Arthur and their new guild, find the book, and make their own portal. Besides, I had left them. Why would they abandon a successful run with a powerful group to take a chance on me? I wouldn't if I were them. They were in this to save Henry. Would partying with me be their best chance? Their five person group was probably further than me. They could easily be in on floor fifteen already. And as much as I didn’t want to admit it to myself, there was another reason. The fifty-thousand dollar reward. To gamers that could afford pods, that much money was nothing. To Sofia and I, it was everything. I didn’t want to split the reward five ways.

  I looked at Janica, a determination rising in me. I didn’t have a choice. I had to do this.

  “Don’t the mobs level up when we level up?” I asked. “So isn’t it a wash? Every time I gain a level, Clarity gains a level.”

  “Why are you so set on this?” Janica asked. “It’s not like you to take big risks.”

  She was right about that. Was I acting with desperation? I didn’t feel like I had a choice. Rowan wouldn’t join us. And there was so much that could go wrong if we waited.

  I pulled out the Letter Opener and sliced across my palm. Blood poured out.

  “Warren, don’t do this,” she said.

  “What happens if I die first?” I asked. “Will you die also?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Then it’s settled,” I said. “If we’re going to wipe, get to a safe place and let me die.”

  I closed my fist, letting it drip in a steady line as I copied the ritual. A spiral, starting at the center and moving outward in three rings. Then a slash across the middle. I stopped and put a Rejuvenate 2 on myself, healing myself back to full. I pulled both Shards of Edreru from my inventory, placing them in the center of the symbol.

  “Are you ready?” I asked.

  Janica was a warrior. A champion. A hero. She nodded.

  I put my hand on the book and activated the ritual. The ground shuddered. The Shards of Edreru flashed a brilliant blue. Blood moved along the lines I had drawn, a dozen tiny streams moving around the pattern like traffic from an aerial camera. The blue light from the shards infected the blood, starting from the stream that exited the center of the ritual. It flowed through the pattern. When it had completed its circuit, the sapphire color re-entered the center Shards. A portal winked into existence above the bloody pattern, a flat oval shape larger than me. In the spiral, my own face stared back at me.

  I looked at Janica, whose face was stern. Distant.

  I stepped through.

  “Welcome Warren,” I heard a voice across the room that sounded familiar in an odd way. “I’m over here. Just let me finish this stack and I’ll give you a proper welcome.”

  Janica appeared next to me, sword and shield already drawn.

  I stood in a dome large enough for a full size basketball court. Dead in the center, a glass tube went from floor to ceiling. Inside, suspended in blue, bubbling liquid, two glowing orbs spun around each other. One blue. One purple. I recognized them as the Elemental and Enigmatic power cores. Thick cords ran from the glass tube in every direction, like spokes in a wheel, exiting the room through circular holes in the dome.

  I walked around the center with caution. Opposite the central apparatus, a man sat on a throne. Reading a book. Was he reading? He threw the book on his lap through a portal. He reached for another from a crate and opened the front cover. The pages flipped so fast that they were a blur. He tossed the tome through the portal and picked up another. A line of crates sat next to him, hundreds of books in each one. Several tanks of different colored liquids sat behind him, effervescing.

  Clarity, The Good Witch Level ?? Boss

  Level: Unknown

  HP: Unknown

  Stamina: Unknown

  Mana: Unknown

  The man had long sandy hair and just about the sweetest denim vest that I had ever seen. Was that a Rush patch on his breast pocket? He looked up at me with blue eyes.

  I stared at somebody who looked exactly like me. Except with glasses.

  “Warren!” Janica said, exasperated. “You’re the boss of the dungeon? It was you the whole time?”

  I looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “Seriously?” I asked.

  She eyed me funny. “You always seemed a little off to me. With the drumming and all.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “If anybody is a little off…”

  “Did you two come down here to fight or joke around?” Clarity asked.

  We stopped our little debate and focused on the boss.

  I noticed two buffs on Clarity. The first had an icon that looked like a green mask with red eyes on a black background. It had a one-word description.

  Disguised.

  The second buff had a green plus sign with gold trim around it.

  Witch Hazel Healer. Regenerating 2% of maximum health every second.

  Clarity looked up at us with curiosity, then grabbed another book and sped through it.

  “Do you work for Botcorp?” I asked. The question had weighed on me since I had figured out the connection days ago. I still didn’t know how Botcorp was involved, whether it was Clarity or some other part of the dungeon.

  “What a curious question,” Clarity said. “Of all the things that you could ask me… like where your friend Henry might be… or how I tricked you into coming straight to me.”

  “You didn’t answer the question,” I said.

  Clarity shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

  “The children’s story,” Janica said. “We’re such idiots. Clarity told us he was going to trick you in the story, and then we let it happen.”

  Clarity cackled softly, breaking character. I definitely didn’t laugh like that. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “You’re not even the first ones to fall into a trap. Your buddies made it down here hours ago.”

  “Rowan?” I asked. How did he know we were buddies?

  “And Cassandra, Arthur, the other two,” Clarity said. “They all came down here thinking they could destroy me and save their friend. They failed, of course, but I did help them reunite with Henry.”

  “All these books,” I interrupted. “They’re what you’re really after, right? You’re stealing data from the game.”

  “That’s an interesting theory,” Clarity said. “Maybe I just like to read?”

  “It won’t matter,” I said. “I’m sure you saw the system alerts. The game developers are shutting down the whole dungeon.”

  “Oh,” Clarity said. “Yes that. Of course. The game developers know exactly what they’re doing. I’m sure they’ll succeed.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. Which did not encourage me. In fact, it scared me. Clarity knew more than them and was mocking the developers for thinking that they could stop him in time. The reading, the books. Clarity was not only absorbing data at a tremendous rate, but he would also be gaining levels in reading skill, making his rate faster and faster. Maybe the developers hadn’t accounted for accelerating download speeds.

  “Where are Rowan and Cassandra?” Janica said.

  “Would you like to see them?” Clarity stood up. “Good. You’re interrupting my work.”

  Clarity raised his head and screeched.

  I covered my ears.

  A debuff appeared.

  You were Silenced for 8 seconds.

  Clarity moved quickly. First he threw a white potion at us. It landed at our feet, locking us both in place with ice.

  You were Immobilized for 8 seconds.

  Then calmly he walked over and drew a circle around us.

  I watched as the two debuffs ticked down. I activated Tempo, the only thing I could do while Silenced.

  Clarity placed something on the edge of the circle, then raised his arms in a dramatic gesture like he was lifting something heavy.

  The circle grew into a cylinder, surrounding us.

  You were afflicted by Death Hex. 300 shadow damage applied over 8 seconds.

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t cast. I watched as my health bar ticked down. 65%... 30%... I looked at Janica, feeling panic.

  Janica stared back at me, helpless.

  I looked at Clarity. He looked at me, hands in the pockets of his denim vest. Bored, almost.

  You died.

  All existing Job levels reset to 1.

  The world went completely black.